知的愛 Chiteki Ai - “Intellectual Love”
Summary: Her intelligence was his aphrodisiac just as his love for literature sparked her desire to read more books - (a tiny hint of NejiTen and SuiKarin as well) College AU
For the lovely @uchihaharunoss who loves reading school/college AUs.
Note: the term "aphrodisiac" doesn't just apply to sex; it’s other definition is: a thing that causes excitement.
There she was studying at the grand library of Rikodu Sennin University, wearing a pair of thin framed reading glasses as she was studiously taking notes from her thick molecular biology textbook. Something about seeing a beautiful woman intently studying motivated him to step up his A-game. Especially if that woman has the same hair color of cherry blossoms and eyes like shimmering emeralds. That woman's name was Haruno Sakura. He had heard that she was a one-of-a-kind genius who got a full scholarship in the Rikodu Sennin medical school, and that she was also the apprentice of the infamous Doctor Tsunade Senju ever since she miraculously concocted an antidote to counteract the spider virus.
Here he was sitting on the other side of the library with a friend of his in the middle of a study session. It was getting hard for him to concentrate, because he was constantly tempted to sneak glances
"Hey Sasuke, can I copy your timeline notes of the Tokugawa Shogunate period? If you remember that I didn't make it to class last Thursday." Neji Hyuga, a sophomore from the esteemed Hyuga clan asks him if he could borrow his notes. With a grunt, Sasuke takes out his binder to take out the sheets of papers he took his notes, and then staples them in order before handing them to Neji, "Give them back to me by Friday, Neji."
"But of course." Was Neji's reply before he carefully puts the packet of Sasuke's precious notes in his file.
"Why were you staring at Haruno Sakura?" Neji changes topic.
"Why were you staring at Yu Tenten during basketball practice?" He retaliates with a smirk. Neji's fascination towards Tenten was no secret.
"She was cheering for me Sasuke, like any good friend would." Neji quickly responds with a faint blush growing on his cheek bones.
"Aha, keep telling yourself that Neji." Sasuke continues teasing him mercilessly.
"Don't you have to write a 10 page research paper for Law?" At being reminded of his arduous assignment, Sasuke's face momentarily turns pale at the thought of completing an all-nighter to write his paper.
'Damn it, I guess I'll have to make time to read The Silmarillion tomorrow then.' Sasuke thinks defeated with a sigh. Yes, the pragmatic Sasuke Uchiha has a love for literature. If he had the time, he'd consider joining the literature club, but alas his major forces him to study very hard in order to become a better criminal lawyer than his father; and it would mean reading more books with legal jargon.
"I must leave now Sasuke, I promised Tenten that I wold help her in understanding functional analyses." Neji stands to pack his books, while trying his best not to blush at the prospect of having alone time with Tenten.
"You don't even take calc. 1." Sasuke knew for a fact that Hyuga Neji was probably on the linear algebra level, considering he was known to be a prodigal math genius back in high school.
"I'm the best person to help her Sasuke." Neji haughtily tells him, "you'll understand when someone deems you worthy enough to help them." And with that he left the library leaving Sasuke all by himself on the table.
After Neji leaves, Sasuke with a "hmph" puts on his earphones that were attached to his cellphone so he can listen to his playlist of classical European music from Beethoven to Mozart to Tchaikovsky.
"Hey Sakura, my mom's hosting my birthday this weekend, you should come over!" Karin Uzumaki removes her glasses and pouts her lips, as she sweetly invites her for her birthday party.
"Geez Karin you don't need to act all 'cutesy' to make me go somewhere when you know the answer is yes." Sakura irritably answers her. At hearing her confirmation, Karin's expression turns ecstatic and then tells her to wear something nice but not too casual this coming weekend.
"Great, and just so you know Sasuke will be there too." Karin leaves her with a knowing smirk.
Saturday comes and she's the first one to arrive at Karin's birthday party, and is grabbed by the arm to Karin's bedroom. When she goes inside the red head's room, Sakura instantly knew what needed to be done. Which was to help Karin get ready for the party.
"What will make you stand out the most?" Sakura looks through her closet of designer clothes until she hit the jackpot. She took out an unsaturated red tube dress that reached mid-thigh with a black denim jacket to go on top of.
"This will do, it compliments your hair and eye color!" Sakura hands the outfit to Karin and then turns around so she can slip her clothes on.
When she was done changing, she found Karin looking in the mirror with a sad look. "Do you think Sasuke will notice me like this?" She's been having a crush on him since they were in Oto high school but, things recently started to get complicated with their long time mutual friend Suigetsu Hozuki; who's also known to quarrel with Karin a lot. She also wasn't oblivious of Sakura's crush on Sasuke either, even if the pinkette doesn't know it herself.
"It doesn't matter how you look for him Karin, no one knows what his tastes are." She honestly answers, because it was hard for nearly anyone to guess what Sasuke is up to most of the time, aside from his close friends. 'I'd be more worried about Suigetsu not keeping his eyes off of you.' She quietly thinks to her self.
"Don't make this night about impressing him." She gently rests her palm on Karin's right shoulder.
When the house became too crowded for Sakura's liking, she decided to take a seat inside the gazebo of Karin's backyard. Aside from knowing Karin, nearly all the party guests were from said girl's high school called Oto High which was located in downtown Tokyo; plus most of them intimidated the crap out of Sakura. Basking in the fresh night air she closed her eyes and let her body absorb the cool summer wind.
"I thought I'd find you here." Sasuke's voice startles her out of her reverie and causes her to open her eyes only to see that he was taking a seat next to her. She couldn't help but admire his choice of clothing for the evening. Wearing a navy blue collar shirt with the sleeves rolled half way up - exposing his muscular arms.
"Hey." Sakura politely acknowledges him, wondering if he came to return the book he borrowed from her - ironically the book she's had for years in her home, but never finished reading it.
He takes out the hard copy of The Chamber by American author John Grisham from his black satchel and hands it over to Sakura, "It's a pretty decent book, I'm surprised you haven't read it yet." It had everything Sasuke loved to read about; suspense, history, politics, and a thorough examination of America's horrible legal system. Not to say that he loved America's justice system, he is actually appalled by it, from its prevalent racism, gender biases in careers, its lack of healthcare, the amount of countries it destroyed, he hated all of it.
"I'm not quite fond of America's justice system Sasuke, even my dad thought it could've been written better so I chose not to bother after chapter 4." She dryly tells him, which made him smirk a little. "Can't argue with that." He agrees with her while taking a good look at her. The sight of her sitting in the gazebo with that faraway look as she looks upwards toward the star-filled night sky would be the perfect inspiration for a painter or a photographer. Her long pink hair was let loose, her sea green eyes sparkled in the dark, and her choice of clothing was lovely as well, Sasuke observes her admiringly. She chose to wear a white frock that reached mid leg, and a pastel pink chiffon cardigan.
"What is it Sasuke?" She caught him staring at her, feeling genuinely confused, because he never looked at her like that before.
"Nothing Sakura." He gives her a gentle smile, that reminded her of the one her father would give to her mother.
Perhaps she'll finish reading The Chamber.
"You want me to do what with you?" He asks her amused, this was just too good to hear from her.
"You heard me loud and clear Sasuke, would you like to go out with me tonight, you know..to hangout?" Sakura asks with her arms crossed, a faint blush decorating her cheekbones.
"Alright," He fake surrenders with his hands up, "I'll see you at 7 at my place, oh and Sakura…" He walks close to her until there's very little space between them and boldly pecks her forehead where her purple diamond tattoo was, and whispers "Thank you." With that said, he goes off to class leaving Sakura with her heart beating fast as she replays the kiss on her forehead.
"Wait, thee Sakura is taking you to the movies?" Sasuke's mom Mikoto Uchiha, eggs her son to tell. "Yes okasan, it's her - hold on," He paused as his cheeks darken a little bit, "how do you know her name?" He never recalled sharing her name to anyone in his family, just vague information that she's a medicine student and came from Okinawa.
"I heard you whisper 'Sakura' in your sleep, when I came to wake you up from your power nap." She wickedly grins at him, causing heat to reach at the back of his neck, now hoping his father won't walk in, in the middle of this conversation.
Just as the clock went 7:00 pm, the doorbell of the house rung. Faster than lightning, Mikoto opens the door with a smile and is delighted to see a pink haired maiden with green eyes in front of her.
"You must be Sakura! Please do come in." The elder woman grabs the younger one by the elbow to pull her inside.
Remembering her manners, Sakura clears her throat and with a traditional bow she says "Konbanwa Uchiha-san, I am a close friend of your son, and I would like to take him out to the movies with me. Rest assured, I will not take any advantage of making him pay for the two of us just for the sake of traditional gender roles, I will -"
"She gets the point Sakura." Sasuke comes right next to her as he helps her straighten her back to stand up.
"Well you sure are a chivalrous woman." The ebony haired woman chuckles at the slightly nervous young lady standing next to her son. "I mean you're both adults, so I don't see the point of you asking for my permission. Just don't get lost in any alleyways." She jokingly says a little bit. 'It's not everyday a girl comes to me to ask Sasuke out on a date.' She thinks to herself amused. 'Just friends. I see, as if I was born yesterday.'
"Have fun kiddos!" She sees them go out the door, and once their gone she feels her body relax and with a loud voice, "You can come out now Fugaku."
"So that was Sakura." Fugaku walks next to his wife with a mini smirk forming on his usually serious face. "I never expected her to be so unique."
"Neither did I dear." She agrees as she rests her head on his shoulder.
Sakura couldn't contain her excitement, ever since her self-discovery of having feelings for Sasuke, she's been wanting to see if he might also like her beyond friendship. She was tempted to grab his hand and hold it firmly in her's, but she didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable as she fails to not reach for his hand before he caught her.
"What are you doing?" He whispers so the other occupants in the cinema wouldn't hear him.
"Just stretching." She answers in a steady tone.
"Is that so?" He comes near her ear as his breath tickles when he adds, "is it not because you want to hold my hand, like lovers do?" He further agitates her until she aggressively grabs his much larger hand and grips it in her smaller one. "Yes. Yes Uchiha Sasuke I like you a lot and I would love for us to be real lovers." She confesses to him. "However, I won't force you to be in a relationship just because I wish it. We can continue on as friends and forget this entire conversation." She stiffly finishes and tries to let go of his hand but Sasuke unexpectedly tightens his hold on her.
"We'll talk it through when the movie is done." He tells her without turning to her. They resume to watch the rest of the Batman movie in silence.
When the movie finished, Sasuke without hesitation offers his hand to Sakura which she takes and leads them outside the cinema.
"We're going back to my place." Sasuke leads them to the train station, "Don't ask any questions."
After 40 minutes, they arrive to his fancy neighborhood while holding hands. Once their in front of his door, he rings the bell and was surprisingly welcomed inside by his father.
"Come in you two." Fugaku gives a small grin at the two of them.
"I have something important to tell you and mom." Sasuke says loud enough so his mom can come out of the kitchen, which worked because she arrives to stand next to her husband.
"As of today Sakura and I will begin to date." He says it so bluntly that Sakura's eyes widen like saucers at him. 'How is he saying this all with a straight face?' Her heart thumps loudly at Sasuke's reciprocation of her feelings.
"We're happy for you son." Fugaku pats Sasuke on his left shoulder with a proud smirk on his face.
"How about you stay the night with us Sakura-chan? It's almost midnight anyway." Mikoto side glances Sasuke with a knowing grin 'you brought her home so she wouldn't leave, you're not that slick Sasuke.'
"Arigato-gozaimasu Uchiha-san, I'll be gone by morning." Sakura promises, even though she could've called a taxi to drop her at her 1 room apartment.
"You can sleep on Sasuke's bed for the night, and he'll sleep on a futon. Sound good to you kids?"
"Yes ma'am." Sakura agrees with the conditions.
When they arrive in Sasuke's bedroom, Sasuke hands her a disposable tooth brush and a pair of black trousers and shirt to wear.
When it was time to sleep, Sasuke gently pulls Sakura down next to her on his futon and they just stare eye to eye for a long time. An old habit of their's. Not before long Sasuke caresses her cheek and leans closer to her until she places her lips on his. The kiss was tender, romantic, and longing with love.
Before things would go out of hand, Sasuke reluctantly pulls back and pecks her forehead before saying "Goodnight." As he urges her to lie down on his bed at the same time he lies on his futon.
This was just the beginning of a new chapter for the both of them.
