Author's Note: I do not own Bleach or its characters. This is AU.


I'm In No Rush

Nanao was hoping that nobody would notice her for at least another hour or so. She was tucked away in a quiet corner of the library and was immersed in her dissertation. The young woman had been on a roll today with the project and was hoping to be able to at least finish the section that she was currently working on. If she could just get this section finished, Nanao would only have one more to write before she could sit down to do edits and revisions of her dissertation. It was hard to believe the thing was almost done.

Then again, Nanao had been slogging away at this thing for almost three years now. But at this rate she might have her doctorate by the end of the term, and that was exciting. Of course, that assumed no one disturbed her anytime soon. Nanao had fled to the library after being shooed out of the English department office this morning. Dr. Kyoraku had told her that the English department could survive at least one or two days without her, and he was giving her the rest of the week off work. As he had recruited some of the more organized undergraduate students to handle things while she was gone, Nanao wasn't too worried.

She had noticed that Dr. Kyoraku seemed to be taking a keen interest in her sleeping and eating habits lately. Nanao didn't entirely mind. She had long since given up being irked that the man insisted on doing things like buying her lunch or snacks while she was working in the office. She was starving doctoral student after all, and when she didn't have to spend money on food that meant she had more to spend on books. Nanao let out a sigh. She was getting distracted again.

That had been happening more often as well. It was one of the reasons she hadn't been working on her dissertation in her free time at the office. Nanao just couldn't seem to concentrate when Shunsui Kyoraku was around these days. It probably didn't help that the past few weeks had him showing more interest in her than usual. There was a little part of her that Nanao couldn't seem to stomp down that kept insisting that it meant he cared for her beyond just friendship or a student/teacher relationship. But the library and Nanao were good friends and at least here she could get some work done.