A/N: It's fun to look around at other fics and see what people write. Sometimes people write the weirdest stuff, seriously, have you seen some of those epic crack pairings? Man. Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed this so far. I own nothing but the thoughts in my brain, as insane as that may be.

Three of a Kind - Ch. 2

"Here Itachi, have an apple."

"I don't like apples."

"Come on, just have one, they're good for you."

"I don't like apples, Kisame."

Somehow Sakura had happened upon Itachi and Kisame on her way to breakfast. Kisame had immediately insisted she join them, so once again the eating ritual went. She had now figured out that Itachi just wasn't fond of fruit, at least the sweeter kinds. He would eat the milder melon or a few blueberries, but more often than not he avoided fruit.

"Fine, eat this." Kisame shoved a pastry at his friend.

"I don't like pastries. They're too sweet."

"Well you gotta eat something! What will you eat?"

"I already ate." He gestured briefly to his empty plate.

"Yeah you ate pancakes and eggs. Why don't you at least get a vegetable, or put some fruit on your pancakes? You gotta eat better than that, man."

"They don't have any vegetables at breakfast, and I don't like sweet things on my pancakes."

It was true. He didn't even put any syrup on. Kisame sighed with exasperation. "Fine, just promise me you'll get a salad at lunch."

"The salad bar here is very good."

"I'll take that as a yes. And you better put tomatoes on it!"

"I hate tomatoes."

"Well... fine! Cucumbers!"

"Maybe."

Sakura mentally shook her head slowly. These two were hilarious, in a weird sort of way. Kisame obviously cared about the well-being of his friend but Itachi always ignored it or tried to brush it off. She would always be that person that sat in the middle of everything, watching but having no idea what to say. It was strange for a moment until Kisame jabbed the apple at her.

"Here, Sakura. Have an apple."

She took it politely. "Um... thank you." It really did look ripe and sweet, so once again she became the fruit martyr and took a few bites.

"There now, she's grateful! So what's your first class today, Sakura? I know we've got math every day but some of the classes rotate days."

"Well... I'm taking a basic cooking class, since I know after college I'm on my own and I don't know anything about cooking. I almost failed home ec in high school."

He stared at her incredulously. "Wow. But you passed, right?"

"I got a C, but only because I was good at the sewing and assembly part of the class, not the cooking. I really need to practice if I want to eat real food after college..."

Itachi spoke up softly. "I have that class as well."

She blinked with surprise at that. "You do? Why?"

He only shrugged. "I will also need to cook once college is over."

Kisame scoffed. "Hey man, I told you, I can cook you stuff once in a while, too."

Itachi stared coldly. "No. You'll just find a way to slip fruit into it."

"You like cranberries."

"Not with that much sugar in it."

"...you're impossible, Itachi-san."

Professor Pein stacked the last pile of papers on his desk, filing them away in a folder. Hopefully the lessons today will go a little easier. Yesterday after lunch had been... tiring. The tension she caused him was palpable, but she had fortunately stayed against the wall for the remaining lessons that day. He could think of other things he'd rather have her doing against the wall, and that was his current problem. It was like she was waiting to pounce. Just that burning look in her eyes was enough to make him sweat. Oh, he was going to give her extra credit, alright, why... No! Stop that! He couldn't afford to lose this really good job!

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Her voice startled him in the empty classroom, and though he made a show of putting things away, his mind roiled. Yes, she could start by getting over here by the desk so he could pin her down and... No! With a mental sigh, he resigned himself to letting her do something productive. He removed a small sheaf of papers and handed them to her. "If you like, you could try teaching this segment of the lesson today. It's not anything too difficult, just a summer refresher on polynomials."

She skimmed over the papers briefly. "Alright. I introduced myself to Mr. Katanawa, the one that's retiring. I was told that if my internship goes well, I would be taking over his position in the advanced algebra class."

"Oh, I forgot he was retiring. That sounds like a good opportunity for you. You'd have a chance to meet our students, too, and let them get used to you before taking the position." That, and she would be around more often, which meant more stress, and more opportunities to lose it, but he didn't say that...

"Right, it's much better that way." Damn it, though. He practically exuded masculine sexiness. She had no idea why she had been so quickly attracted to him, though she remembered pheromones from biology class. Was that it? No, no, he had something special, some kind of presence here. Maybe it was the fact that she could tell he was restraining himself. It didn't take long to figure it out. That was the reason she had willingly distanced herself, not wanting to interfere with his work. Yes, he was holding in his own peculiar attraction, and damn everything for being so complicated! As he ran a hand through his hair tiredly, her eyes followed. Damn that daring orange hair, always spiking up like some kind of rebel's hair.

"There's not much else to do before the class starts, unless you want to look over the papers."

She started slightly, realizing she had been staring at his eyes again. They were so commanding, hypnotic. "No, I'm sure that I'll be alright with the lesson plan. Polynomials are pretty easy. I was actually hoping to look around the campus a bit more, I didn't get a very good look the past couple days during the brief tours. Is there a decent gym facility, and a pool?"

He stifled another choke. Just the thought of her in a swimsuit... "Yes, we have both, along with an outdoor and indoor running track. The indoor one is also the main gym, so it's used for other things too." Pause. Well, this silence was... awkward.

"That's good, I'd like to check out the gym area, I'll probably be using it a lot. Would you mind showing the way?"

He didn't expect that she would be the athletic type, but now that he looked at her legs again... No! Stop looking at those! They are dangerous! "Alright. I was thinking of using it myself before class." As his back was turned, he missed the dangerous look in her eyes at the thought of what sort of muscles might lie underneath the standard white dress shirt and red tie. This was going to be a long year.

Sakura stared at her pile of chopped celery with disappointment. That didn't look minced. It looked like a mess. Next to her, Itachi already had his celery in a neat little pile, perfectly minced. So much for trying to do well on the first day. Maybe she would get better with time. Maybe. Itachi watched her struggle with the chopping and stepped over to her.

"Here, try it like this..." Without even the slightest hesitation, he grabbed her hands and repositioned them on the board, the celery straight and neat, the blade at a right angle. "Don't chop straight down with that kind of knife, do it like this." He moved the blade down, then out, slowly, guiding her to the right position. Before long, her celery looked much neater.

She blushed slightly from his lack of reserve, but he just didn't seem to care as long as the job was done right. Her blush furthered when she saw glares from other girls suddenly point in her direction. How dare she, of all people, get all the attention of the famous Uchiha? However, she had never asked for it- and in this case, didn't really want it- but was at least thankful that her errors had been corrected. "Um... thanks, Itachi."

He only moved back to his own spot. "You should pay more attention to the directions." She only muttered to herself and went back to chopping the damn celery.

Pein was certain that somewhere, up there, there was a deity having a very good laugh at his expense. He had hoped that the physical strain of weight lifting would take his mind off of her for once, but once she took off her jacket and changed into athletic clothes, he found that her toned muscles distracted him far more than any mere bench press. Little did he know, she was giving him the same kind of once-over. Most of his spare time was spent on keeping in shape, not having much to do as a single man living in an apartment. As for Konan, she took great value in keeping herself well.

Right now, though, Konan hated her life. Here was this gorgeous, well built man, his muscles flexing as he lifted those weights over and over, starting to sweat and struggle as the repetitions continued. She huffed quietly, going over to stand next to the press. "You should really have a spotter, you know."

Pein somehow had enough focus to place the bar back on the rack. "Well maybe you should take that job." She didn't say anything to that, going behind his head and held out her hands, ready to catch it if he dropped it. He wondered if she could catch it if he dropped it. However, though he tried to focus on moving the weight, he noticed that with her leaning over the bar like that, he got... a really good view. Yes, very nice...

"Hey, careful!" Her hands shot out to grab the bar as it slipped from his hands. Sure enough, she caught it and placed it on the floor. It was pretty obvious that he couldn't do much more. Hands on her hips indignantly, she walked around until she was next to him, bending far enough to nearly get in his face. "Are you nuts? You need to be paying more attention when you're doing that! What was it that was so interesting that you lost your grip? Huh?"

She looked irritated, staring down beyond those cute glasses, her thin brows pinched together so perfectly... What could he say? He liked the way she looked when she was angry. He didn't know how much longer he could stand this torture. His mouth seemed to defy his every will. "You..."

"Me? What did I do?"

Once again, his body rebelled against him, his hand gripping the back of her neck, her face just inches away. "You... you're just too damn sexy." His mind flailed uselessly in the back of his brain, his subconscious mind taking over his every action as he pulled her even closer, kissing her with complete abandon. It was completely wrong, and he knew it. She was old enough, sure, but this... no, there definitely had to be something wrong with this. Fire seemed to spread all over when he kissed her like this, the sense of complete wrongness being utterly engulfed by the raging flames.

As soon as the kiss ended, there was a long, awkward silence. She was blushing furiously, but she regained enough of her composure to retort at his comment. "Well... you're not exactly making this easier either." With that, she grabbed her bag and walked out the door. Well, he thought to himself, maybe that wasn't so bad after all.

The dean sighed, staring across at the student wearily. "Not again, Kisame..."

Kisame chuckled nervously, sitting in the chair across from the dean's desk, shrugging. "Nah, nah, it's not what it looks like. I'm not with those guys anymore, I graduated, you know? I just went to say hi for old time's sake, but hey, I never started anything."

"That may be, but your old gang is still causing a lot of problems in this town. As their former leader, I'm sure you could talk sense into them."

"I could never talk those guys into anything anymore. Once you graduate, you're out. It's only because I was in such standing with those guys that I can still influence anything at all. Before I talked with them, they were gonna do much worse, believe me."

"I don't doubt it. Is there any way, though, that you could talk to their leader, and maybe see if they can at least take their trouble somewhere less populated?"

Kisame stretched briefly. "Well, not really, I'm not so good with that diplomatic stuff. That's Itachi's game, you know. You'd be better off getting him to do it. I mean, it's his brother, after all."

"True, he is. I'm just not so sure that I can make Itachi understand the... ah... gravity of the situation."

Kisame understood what he meant. Though Itachi was a genius, he was more or less socially clueless. He wouldn't really get why it was such a problem to have the gangs running around causing trouble. After all, it didn't concern him. However, Kisame had known him a long time. "No sweat, sir, I'll have a chat with Itachi. I'm sure I can find a way to figure it out."

"Thank you, Kisame. You'd better go on to class before you're late."

Pein glanced over the half-asleep room with a frown. He was not in the mood to tolerate this. His hand slammed down on the podium, bringing the sleepers to attention. "It's not nap time yet! Now get out your books. This is college, so you'll be expected to work for your grade!"

As soon as he turned his back to write an example on the board, Sakura turned to Itachi and Kisame, whispering. "Geez, what's gotten into him?"

Itachi shrugged slightly. "Maybe he's not feeling well."

Kisame chuckled knowingly. "Nah. That guy just needs to get laid BIG TIME."

Itachi scoffed. "That's what you always say about all the crabby professors."

"That's because it's true!"

"I honestly don't understand why having intercourse would improve his mood."

Kisame hit his forehead with his palm, giving up on the subject. "Geez, whatever man, I'm not gonna explain it to you. You gotta just find things out first hand sometimes."

Pein pointed to the board imperiously, trying very hard to ignore the intense gaze from Konan. "Now, does anyone know how to solve this one?"

Sakura knew how, but she was just too lazy. To her surprise, Kisame raised his hand, grinning. "Hey, yeah, I know that one!" He rummaged for a piece of chalk at the board and began writing. Behind, Sakura leaned over towards Itachi.

"I thought he didn't like going up to the board."

"Only when he doesn't know the solution right away. He's good with this kind of problem though."

It was a pretty simple refresher, just integers and absolute values, with some practice with square roots. Nothing really exciting. "This class is so boring."

"Perhaps you should take the advanced class next time. I will have that class as well, though Kisame won't be there."

She shrugged. "Yeah, no offense, but I don't know how well he'd do. He seems to do alright in this class, though, once everything is down on paper and he has time to figure it out."

"That is the problem. The advanced class revolves a lot on presentations and making your own problems. He can't really do that as much. If the advanced class just had problems on paper, he would have no trouble keeping up."

She was a little surprised. "He's really smart, I didn't expect that, you know."

"Few people do. But then, expecting is just assuming, and that is foolish."

His insight wasn't so surprising, but she nodded, thinking it over. "I've learned not to expect anything, and just make of it whatever I can."

"Sometimes that's all we can do."