Hyuuga Hinata looked back and forth between the scrap of paper in her hand and the nameplate on the wall, as if staring at it for a little bit longer would change the fact that she had been assigned to the boy's dorms.

The energetic Rock-Lee, resident dorm assistant, assured her that it was a mistake and that he's going to take care of it right away, but for now she should settle in, lock the door, and maybe get some rest because she looked jetlagged.

It wasn't the first time someone assumed she was a boy, her name tended to be androgynous without a picture or a statement of gender, and this time it really did a number on her.

Already she was feeling queasy, her knees were shaking and a little numbness was taking over her left arm; maybe she was having a heart attack. All her life she'd gone to an all-girl's school, in her house there was only father and the occasional Neji and those two were family, so it was really stressful.

The only boys she'd ever come into regular contact were Kiba, their neighbor's son, and Shino who was her peculiar childhood friend. Akamaru the dog was a boy, too, but that was besides the point; it was for those two that she decided to pick up the courage and sign up in this college in the first place!

She didn't know many boys, ok. She knew she was grasping at straws, trying to calm herself down from the apocalypse trying to come undone inside of her at the suffocating amount of testosterone swirling around her like raising tides.

Boys, there were boys everywhere. Left of her were boys hanging out by the posters on the wall, on the right of her were boys giving her curious glances, behind her was a group of boys intruding on their friend's dorm room to help him move in. and in front of her, if she was brave enough to open the door, would be a boy roommate.

Oh no, a hiccup was coming up, if she went in and he tried to flirt with her, she might just throw up all over the duffle bag clutched tightly to her chest.

Hanabi warned her about living in the dorms; she said artists were going to be weird.

Well, she prided herself on her stamina and patience, so why not?

She didn't think it would come to this, she didn't think she'd be unlucky from day one!

"Hey there, cutie pie, you lost?" One of the guys piped up to her left; suddenly the hallway went really really quiet as the bystanders collectively stared at her. Those who have not realized a girl was invading the boy's dorms definitely did so now.

"No, thank you!" She squeaked and gripped the door handle in desperation.

It was locked!

Oh no!

No no nononononono!

The tightness in her chest gripped her like a cough she wasn't allowed to let out, colors popped in her peripheral vision and for three seconds she was convinced she was dying.

"No thank you? But I didn't offer anything yet." The same boy grinned, and his friends snickered. One of them even spoke out loud 'cuute!'

The door continued to be locked, but now someone from behind was taking over the conversation. "Who are you looking for, lady?"

"Nobody!"

"Why are you trying to open that door, then?"

She couldn't possibly tell them she was assigned here, they would gather around her like feral cats to canned tuna! "B-because of reasons!"

The whole hallways burst out laughing, one of the guys was approaching with an easy smile on his face, and then the door in front of her clicked and drew open as if by sheer willpower.

"The hell's going on here?" A young man not ten centimeters taller than her stood in the doorway, his hair a mess as if he'd just gotten out of bed, and on his face the grouchiest expression she'd ever seen on a person.

"Oh shoot it's Uchiha…" someone from the crowd mumbled, the pitter patter of feet and the hushed droning of curious voices filled the silence.

"Excuse me." Hinata rammed her way inside and shut the door, then pressed her body against it to keep that scary world from getting in. "I'm so sorry!"

The grouch blinked at her a few times, rubbed sleep out of his eyes, and then sighed. "What do you want?"

She needed a minute to catch her breath, and then let her duffle fall to her feet. She followed it instantly and cried softly into her crossed arms.

"The hell is wrong with you?!" the boy continued to stand there and look at her, irritated and knowingly intimidating. "What's a girl doing here? How did you get past the front desk?"

Ok, alright, this was good! This was great!

He was asking her rational questions!

She can be rational!

Her voice didn't quite work, so she handed him the slip of paper with her name and assigned dorm number. He looked at it for a moment and then sighed. "Again?"

"Eh?!" Hinata looked up, surprised and hopeful. So it wasn't just her? This discomfort and shame was experienced by someone else?!

Thank heavens!

"They did this last semester to a guy named Shino, thought his name belonged to a girl so they set him up in the girl's dorms for two weeks straight."

"Really?!"

"Yeah. Good think his obsession with bugs kept them away."

"He never told me!"

"You know him?" He flicked the paper in her general direction and took a seat on one of two identical desks on the other end of the room. His desktop was littered was folders and dirty paper cups, a tower of books obscured her view of a laptop that he'd left on while he fetched the door.

"He's my friend, actually. I- I came here because of him." Now that the conversation was civil, and not at all the predatory situation she thought it would become, power returned to her limbs and she crawled her way up the door to push the lock in.

"Boyfriend?"

"No! No not at all! Kiba and him are my- well, we're basically just fri- it sounds weird but it's nothing like that! I have female friends, too!" his piercing gaze was like twin laser guns, breaking down her confidence block-by-block. "Neji is my cousin, he's a senior here- and Rock Lee said he would fix this situation s- so… And also, I'm not interested in- you know, I just want to study!"

"I'm gay." He said flatly.

And just like that, the mountain of stress and anxiety that weighed on her shoulders disappeared into thin air. "Oh thank god!"

She'd never felt so relieved in her whole life!

"I lied, I'm not gay." The boy shifted in his seat to get comfortable, his posture relaxed. "I just wanted to make sure you're not making this up to get close to me."

Hinata sucked in a deep breath, suddenly very aware that she was in a locked room with a person who could lie with a straight face. "It's not funny."

"It wasn't meant to be." With that, he turned to his computer and typed a few words. "Seriously, though. I have a girlfriend, so don't expect some shoujo manga situation."

"I would like it if we kept as far away from each other as possible." She agreed. "Is that good?"

"Good."

"Ok."

"Ok."

"Ok!" Hinata puffed the last of her anxiety into the air that smelled like earth after rain, and picked up her bag to place on the lower bunk bed.

"Whoa whoa, that's mine! You go on the top bunk."

She didn't argue, and once she was at the top she happily figured how to pull the ladder to the side. It made her feel secure knowing that nobody would be able to hop up that high and bother her if she had to spend the night.

Well, unless they were some amazing gymnast, which was highly unlikely in an art college.

"What's your name?" She asked after a while.

"I thought we were staying out of each other's hair." The boy never stopped working on his computer, from up here the screen was visible and it looked like he was typing up some big wall of text.

"W- well, you know my name, so it's only fair…"

"It's Uchiha Sasuke." he spared her an impatient glance, "You really don't know?"

Know? Know what? Was he some kind of famous person or something?

"Should I?"

Out of all the displeased faces he could pull, he actually seemed to like her answer for whatever reason. "Hn…"

There was a knock on the door, the door knob rattled one, twice, and then someone hollered from outside. "Oi, Uchiha, it's getting really quiet in there! You're not sculpting something big, are you?"

Laughing and cackling slipped through the crack under the door, Sasuke ignored them and continued to work, Hinata hugged her duffle and wondered why they would be laughing about the department he chose to pursue.

Now the small figures of clay on his desktop made sense, the rolls of wire littering the floor, the dusty spots on the jacket he hung on the back of his chair.

He was a sculpting student.

"Uchiha, your project's still vertical in there?" more snickering.

"Why is the door locked?"

"You're breaking the rules, man."

"It's still daylight, have some manners!"

Sasuke eased off his chair and paddled to the door, pulled a menacing steel mallet from under a very dirty apron, and swung the door open. "What's that? You want some hammers?"

Hinata couldn't see what was happening with the door opened between her and the hallway like that, but the chaos and noise assured her that the guys loitering outside suddenly found their rooms very interesting. The door shut again, the heavy tool dropped to the floor with a dull thud! And the boy rolled his neck in exasperation.

"They won't be bothering us again."

Ok. Hinata couldn't decide whether she should be very worried or very relieved. "Thank you?"

"I didn't do it for you. Just hurry up and go back to the girl's dorms already." He shut the laptop and proceeded to flip through the books to decide which ones he wanted to stuff into his messenger bag.

"I- I went there before coming here, there weren't any empty rooms and nobody wanted to switch with me… Not even temporarily."

He looked at her like she did something unnecessary, but smirked at the thought of nobody daring to be his roommate for five minutes. "You know, I have a crazy reputation around campus."

"Ok…?" was he bragging?

"No, I mean they literally think I'm crazy. I just don't care if my hammer chisels a bust of marble or a skull of bone, nothing is ever hard enough to get in my way."

That meant he was crazy, didn't it?

Ooooookay… Rock Lee had better hurry up with that paperwork.

"What about you?"

Hinata jumped in her seat, clutching her bag tight. "I- I am- I'm in digital art, last semester was online sssso I don't really have a reputation."

"Really?!" His eyes widened like saucers. "Can you do 3D modeling?"

Hinata stared in surprise, the gleam in his eyes was still there no matter how many times she blinked. It was almost fascinating. "I'm thinking of majoring in it, 3D modeling, I mean. I can do basic stuff for now…"

"What does basic stuff mean? Can you make people?"

She crawled down the small ladder and asked permission to use his laptop, then showed him her portfolio page with some of her more recent projects. The mesh on some of them wasn't perfect, she'd screwed up on that guy's eyelashes, and then there's the wolf model that needed redoing all over again but was up because it was a graded project.

Sasuke suddenly looked very angry. "Is that all you got?"

She flinched. "Sorry… I'm still learning, so…!"

"Still learning? What a snob!" He snapped, then landed a heavy hand on her shoulder. "They're amazing! I've seen professionals do less than that and get paid for it!"

"Eeeh?"

This guy… He wasn't all thorns, huh?

He sounds friendly when he's not swinging a steel mallet at his classmates…

"I failed this class last semester and now I have to retake it, you're gonna help me get this crap sorted, alright?" he nodded to himself a few times, staring in amazement at the detailed image of a wireframe for sleeping cat. "You do that, and I'll make sure your stay in the dorms is smooth sailing until you can leave, alright?"

"B-but Rock Lee said it'll-"

"It'll take two weeks, at least. I've been here for a while and the motto goes: payments are email, paperwork's snailmail." His hand removed itself from her shoulder, leaving a warm imprint behind. "I'll be your bodyguard, so even if you're somehow stuck here for months, I'll scare people away. How's that?" her hesitation didn't sit well with him, so he bristled up again, "I'm not begging you for help, Hyuuga, it's a two-way transaction. You can say no, I don't care."

For the first time since she stepped out of the bus at the gates, Hinata smiled. "I'd like that."

"Alright, deal."

Her prospets in this college suddenly opened wide; like a bright beam of sunlight cutting through the clouds to shine on her from above.

"I'm glad you already have a girlfriend, too. It's good to know we can just be friends." She was good with boys as long as they kept their distance, even if she knew one day she would have to break out of that unreasonable comfort zone.

Sasuke pulled his bag over his shoulder and headed to the door. "I lied, I don't have a girlfriend."

"Huh? But you said-"

"I'm the hunter, not the hunted." He flashed an amused smirk before yanking the door open and heading out. "Lock the door; you have permission to use the mallet if someone bothers you."

The sound of the shutting door echoed inside the room and in her head far longer than it should. The itch in her fingers and the rolling heat in her stomach had little to do with her current situation, and everything to do with the polygons of that boy's smiling face.

Hanabi was right; everyone here was their own brand of nutjob and she was salted cashew mix.


Prompt by Anonymous on tumblr: "i want an au where for some reason Hinata and Sasuke get stuck in a dorm together, and in the midst trying to get everything sorted out, he finds out that one of the classes he has to pass Hinata is really good at, and he winds up getting tutored by Hinata."

I tried to get away from the 'hana kimi' trope where the girl dresses up as a boy, so i made use of the fact that some japanese guys are named Hinata and ran away with it XD