TWO

Sakura couldn't seem to take a breath. It was the weird guy that had followed her to her dorm on Friday night...the guy she'd been fairly rude to. In her defense, he had been acting like a weirdo creep. He deserved it.

It felt like it took an hour for her professor to drag his eyes away from her, but he finally did, and Sakura sucked in a breath greedily. Great, so much for maintaining her teacher's pet status this semester. Either he was going to hate her, or maybe like her a little too much. She desperately hoped for the former.

"Let's start with a little refresher. Who can explain to me, in good detail, the Krebs cycle?" The professor had his back turned as he asked the question, as he wrote 'Krebs cycle' on the board in that same messy script from before.

Forgetting her worries momentarily, Sakura shot her hand up into the air, and a few other students followed suit, though none raised their hand so high or so quick as Sakura.

Again, the dark-haired man's eyes fell on her, and Sakura was disappointed to see annoyance there. Looking at her very clearly, Uchiha-sensei folded his arms across his chest and said: "It's clear that someone is overeager to prove herself. This is freshman level material - regardless of your answer, I will not be impressed." He pointed to a young male student sitting at the front of the room. "Yes?"

Definitely the former. Sakura spluttered, not even paying attention to the answer the other student gave as she quickly dropped her hand into her lap, ears burning. What the hell was that? So what it was a freshman level question? He was the one who had asked it and she knew the answer!

The rest of class continued in a similar fashion. Uchiha-sensei lectured in a bored tone, occasionally asking questions and generally being rude to those who answered. Not as rude as he had been to Sakura, but still unpleasant enough. The pink-haired student had already decided she wouldn't be raising her hand any more for that day, even though every time he asked a question that she knew the answer to it made her squirm in her seat.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the hour of lecture time was up and Sakura was free from the disapproving gaze of Asshole-sensei, as she had taken to calling him in her mind. Gathering her belongings quickly, Sakura made to leave the lecture hall without a fuss.

She climbed the stairs up the hall two at a time, trying to dodge the multitude of students who were also trying to leave the classroom. Shuddering briefly as she reached the top of the stairs and the door, Sakura couldn't help but feel that a pair of dark eyes were boring a hole right through her back.

"So you'll just need to set up a password for yourself and you'll be good to go," the blonde doctor explained to Sakura. "Feel free to come by my office down the hall if you have questions. My physician's assistant, Shizune, will help you as well. If she's not in there and I'm asleep, under no circumstances should you wake me up." The last sentence was said with an air of the utmost seriousness, and so Sakura bobbed her head with wide eyes and a timid smile.

She had taken a job as a receptionist/front desk clerk at the campus health clinic to help pay for school and get experience. Her boss, the head doctor whose name was Tsunade, was a nice enough lady, but somehow at the same time she was absolutely terrifying.

The woman had put Sakura at the desk and instructed her what to do if a patient came up, how to sign them in, and various other clerical duties.

"If there are no students here needing attention and you don't have any other tasks to do, feel free to study," Tsunade-san had said. "Just don't let it interfere with your work."

After Sakura had checked in two students, both for flu-like symptoms, she pulled out her notes and began to study. She could definitely get used to a job like this...

Sakura's Tuesday classes went well. She had a basic history class, behavioral neuroscience, and physics II. Her last class of the day was her Anatomy and Physiology lab, and she couldn't help but be nervous that Uchiha-sensei might be there. She knew that sometimes professors would run one of the lab sections, and she was afraid that she would be unlucky enough to have him.

The student exhaled a subtle sigh of relief upon entering the lab. Up at the front of the room, dressed in a white lab coat, was a friendly looking man with round glasses and an ID badge that said 'GTA'.

"Welcome!" The man said, as Sakura and the other students began to settle in at tables. "My name is Kabuto, and I'll be running this lab section. If everyone would be so kind as to put on your lab coats, we'll head on over into the next room to observe our charitable donors. "

Sakura smiled as she pulled her lab coat out of her backpack and put it on. She was extremely grateful that it seemed like her lab instructor was friendly enough. She hadn't realized how nervous she was that she would walk into lab and see Uchiha-sensei until she walked in and he wasn't there.

The rest of the lab went smoothly, with the exception of a red-headed girl who kept interrupting to ask questions. Even the seemingly good-natured Kabuto began to get frustrated by her and her incessant speaking.

After all was done, Sakura packed up her bag with the rest of the class, preparing to go back to her dorm, eat dinner, study, and get to bed at a decent time before classes began the next day. Just as she turned to go, however, the voice of her lab instructor stopped her. "Sakura-san? May I speak with you a moment?"

Sakura's chest tightened a bit as she turned back around to face the GTA. She told herself to calm down, there was nothing for him to be angry with her about and so she had no need to worry. "Yes, Kabuto-san? What is it?"

The white-haired man chuckled, "Please, just Kabuto is fine."

Sakura nodded her head amiably, wishing for him to continue. "Then I must insist on being just Sakura."

"Fair trade," Kabuto grinned at her. "I just wanted to ask you, and don't take this the wrong way, but I noticed on my sign-in sheet that you're a freshman. How are you able to be in this class? Most of your classmates are seniors."

"Ah," Sakura smiled, a little heat rising to her cheeks with pride. "I took all of the lower level Anatomy and Physiology classes while I was in high school. I'm trying to finish my undergrad in two years so I can start med school as soon as possible. "

"Ambitious," Kabuto congratulated her, "Color me impressed, then. Thank you for answering my question, Sakura. I'll see you in lab on Thursday."

"See you Thursday, " Sakura gave a little wave as she turned and headed back to the door, eager to get back to her room for the night.

Sakura woke up with a pounding headache on Wednesday morning, which did not excite her at all considering she was about to have to sit through Uchiha-sensei's class. She loved the material she was learning, but she dreaded her professor. She could only hope he would be better than he had been on Monday.

When Sakura arrived at the lecture hall, she took her normal seat and pulled out the homework she had completed last night. It wasn't technically due until Friday, but she had wanted to get it done and out of the way. She waited for Uchiha-sensei to enter the room and lay his bag down at his desk before she shakily stood and went to hand in her homework to him. She had decided the simplest way to go about it was to just walk right up to him and get it over with.

Sakura cleared her throat upon reaching the desk, her fingers fidgeting delicately with each other as she held on to her papers. "Uchiha-sensei?"

Black eyes snapped up to look at her face, and she thought she detected a slight scowl marring the handsome features. "Ah, here's my homework for the week."

Uchiha-sensei raised an eyebrow at this, taking her paper from her and glancing at it. "This wasn't due till Friday," his voice was deep and exact, his tone bored.

"I know," Sakura shifted her feet uncomfortably, "I just finished it last night so I figured I would just turn it in now."

Uchiha-sensei handed the paper back to her, much to Sakura's confusion. "Turn it in on Friday. You aren't going to do any better in this class by sucking up." He said the last bit loud enough for people in the first few rows to hear.

Sakura could only stand there, mouth agape like a fish out of water. "I-uh..." Sakura stumbled for words, her embarrassment quickly turning to anger. Who did this guy think he was? She snatched her paper back from him and turned. With her back facing him, she replied: "Alright. If you prefer a lack of initiative from your students, I'll oblige you."

The irate student marched back to her seat upon being met by silence, only slightly mortified by what she had just said to the man who held her grade in his hands. She wasn't sure where that streak of confidence and bluntness had come from, but she wasn't going to question it now.

Sakura returned to her seat and sat down in a huff, purposefully ignoring the eyes of the professor whose gaze was now fixed on her. Out of the corner of her eye, Sakura saw the red-headed girl from her lab enter the classroom and approach Uchiha-sensei's desk with a piece of paper in her hand. Sakura narrowed her eyes. Was that the homework?

Sakura's head nearly exploded as the professor took the paper without a word, she had half a mind to stand up and walk out of the class. Karin began to giggle and very openly flirt with him, smiling coyly and twisting a strand of bright red hair around her finger. Uchiha-sensei regarded her silently, and then said something too quietly for Sakura to hear. Karin then turned and made her way to her seat with a smile on her face.

Sakura did her best to keep her head down and take diligent notes throughout the rest of the lecture, all the while feeling as though she were going to self-destruct thanks to her mounting anger. Every time she looked up, though, her black-eyed professor seemed to be looking at her, or just at that moment looking away. What was this guy's deal? She had the fleeting thought to just switch sections of the class...but then she would be admitting defeat.

And she wouldn't do that.

Sakura stood nervously at the closed door of Uchiha-sensei's office. It was decorated only with a plain black nameplate reading: Uchiha Sasuke, PhD. She told herself she was going to go in and confront him, ask him why he hated her for no reason, and ask him why he took Karin's homework and not hers. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Sakura reached out and knocked on the door.

"What?" came the muffled reply from behind the door.

Steeling her nerves and embracing her anger, Sakura turned the knob and pushed the heavy wooden door in. She stepped confidently into the office, letting her emotions guide her, closing the door behind her and making direct eye-contact with her professor the whole time. The brief look of surprise (and maybe a bit of panic) on his face made her feel good. He quickly schooled his expression into one of hard indifference.

"I'm sure you can guess why I'm here," Sakura said, hoping her words sounded cutting and not wobbly.

Uchiha-sensei steepled his long fingers in front of his face, frowning at her and looking disinterested overall. "I can't even begin to imagine," his words came out in a slow drawl.

Sakura fought the overwhelming urge to roll her eyes at the infuriating man. "Why wouldn't you take my homework when you took Karin's? What have I done to earn such immediate contempt from you?"

Sasuke did roll his eyes and added to it with a scoff. "Don't flatter yourself, Sakura. Just because you've been every other teacher's favorite doesn't mean I have to like you or treat you specially."

Sakura made a sound of indignation at that, crossing her arms violently over her chest, now positively seething. "I'm not asking for special treatment! I'm asking for fair treatment. You took Karin's homework, because she's pretty and she flirted with you. You should've just taken mine too." She paused briefly, debating her next words. "Is this because of what happened Friday night?"

Her professor had stood up at some point during her speech, and he was now leaning over his desk, his hands planted firmly on the wooden surface as he glared at her, his bangs falling haphazardly into his eyes. "Have you ever considered that I didn't take your homework simply because you're annoying?"

Sakura's mouth snapped shut at that. Annoying. The word had been following her around for her entire life. Memories of the kids in grade school and high school throwing the insult at her came rushing to the forefront of her mind, and Sakura grimaced as she was overcome by them. To her horror, she felt angry tears spring to the corners of her eyes, and she quickly turned to go. "If ambition and hard-work make you annoying, then I plead guilty. Forgive me, Uchiha-sensei." By the time she was done talking, the sarcasm was so thick in her voice that Sakura hardly recognized herself. She walked away from him, her hand landing on the door handle.

"If you're going to speak to me so disrespectfully, you might as well call me Sasuke."

Sakura whirled around and frowned. "What?"

"Sasuke. It's my name," the dark-haired man was looking at her so indifferently that a person watching from the outside wouldn't have known that they had just argued.

"Fine," Sakura nodded, pulling the door open and leaving before he could say another word.

Sakura was absolutely seething on her walk back to her dorm. Where did that guy get off being such an asshole? It infuriated her. So what she did the homework early? So what she met him on Friday night and they were both drunk? That didn't give him the right to discriminate against her and attempt to embarrass her in front of the whole class.

Throwing her bag down upon returning to her room, Sakura slammed the door with a huff and climbed up to sit cross-legged on her lofted bed.

Ino had frozen upon seeing Sakura stomp into the room. The blonde had one hand poised delicately above the other, a nail polish wand gripped between her fingers. "Uh, everything alright there, Forehead?"

Sakura said nothing, instead choosing to pick up her pillow, bury her face in it, and scream.

"Okay," Ino nodded calmly, returning her attention to her nails. "So, not alright. Tell me what happened, Sakura, use your words."

Frowning as she removed the pillow from her face, Sakura dropped it into her lap with a light thud. She launched into the whole story then, explaining everything to Ino, a couple of frustrated tears escaping through her lashes as she did so. She told her about meeting Uchiha-sensei, Sasuke, after the party Friday night, and then about how he'd been such an asshole to her in class…about how he had told her to call him Sasuke. It felt good to get it all off her chest, even if she hadn't been planning on sharing it with her loudmouthed, gossipy best friend.

"Damn, Forehead," Ino sighed, combing a hand through her long blonde locks. "He sounds like a monumental asshole. Maybe he just likes you."

Sakura scoffed. "Doubtful. I'm just going to do my best to avoid him this semester." She stood, grabbing her shorts to change. "Are you coming to the frisbee game?"

"Yeah," Ino smiled and stood, blowing on her nails gently. "I'll change my clothes and we can go."

A bead of sweat dripped down Sakura's neck, and she swiped at the itchy trail it left behind with only a little bit of irritation. She had joined the intramural frisbee team at Naruto's request, (he'd begged her on hands and knees for the better part of an hour), and was only now beginning to regret it. It was fun, but after almost two hours of chasing a flying disc around in the late summer heat, Sakura was reaching her limit. It was time for some quality time in her room with some ice cream.

"Sakura!" Naruto's raspy voice cut through all the yelling. "Catch!"

Sakura locked her eyes onto the disc, which Naruto had absolutely overthrown, and ran past the out of bounds line to catch it, all the way to the parking lot near the field. Stretching slightly, Sakura reached up only to feel the disc brush her finger, too far out of her reach. Her momentum caused her to skid to a stop on her knees on the pavement, effectively causing her to scrape her shins and hands quite badly.

"Damn it," the pink-haired student mumbled, standing and dabbing a bit of blood off of her leg with her finger. "Nice throw, dumb-ass!" she shouted back at Naruto. Sakura continued to grumble to herself as she walked to pick up the disc, it couldn't have landed too far away from her, and yet she didn't see it anywhere.

"Looking for this?"

Sakura nearly groaned out loud as the last person she wanted to see stepped out from behind a sleek black car parked in the lot. He had the silvery white disc in his hands. "Ah, yeah," Sakura cringed inwardly, acutely aware of the fact that she was covered in sweat and now blood. "Sorry Uchi-, er, Sasuke-san."

The dark-haired man narrowed his eyes, still holding onto the disc. "Just Sasuke."

Not knowing what to say to that, Sakura simply nodded awkwardly, torn between feeling uncomfortable and being angry at the man who had been such an ass to her. "It didn't hit you or your car, did it?" Sakura asked, feeling the need to fill the silence as he just stood there staring at her.

Sasuke chuckled, much to her surprise, a subtle smirk lighting up his dark face. "No. Here," he tossed it at her.

Sakura caught it easily, her eyes never leaving Sasuke's face. "Thanks," she muttered quietly. She just didn't get this guy. One minute he was scoffing at her and embarrassing her in front of her classmates, and the next he was tossing her a frisbee with a ghost of a smile on his face. "Uh, I better get back to the game. They'll be missing this," she spun the frisbee absently around her finger, beginning to feel the desperate need to get out of his presence.

"Nice knees," the professor replied, ignoring her comment. His eyes dragged down her lithe frame to rest on her scraped and bloody legs, an unreadable expression on his cold face. His hair had gotten messier since the last time she had seen him, and again she wondered how such a mop of hair could still look so purposeful and elegant.

"Oh," Sakura cringed. "Yeah, I got a little…overeager I guess."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" There was that damn smirk again.

Sakura felt the corners of her own lips raise briefly before she quickly schooled her expression back into one of neutrality. He did not deserve any kindness from her, no matter how small. "I work hard for the things that I want," Sakura shrugged her shoulders lightly, trying to appear nonchalant.

Sasuke's eyes seemed to somehow grow a shade darker, from midnight to onyx, as he moved to get into his car. "So do I," he replied quietly.

Sakura felt her throat dry up at his comment, and stood there like a fool as the man got into his car and drove away. What was that supposed to mean? And why did she suddenly feel like she was choking on her own stomach? Shaking her head violently, she turned back towards her friends on the field and saw that a few of them were watching her, no doubt wondering why she wasn't back to the game yet and who she had been talking to. She groaned inwardly as she started to jog back, knowing that Ino would pounce on her like a lion on its prey the moment the game was over.

The rest of the game was hazy to Sakura, and she only really started focusing again on the walk back to the dorm with Ino. Luckily, the blonde was exhausted, so she hadn't launched into grilling Sakura just yet. She was grateful for it, as she didn't think she'd be able to handle Ino's quizzing at the moment.

"Want to order a pizza?" Ino asked, stifling a yawn behind her hand. "I'm starving and way too tired to cook anything."

Sakura exhaled a sigh of relief, she didn't feel like cooking or going out either. "I'd love to."

Now she could only hope that Ino chose to leave the subject of the stranger with the frisbee alone for the night, as Sakura didn't think she could bear to spend one more moment thinking about that insufferable man.

AN: Wow! The response to this story so far has been really uplifting, thank you all for favoriting, following, and reviewing! It means a lot! I am still several chapters ahead so I think I will be posting chapter 3 this weekend! Thank you all so much for reading, I'm really enjoying writing this story! :)

~ loony