Rin woke up the next morning to her phone vibrating constantly. Groaning tiredly, she grabbed her phone and unlocked it. There were over ten missed messages, all of them coming from the group chat.

Anko: Guess who I caught Rin with last night?
Kurenai: Who?
Shizune: Who?
Anko: Do you guys remember Obito Uchiha? He's an old friend of Kakashi's.
Shizune: I don't know who that is… But I know Uchihas have $$$ so I know he must be rich
Kurenai: Dark spiky hair? Yeah, I've met him once but last year. But I thought he was dating that girl… I can't remember her name
Anko: Her name was Yugito. But they broke up five months ago, according to what Kakashi told me this morning.
Shizune: Wow, you already did your research…
Anko: I have to make sure my bestie is aware of everything before entering a relationship. But yeah, he was here last night with her!
Kurenai: Oh wow, go Rin then! Obito's actually a really nice guy.
Shizune: So no more Ebisu part two?
Anko: Oh no, Obito is NOTHING like Ebisu! Ebisu wouldn't even hold the door open for Rin
Rin: Good morning roomies, and before this gets out of hand, nothing happened between Obito and me! Honestly, I met him for the first time last night. And by coincidence. Yes, he's a nice guy but I'm not interested. Anko, please don't make it seem like there's more going on when there isn't.

Sighing, Rin got up and started her day. On the weekends she would start out with some yoga and meal prep before going over her schedule for the upcoming week. She allocated an hour on Thursday evening for the tutoring session with Obito, her mind forcing itself not to think about Anko's foolish theories. The fact that Obito had been in a relationship with another girl five months ago was an indication (in her mind) that it wouldn't be a good idea for her to pursue a relationship with him (if one did happen to start between the two of them, that was). She did not want to be his rebound girl. Besides, she barely knew him. Too soon to be thinking about anything, aside from the fact that he was a nice person who was going to help her with not failing statistics this semester.

The weekdays started as usual, and she attended her statistics course with a fresh mind. At night, she would read the book that Obito lent her and try some example problems repeatedly until her eyes would close tiredly.

As usual, Professor Lang did a terrible job at teaching the next subject: The central limit theorem. The first twenty minutes of the lecture were filled with him talking about his research projects, which nobody but Ebisu cared about. And then he would terribly write on the whiteboard, writing down some formula and then going off on some random topic. It was no wonder nearly sixty percent of the class would fail.

As the lecture ended, Rin packed her items just as Ebisu stopped by. She pretended that he wasn't there, but of course, that didn't stop him from standing in front of her.

"You've been ignoring my texts," he said, smiling creepily at her. It made her wonder how she could have even liked him.

"I'm busy," she replied, grabbing her bag.

"With what, not studying?" he then laughed, "You know I grade your papers. This class is going to tank your GPA if you're not careful. And then you'll have to retake it. And hey if I'm TA again, I can help you out,"

She rolled her eyes at him and quickly walked away. And once she was out of the classroom, she started to text her friends.

Rin: I wish he would disappear…
Shizune: Who? Ebisu?
Kurenai: Who else… What did he do to you now?
Rin: He approaches me as if we're friends. He doesn't know that I've blocked his number. He asked me today why I wasn't answering his texts…and a bunch of other crap too about studying.
Shizune: That's inappropriate behavior right there. And if he doesn't stop, you should report him. He's creating an uncomfortable environment for you.
Anko: We should all just kick his ass already. We can take that stick down
Kurenai: LOL!
Rin: Sometimes, that's what I think about. Kicking him in the balls for everything…

Ebisu's attitude still annoyed her by the time it was the end of the day and she did her own research on the central limit theorem. She read a couple of pages on it from Obito's book, as well as did her own research to find examples. She remembered how Obito approached things when it came to statistics, and she did the same. She ignored the formula for now. What she needed to focus on was the concept. Obito's book had an easy-to-follow example, and she grabbed a piece of paper and tried it out. She focused on practicing until she felt as if her brain couldn't take anymore.

Opening her laptop, she saw how professor Lang assigned more homework on the same topic. Great. She opened a new tab on her browser and launched Facebook, quickly noticing the New Friend Request message on the top right. Clicking on it, she saw Obito's profile appear and a smile crept on her face. She immediately accepted the request and then looked through his profile. He barely had any posts, with only five pictures ever uploaded. She checked his About Me section, reading the Single next to the relationship status. His birthday was in February. Aside from that information, there was nothing else on him. But the fact that he sent her a friend request meant that he did use social media, maybe not as much as others. The fact that Obito friend-requested her made her forget about Ebisu and his foolishness. And she couldn't help but admit that she was looking forward to Thursday evening.

XxXxX

Thursday evening….

She had texted him first, feeling some type of anxiety in regards to seeing him again. She wasn't sure why, but at the same time reminded herself that he was just a friend.

They agreed to meet at six in the evening at the local library. He was fifteen minutes late, but she didn't mind considering the huge favor he was doing for her.

"I have a quiz next Tuesday on the Central limit theorem," she said as he sat down, "And I have no idea what it is…"

"OK," he said, folding his arms and leaning back.

Rin's eyes quickly went to his arms before concentrating on his face. She couldn't help but notice how muscular they were.

"Central limit theorem practically means that the larger the samples grow, the sample mean will move towards a normal distribution. So if you calculate the mean of multiple samples of the population, add them up, and find their average, the result will be the estimate of the population mean," Obito explained before grabbing a piece of paper and starting to write some things.

They spent two hours going over the concept and some sample problems, and Rin felt more comfortable with next week's quiz. Part of her was still worried, considering she had already failed the last three. She just wanted to at least get a B, that way she didn't have to see Professor Lang or Ebisu ever again.

"Thank you so much for the help," she told him, packing her laptop and book inside her bag, "Do you want to come over for dinner? Shizune's making lasagna tonight,"

"I would love to, but I have to finish my program,"

Rin's eyes widened, "Oh, I'm so sorry! This was only supposed to be for an hour,"

"It's OK," Obito reassured her, "I'm just glad to be of help,"

She nodded and looked away, avoiding how gentle his facial expression looked. She avoided making any assumptions in regards to his kindness because there was nothing wrong with a guy spending two hours teaching someone he met a few days ago statistics. It was college. Nothing wrong with that at all.

"I can walk you back to the apartment," he offered.

"It's just a fifteen-minute walk. You don't have to, especially if you have something to do,"

"What I have to do won't take that long. Let me walk you home,"

Rin gave in, and the two walked to her apartment while talking about his internship. He was interning at one of the largest technology companies in the country, and Rin was impressed at the amount of work they had him do. But despite that, Obito seemed to enjoy it. He liked solving problems by creating programs. His goal was to go into machine learning and cryptocurrency. It was the future, after all. It had her thinking about her career and what she wanted to do. And considering she was in her last year, she needed to start prepping her resume and applying for jobs.

Reaching her apartment building, they said their goodbyes before departing. He wished her good luck on her exam, and Rin thanked him.

She didn't realize she had a large smile plastered on her face until her roommates started questioning her on the fact that she was an hour late.

"Relax, he was helping me understand something even more complicated. I have a quiz this Tuesday,"

"Wow, he stayed an extra hour? I hear his schedule can be pretty bad because of that internship," Kurenai mentioned, and Rin nodded.

"Yeah. I felt really bad. And he even walked me home!"

Kurenai, Anko, and Shizune looked at each other before giving her a mischievous look. Rin knew where this was going already.

Kurenai started first. "He likes you…"

"No, he does not. He's just a very nice guy,"

"Rin, not a lot of guys do this… He likes you… Or is starting to develop a crush on you,"

The brunette shook her head while sitting on the sofa with them, "I doubt it. Besides, didn't you say that he was in a relationship a couple of months ago? Maybe he's still texting her on the side or something… I really don't want to be his rebound chick,"

"That's understandable," Shizune said, "Besides, you've only had two interactions with him. This is all too soon,"

Author's note: thank you all for reading! hope you enjoyed this short chapter. let me know in a comment below what you thought!