Chapter Text
The hush of the library was only enough to take Itto’s voice down one notch.
“Hey! You’re the TA for my chem class, right?” He tried to whisper. Maybe it was only a half notch.
Sucrose looked up in surprise, head whipping around trying to find the target of that loud voice. A quick survey showed she was the only person around besides the loud and smiling Itto.
“Me?” She pointed to herself.
“Yeah! Sucrose, right? I’m Itto!”
He plopped himself down in the chair across the table from her, swinging his backpack up to immediately unpack notebooks and pens.
“It’s great I ran into you. I totally missed office hours and I am so lost on this last assignment.”
Sucrose just sat, pen hanging limply in her grip, unable to comprehend what to do in this situation.
He flipped a paper on top of her own stack of books, pointing aggressively to some nearly illegible writing.
“See here? I just can’t get this formula right!”
“Is this… Is this the assignment from last month?”
Itto nods enthusiastically. “I never finished it so I haven’t turned it in.”
“I think it’s too late to turn it in now. It’s past the deadline.” Sucrose tried handing the paper back to Itto, but he had his arms firmly crossed over his chest and a smug smile on his face.
“Nuh uh, my good ol’ buddy ol’ pal Dr. Baizhu gave me an extension.”
The paper fluttered uselessly back to the table as Sucrose’s eyes went wide. Dr. Baizhu was a notoriously strict professor. For anyone to get an extension…
“How,” was all she managed.
Itto tipped his chair back, rocking on only two legs as he continued to smile.
“Turns out the good professor himself was also a star catcher on his university baseball team. So, he’s taken quite a liking to me,” he proudly proclaimed.
Sucrose was in some state of shock. First, the loudest student on campus interrupted her in the library, and then, Dr. Baizhu was picking favorites?
Something didn’t add up, but she decided she would check that math in the future, next time she saw Dr. Baizhu himself. As his research assistant, and teacher’s assistant, she knew the professor closely, and had seen many students crying over his ‘no late work, no exceptions’ policy.
“Well, can you help me?”
Her eyes snapped back to the paper now in Itto’s hand, waving around and flapping in her face. She snatched it back from him, and took only a second to determine he had been using the completely wrong equation.
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Her backpack smacked into it’s spot on the kitchen chair with a satisfying thud of finality. It may be way too late to be out studying, but it didn’t stop Sucrose’s pre-law roommate Yanfei from having her own nose buried in a textbook while absentmindedly stirring a mostly boiled to nothing soup.
Yanfei finally looked up at the sigh Sucrose heaved, one eyebrow up in a question.
“Yes, it was that kind of day, but worse!” Sucrose replied.
A book mark was neatly placed in the pages, and the textbook set neatly to the side. Yanfei finally turned off the burner to the stove, and turned her full attention to her friend.
“Spill,” she demanded.
“I guess it wasn’t all that different from normal. Graded a thousand papers, wrote a thousand papers, and only had about twenty minutes in the lab.”
“Time in the lab, eh? Was Albedo there today?” Yanfei’s eyebrows danced across her forehead suggestively, earning a scornful look from Sucrose.
“It’s not like that! I just really respect his work!”
“Okay, so if it’s not him, then it must be someone else. Schoolwork alone never flusters you like this.”
Sucrose flushed a bright pink.
Got ‘em, Yanfei thought to herself.
“Do I smell food?”
Mona’s head peeked around the corner, eyes already zeroed in on the stove.
Yanfei gestured to the pan of murky soup. “Something like that. Help yourself.”
Bowl in hand, Mona looked straight at Sucrose, eyes seeing far too much written on her blushing face.
“Not your usual type, huh,” she observed. “I thought it would be one of those quiet bookish types.”
Yanfei’s head swiveled back and forth between her two roommates. “How?”
“It’s all over her face. She’s a Sagittarius,” was all Mona explained.
“Okay, so for those of us still in the dark, my dear Sucrose, can you please explain to me what I’m missing?”
Sucrose felt her face grow even hotter. This was not the conversation she wanted to be having at midnight with her roommates. Sure, most girls her age probably talked about boys with their friends at midnight all the time. But it was more normal for her to share study tips, relaxing tea blends, and interesting academic tidbits with her friends.
“It’s just,” she began, fingers twisting in knots, “just one of my students found me in the library today. He was very insistent about getting my help on an assignment.”
The sharks smelled blood in the water.
“He,” Yanfei started.
“Insistent?” Mona continued.
“No, no, not in a bad way! He was very friendly, I’m just not used to someone so popular talking to me.”
The sharks circled closer.
“Popular,” Yanfei started.
“Friendly,” Mona continued.
“Who,” they simultaneously demanded.
“He’s in the bio class I assist in, with Dr. Baizhu. I agreed to help tutor him.”
Yanfei and Mona shared a look.
“A name, please, I have to know.” Yanfei sighed. “You’ve never agreed to help tutor anyone before. You’ve always been too busy.”
“What is this? An interrogation?”
Mona straightened up and explained, “Well, you said he was friendly and insistent. We have to make sure it isn’t some creep.”
Sucrose sighed again, the white flag waving in the wind of her friends’ care and logic. “Itto,” she squeaked.
Another look exchanged between the other two. “Wait, like Itto from the baseball team, or…?” Yanfei trailed off.
“Itto from the baseball team,” Sucrose conceded.
“Mona. Instagram,” Yanfei ordered.
Two phones were immediately whipped out. Yanfei pulled open her messaging app, scrolling until she hit the right thread. “I have to text Kazuha.”
“No, please, it isn’t that big of a deal,” Sucrose pleaded.
Yanfei nodded. “We know. We’re still going to involve ourselves because we’re you’re friends and we’re excited you’re making room in your life for another living breathing person.”
“It’s just to help tutor him!”
Yanfei and Mona exchanged another look.
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Sucrose was at her usual little table in the corner of her usual cafe, when two shadows crossed her textbook. Looking up, her eyes landed on a grinning Itto, and an apologetic looking Kazuha. He shrugged as if to say, yes, Yanfei put me up to this.
They slid into the booth seat across from her, Itto already rummaging through his backpack as Kazuha asked “Mind if we join you?”
Sucrose could only nod, unsure if her voice would betray her anxiety in any social situation. Luckily, Itto could talk enough for three people.
“These midterms are gonna kill me! We have a road game this weekend, too, and coach has been pushing us extra hard. Kazuha said he knows your roommate. You guys should come to a game sometime! It would totally be fun! Oh, that trick you showed me for remembering that formula worked great! Look!”
A paper was thrust in front of her face, a red B- circled at the top.
“That’s the best grade he’s gotten since gen eds,” Kazuha explained.
Sucrose took in a sharp breath, eyes snapping to Itto’s face to confirm the truth.
Still smiling, Itto went on, “It’s true. I’m not really that great at school.” He chuckled and nudged Kazuha. “But that’s okay, because I’m the best - and I mean numero uno - on the team as the home run leader!”
Kazuha moved limply against each elbow into his ribs, a bland look on his face. “You won’t be if your grades keep slipping and you get benched.”
“Hey! That’s why Sucrose is tutoring me!”
“Did she actually agree to it? Or did you just never give her a second to say no?”
“I-!”
“It’s okay!” Sucrose cut in. “I-I don’t mind.”
Kazuha studied her for a moment, observing her stack of notebooks and textbooks, and an older laptop covered in chemistry related stickers. “If you’re sure. But if you get too busy or if he gets too annoying just tell him to scram.”
“I won’t bother her! I promise! I actually worked really hard on that assignment she tutored me on already!”
Sucrose nodded as he defended himself. “It’s true,” she said with a small smile. “He was very studious.”
“Ya’ hear that, Kazuha? I’m studious.”
He beamed with pride like he had just won an award. Kazuha just rolled his eyes.
“Well, I have to get to class and be studious myself. Sucrose, thanks for helping him. See you around,” Kazuha said with a wave as he stood and left the cafe.
Awkwardness bubbled in Sucrose’s chest as the situation of being alone with Itto struck her.
Did he have to look at her so directly? And be so big and imposing?
She shuffled some of her papers anxiously, clearing her throat and hoping some socially adept divine intervention would strike her like lightning.
“I should really get going, I have to check my experiments in the lab.”
That was a bunt.
“Oh yeah of course! Hey, could I actually get your help again on this new assignment?”
He was quieter now, almost shy, if it were possible for him to be any shade of bashful.
“Um, I’m having trouble with how Baizhu explains topics sometimes.” His smile was a touch sheepish.
Sucrose already felt herself nodding, a response she hadn’t had time to think through. She took a deep and steadying breath to reply, “You can come to the lab later tonight and I’ll help you while I work, too.”
Itto’s grin split across his face again, eyes crinkled shut by the force of it. “Great!”
“Great,” Sucrose parroted.
“Uh, if it’s okay, could I give you my number so you can text me where to go and when?” He shifted in his seat, cheeks dusted pink.
She nodded, her own face feeling hot. He pulled a sticky note pad out of his backpack, the paper a bright neon blue. His pen quickly moved across the square.
He thrust the paper at her, moving to stand at the same time. “Here. I’ll, uh, see you around.” His pitch trailed off, somewhere between a question and a statement, pink to the tips of his ears.
And then he was gone, Sucrose sat alone, face frozen and a slip of paper with the phone number to the hottest guy she’d ever met in her hands.
She pulled out her phone, too stunned to begin adding him to her contacts, she slipped the now folded sticky note between her phone and it’s case. The hastily drawn smiley face showed through its transparent material.