A girl lived at the library.

Sasuke was certain this was not allowed. It could not be, but then he was starting to think perhaps the librarians were making an exception. Rows of polished red oak shelving taller than the first floor dimmed the glow of the lights above, casting shadows on the study tables.

More lamps dotted the work surfaces, some on and some off and although the library was mostly empty he could see her tucked up against a window seat with her feet in slippers, a beanie pulled low over her forehead so her bangs hid her eyes, and headphones plastered to her ears. The book in her lap was cradled in the pool of a blanket, clearly hand knitted and thick in colors of gray lavender and cream.

Comfortable, sure. But still weird.

---

Nothing about this was odd, per se. His town was a university town, flooded every year for ten months with the vibrant chaos of youth ready to study. The public library as much as the one on campus was always bustling with bodies that pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in a public place. His own best friend was a testament to this as he bounded over to him calling out his name like he was at a football field and not the quiet institution.

“Yoooo, Sasu-dork!”

“I am not associated with you.” Sasuke snapped, turning away sharply as the girl at the very end of the row turned to look at them.

“Don’t be a grandma, come on. They are closing down, you can’t be here forever. Let’s go get some food!” Naruto prodded at him sharply in the ribs, earning a slap on the wrist that made him yowl and hiss.

“You’re an embarrassment to be around.” Sasuke grumbled, gathering his things as fast as he could. Eyes hidden by the wild mess of his dark hair he watched as the girl in turn watched them, book pressed to her mouth hiding the smile that made her cheeks turn her eyes to half moons.

“And you’re a pain in the ass, let’s go. I’m starving.”

For reasons he didn’t know how to articulate Sasuke hesitated, hands over his books as though thinking, watching still as the girl studied them until she lowered her book and her mouth, pink enough that he could see it from a distance puckered like the round and shining curve of a cherry lollipop.

It lanced him through to the stomach, that mouth. A thin needle of pain and pleasure and panic all at once so that he spun on his heel and left, dragging the blonde behind him.

***

He was fairly sure she was homeless. Or something to the effect. She looked clean, he had to admit that but also a little bedraggled.

Crouched near a shelf, hidden in the corners most beloved by shadows he didn’t see her until it was too late.

They had wandered separately to the same location in the library labyrinth and before he knew it he had entered the row in which she crouched, head tilted sideways to study the books so her braid, thick as sailor’s rope trailed the ground beside her crouched body.

The beanie was back on her head, pushing bangs low on her forehead and accenting the smallness of her face. A sweater had replaced the jacket she had had on before. Layers peered out from beneath the gray cardigan in soft yellows and whites, stacking together onto her hips where a skirt trailed down the length of her body. It was a strange get up and he had to wonder if she was wearing everything she owned.

Maybe she was cold?

Biting his cheek to bring some sort of sanity back to the situation Sasuke turned to the books at hand, scanning titles for the author he had in mind. Cooly, and trying his best to look as uninterested as he could he began to drag out volumes, stacking them into his arms.

A rustle of plastic, grating and uncouth made him pause, involuntarily turning in her direction with eyes wide.

The girl had plopped down onto her butt, a giant book too heavy to hold while crouching sat splayed wide on her crossed legs and from a bag at her side she pulled out an oreo cookie.

Sasuke stared.

The weight of that glare must have touched the absent minded focus of her mind, pricking through the dreamy haze of her attention until slowly her eyes blinked back into focus and she turned to him, cheeks chipmunk thick with treats.

It was something of a miracle how quickly her face went from content petal paleness to blotchy red embarrassment and with a sound like the chipmunk she appeared so much like she slapped the book closed, threw it onto the ground and made a getaway.

If she had stayed even for a moment longer she might have noted that he too had flushed to scarlet at the sight of her nibbling away on the sugary thing, bringing words to mind like adorable.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” Sasuke shook his head, throwing the books back onto the shelf with a bang that earned him a hissed scolding from the librarian before he high tailed it out of there.

***

“What are oreos anyway?”

It was an innocent enough question, delivered with a careless half interest that should have been enough to diffuse any suspicions, but as usual his friends were hounds for anything off about him, and either he was very predictable or very boring or both.

“Oreos?”

Sitting across from him at the tiny two person kitchen table in the cramped apartment he and Naruto shared Sakura looked up from the endless scroll of her phone.

“Yeah.” Sasuke didn’t look up from the printed document before him, circling items in red as he moved along it’s pages. “What are they made of?”

Naruto who was perched on the only piece of counter not crowded with items like their toaster, coffee machine and other random kitchen knick knacks stopped chewing the cereal he was crunching loudly for dinner.

“Uh…. sugar, probably highly processed something….?” He offered through his full mouth, wiping at his face with his sweatshirt sleeve. “What the hell are you reading that has oreos in it?”

Sasuke scoffed. “I’m editing a translation of a historical document. There are no oreos to be found here.”

Sakura, who had been quiet as she leaned back in her chair and surveyed him finally put forth the key question. “So, you’re thinking about oreos… of your own volition?”

It finally caused a pause in the Uchiha to have someone point it out that way. Nothing had triggered the question, not in the vicinity and they could not know, of course not, that he had been thinking on and off of a full mouth, round cheeks, the dusting of black chocolate flecks on a pair of pink lips.

The sound of her squeak sent twists of embarrassment for her and for himself through his stomach as it played on repeat in his memory.

“No.” He stamped his foot aggressively as he stood, shoving past Naruto’s long lanky knees to the sink. “No, I was just… wondering…” He blinked as he filled a glass with water and realized he was making no sense. “I’ve never had any.”

“You wouldn’t. Last time I made dinner you said it was too sweet.” Sakura grumbled. “All because I put a glaze on the chicken.”

“It was made with honey.” Sasuke grumbled, defensive.

“And garlic.” Sakura shook her head roughly, tossing her pink hair about her shoulders. “You’re just a freak.”

“But we knew that.” Naruto laughed, kicking at Sasuke’s hip with his bare foot affectionately. Like a pup at on old cat he chuckled when Sasuke’s swiped at him hard and barely missed.

“Why are you thinking about oreos? Did someone make you eat one?” Sakura continued, studying his face, watching in fascination as pink slid along his neck and into the darkness of his hair. Her brows rose with it.

“No.” Sasuke snarled, disgusted. “Why would anyone-? No, nevermind. You guys are useless.”

With a handful of steps he gathered his papers, tossed his bag over his shoulder and marched to his room. The only sign he wasn’t angry was the quiet closing of his door.

***

He found her two days later after talking himself into going to the library again, despite his trepidation. She was curled quite away from the last aisle he had seen her in. Where before they had been in the architecture and modern design area of the shelves he caught sight of a flowing skirt and a pair of worn leather boots when he crouched to inspect a thick brick sized volume on ancient languages.

Knees drawn into her chest, with books spread around her in a half circle she hid partly behind a giant potted plant with feathery green leaves all in a mohawk wildness and leaned her shoulders against the wall.

There was no hat in place to hide her hair which was that day free and flowing to tangle with the many necklaces that dangled from her throat. White on white her blouse and skirt were almost as pale as her skin, dotted now that he could see her more closely with a handful of freckles along her collarbone and up along her nose.

Sasuke swallowed, and froze.

There was no need to be so quiet or still. Hunched as she was it was clear her eyes were focused on the book in her hands. The bloom of of her fingers spread across it’s hard cover and the easy twist of her wrist told him she had been in that position for a while and it wasn’t until she lowered the book and pushed the dark thick rimmed glasses up onto her nose that he realized he wished he could wear glasses himself.

Still unaware of her watcher the girl reached out blind, focused as she was on the book in her hands and rummaged within the strange patchwork fabric bag that lay at her side. From it she withdrew a pen, a red marker, a notebook and a packet of oreo cookies.

Absently she tucked the red marker behind her ear, making the appendage stick out in a manner that made Sasuke want to pinch it, and then with the same glazed lack of focus she shoved a whole oreo in her mouth.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Chipmunk cheeks were going to be haunting him forever now.

***

“Do we need milk?” Naruto’s voice bellowed from two aisles over. Sasuke rolled his eyes. “How would I know? I don’t drink that stuff.”

They had a tendency of shopping late at night. It was the only way Sasuke would go to a store with Naruto at all. During the day his screaming and clumsiness resulted in too many awkward situations and Sasuke refused to be seen in public with him.

He also refused to let him do the shopping alone. One day he had returned from a quick stop at the local store with nothing but froot loops and ramen cups. Sasuke had been more than mildly annoyed.

“Why wouldn’t you? I mean, maybe that’s why I’m so much taller than you.” Naruto countered as he came around the corner and nearly mowed down the display of sandwich containers in a multitude of colors. “How else will you grow strong bones?”

“I’m 26.” Sasuke snapped, half paying attention. “I’m all done growing bones… and anyway, milk is for-”

“Baby cows, yeah, yeah.” Naruto wrinkled his nose, watching him crouch. “I’ve heard this before.”

“Yet you keep bringing it up.”

“What are you looking at?” Naruto inspected the wall of products his friend was facing, frowning a little. “Cookies?”

“Why are there so many kinds?” Sasuke inquired then, propping his chin up on his palm as he eyed the blue and white packages of oreos everywhere. “Birthday? Who needs birthday cookies? I thought that was what cake was for.”

Naruto and an owl would not have looked different in that moment, so big blue eyes had he.

“Oreos again?”  

“Look at this.” Sasuke continued, ignoring his companion’s incredulous tone. “Mint… double stuffed? Peanut butter chocolate? Who… eats this stuff?”

Naruto’s brows were still way high up in his hairline as he let his eyes shift from the Uchiha before him to the oreos and back.

“Dude… is there something you’re not saying?”

Sasuke blinked, bringing himself back to reality at the more serious curiosity that tinged Naruto’s voice. Slowly he stood up. “What? No. Why?”

Eyes still big but getting the feeling he was on to something Naruto shook his head. “No reason…”

****

He had not been looking for her, exactly.

Every day like clockwork he had to go to the library, and he had reasons. The house- as he liked to pompously call his apartment- was too small for the dozen people that Naruto had invited over. There were people on his couches, on his bar stools, on his kitchen counter and on his floor. Despite the fact that his room was out of bounds the walls were not enough to keep the echoes of their laughter from digging into his brain.

And they were over a lot. With the winter break in full swing everyone was letting off some steam. So he was not looking for her. He had in fact rushed to the library to get away.

She wouldn’t be around anyway. Probably she was off at a friend’s house, doing the same thing all his friends were doing, being loud and obnoxious. Yes, that was probably right. After all she looked about his age and was probably a student and probably….

Crunch.

He startled, and it was a kind of miracle that he did as Uchiha’s did not startle easily but the last step he had taken with his face buried in an encyclopedia had resulted in a weird crackle sound and a soft, “Uh oh.”

Sasuke turned, slowly and with his shoulders nearly to his ears to survey the damage. And damage there would be, largely to his ego and perhaps even to his sanity because he suddenly had a bad idea that he knew exactly what he had stepped on.

When he finally managed to turn around, he found as usual that he was right.

She was on the floor once more, with her legs crossed and a pool of thick woolen skirt puddled around her. Eyes large and thickly rimmed with lashes looked up at him with growing alarm as he stared at her and did not in fact remove his foot from the package of cookies that had been on the floor beside her.

“S-sorry!” She moved to scramble to her feet, stopped and went back down to gather her books, of which there were many and looked once more at the foot which was so rudely still pressing her cookies to the floor.

Sasuke stayed perfectly still and a part of his brain wondered if maybe he was having an aneurysm of sorts.

“Sorry, I… I should probably not have- I mean, they do have a rule about- cookies- or food, i think… sorry. I’m sorry. Okay.” She turned, her rambling spotted with long fluttering fingers through her dark hair, the curtain of which was trying and failing to hide the blotchy redness of her cheeks.

Abruptly she turned on her heel and hurried down the long aisle with her head down, disappearing around the corner without another word.

It was only after she left that Sasuke realized he had not said a word, and also had not lifted his foot off her oreos.

***

“They don’t have it.”

Naruto twitched behind him, rubbing at his face roughly before following him out the door of the grocery store and down the block towards yet another shopping center.

“What is it you’re looking for anyway?”

“Nothing. A thing. It’s personal.”

“Personal?” Naruto made a face behind him that would have made a pitbull proud. “Uh, we’re about as personal as we get without dating-”

“Ugh.” Sasuke groaned, throwing a dagger of a glare over his shoulder at his whiny friend. “Why do you always have to make it weird?”

“Maybe because it bugs you so much.” Naruto retorted, trotting to keep up with his rapid stride. “This is the third store we go to, what exactly are you looking for?”

“Nothing!”

“Sasuke!”

They pushed, grumbling for different reasons into the next store, marching down the cookies aisle so that Naruto finally paused, eyeing his surroundings confusedly.

“You’re looking for cookies?”

Sasuke twitched ahead, scanning the shelves and refusing to answer.

“What the fuck?” Naruto finally offered, deeply confused. “I mean… what the actual-?” And he stopped, gawking openly now at the sight of Sasuke crouched by the oreos.

“Okay no. You can’t just pretend that this is not a thing. This is definitely a thing. Oreos? Again?”

“Shut up.”

“Did you smoke something? Is this you having the munchies? Did you hit your head? Who are you and what have you done to Sasuke?”

“They don’t have it.” Sasuke snapped, standing up with hands on his waist and clearly disturbed. “What. The. Fuck.”

“Dude.” Naruto took his shoulders, turning him around by force. “Talk. Use that damn vocabulary you’re always bragging about.”

“I’m looking for these.” Sasuke pulled out an empty wrapper from his pocket, crinkled and refolded a million times so that it took a moment before he was flashing it in Naruto’s face. “These ones.”

“Green tea oreos?” Naruto quirked a brow. “I dunno dude… that… looks like a Japanese thing. Look at it, it’s even got Japanese on the label. Where did you even get this?”

Sasuke’s eyes were squinted shut as he realized that of course they would not have it. Of course.

“Nowhere, the library.”

“You got oreos at the library.”

“No.” Sasuke, flustered now that he was unable to find the item he had been looking for rubbed tiredly at his eyes. It was late, he should have been sleeping and if he was going to go for that run with his brother in the morning he had better get to bed. What a stupid wild goose chase for unattainable cookies in the middle of the night.

“You just said-”

“Not the library, at the library, from a gir-” He stopped, feeling Naruto sharp intake of breath like the first sucks of a whirlwind.

“A girl!?”

“Shit.”

“You met a girl!?!”

“No. Not… not exactly, I-”

“Holy shit!”

Even though it was late, Sasuke stormed out of the store. Late or not, Naruto was too loud to be around in public.

****

It took two months to realize that she had not moved away, or stopped frequenting the library. She was avoiding him.

There was the flicker of a scarf here, the slip of a skirt there, the rustle of crinkle wrap being frantically shoved into a bag before silence descended at his approach.

Always he found books disturbed, left in a half circle like an unfinished fairy ring on the library carpet, still open to the pages she had been studying.

There was never anything similar in these little treasure troves of information. She floated, from geography to ancient greek history, to chinese fiction authors and biographies of the 20th century.

Her appetite had no reign, it ran wild from one library end to the other. Her notes, when she left them stuck between the pages of her abandoned books were in a slanted and haphazard hand, pretty because of it’s frolic through the page.

Why do trees not shed their bark?

Do  helicopter pilots go deaf?

What is the growing season for persimmon?

Instructions to make a clay oven

Fishtail braid how-to and origin

Nothing about her made sense. Her writing and her questions, the frightened rush of her feet at the merest glimpse of him, or his inevitable curiosity drawing him ever to the hidden corners of the library where she had taken to hiding.

Sasuke was in a foul mood about it.

Another visit to the library, another day he returned silent and frustrated, slamming his bedroom door after throwing a box of cookies on the counter.

They did not have the kind of pantry space that allowed for the kind of cookie purchasing that was happening. There was, in fact, no pantry at all. Just two cupboards that held ramen to bursting and the occasional gluten free cracker box Sasuke stuffed in there for snacks.

All counter space had been alloted. There was the toaster, the coffee machine, the water kettle and bread box, a fruit bowl and some napkin holders stuffed full of take out menus.

All of the counter real estate that Sasuke had demanded be saved for his salad prepping was gone, drowned beneath an avalanche of Oreo cookie boxes.

Sakura didn’t even smile.

“Jesus Lord of Hosts.”

“I know.” Naruto agreed as he bit his thumb nervously. “I know.”

“Are those rainbow oreos?” She continued breathlessly.

“Mhm.”

“Wow. Where did he even…?” She drifted off, words having failed to convey her shock. Naruto understood even as he shrugged. “Hell if I know. I come back from campus or work and there’s another box, sometimes two.”

Sakura pushed her bangs back from her forehead, attempting to see without their tickling distraction on her face as she thought. “But… why would he do that?” She frowned a little, feeling the ridges caused by her puzzle on her skin.

“Is he…?” Naruto hesitated, as though he were suggesting something irrational. Squinting against a back hand slap from the universe to get a grip he continued, “Is he pining?”

The silence that followed as they looked at the oreo cookies extended for too long, broken only by Sakura’s heaved disbelieving sigh.

“Fuck.”

Part One of Two