AN: This occurs in the series, sometime between when Fakir fights the ghost knight (and briefly volunteers for the part in the play) and when he is reminded of his mad writing skillz.

"Hey-hey, Fakir! Wait up, wait up, wait up!"

Fakir missed only a beat before he started walking faster.

"FAKIR, HEY, I said WAIT, y'know!"

He gave no indication of having heard her, and instead quickly stepped into the library. His feet took him upstairs to a far corner in the stacks, at a pace so quick that Autor looked up with irritation when Fakir passed him, though Fakir's silence gave him nothing to actually scold about.

But he could not escape her, at least not for very long. The disadvantage of the location he'd chosen was that, while it was obscure to the common visitor of the library, there was no way to get out without ultimately coming into view of the main section downstairs. All he'd really ended up doing was stalling.

Stalling, and giving himself something to be irritated about.

He could already hear her downstairs, as she was making quite a racket-calling out his name, being loudly shushed by Autor, and knocking down what sounded like quite a few books and possibly a chair or two.

Sighing, Fakir leaned against one of the rows, dusty old books pressing into the back of his uniform jacket. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited.

What was even the point of all that? If he was going to go to the trouble of avoiding her, he needed to be better about it. He was sure he should be much better at thinking on his feet.

Granted, his behavior was ridiculous to start with.

To his credit, Fakir quite faithfully kept up the appearance of nonchalance when Ahiru finally found him. He didn't even blink at her disheveled state, even though the color brought to her cheeks by exertion did something strange to his stomach.

"There you are! Jeez, I can't believe you didn't hear me!" Ahiru had to pause and catch her breath.

Fakir took a book from the shelf across from him without paying particular attention to what it was, and examined the copyright page as if it were incredibly fascinating. He didn't need to have gone to the trouble, though, as Ahiru had already caught her breath and started to use it in a long trill of rapid words.

"-so you should definitely do it anyway, even if you say there's no point, idiot, it would be good for you!"

"I'm not doing something because you tell me to," he replied coolly, turning a page to inspect the table of contents.

"But you liked it! I could tell, and you were really good, and everyone in the drama club thought so too, and you can't just let them down!"

Catching up to the point she was making, Fakir was able to admonish her for something specific. "I don't have time to be in some stupid play."

"Well-yeah, I know. I know we have important stuff to do, but... " She faltered, and then went on in a more subdued tone. "... You've gotta do something for fun sometimes. Won't it be easier on you if you're not always up here?" She gestured to the stacks towering around them, looking at him with pleading eyes.

... And Fakir abruptly realized that he could see her eyes. He was looking at her face. He had ceased to look at the book.

How did she keep accomplishing this kind of thing, and why was he only getting worse at resisting it?

She seemed to realize that there was something significant in the fact that he was looking at her and not admonishing her at the same time, so she smiled encouragingly. "You know, you're a really good dancer! It's honestly really beautiful, whenever I get to see it..."

Fakir was completely certain he was running a fever. There was no other adequate excuse for being so light headed and dizzy and hot all of a sudden.

Maybe he was allergic to ducks.