Dubious revisions made 11/23/2013.

Please don't take this story seriously.

Hinata was startled from her sleep when someone opened the dorm room door. She bolted upright in her bed, almost giving her roommate a heart attack. "W-what time is it?" she shrieked.

Tenten patted her heart to make sure it was still going as she closed the door behind her. "It's a little past twelve thirty. Why?"

Bright sunlight streaming in through the window, the noise of people moving about in the hallway, and her cellphone's clock confirmed it. Hinata dissolved into quiet hysterics, curling up into fetal position on her bunk bed. From her desk on the floor, Ino craned her neck to stare up at her roommate.

"Hinata, what is up with you?"

"I missed my Poli Sci lecture," Hinata explained in between sniffles. "I – feel – terrible! OhwhatamIgoingtodo I've violated the social contract between student and teacher I'm such a horrible person I'll never pass now oh whyyyy – "

Ino shook her head in disbelief and returned back to her laptop, wondering if Hinata realized that the blonde herself was ditching class at the moment and suffering no such moral qualms.

"Hinata…" Tenten tried, grabbing the books she'd returned for and quirking an eyebrow, "you know that your professor probably won't even notice you're missing, right?...I mean, it is a pretty big class, isn't it?"

Hinata lifted her tearstained face from her pillow and blinked. "Oh. You're right."

Her brunette friend sighed and left the room, shaking her head. Ino tapped away at her keyboard.

After a bit, Hinata scrambled down the bunk bed ladder and left the room, heading for the bathroom. It kind of amazed her (and her friends) that she had gotten over her college's bathrooms being gender neutral, but somehow she had grown used to greeting Lee in the bathroom as he scrubbed his teeth to blindingly white (perfect for striking nice guy poses), tiptoeing around Sai washing paint from his pale hands, and avoiding the notorious standing stall like the plague.

As she put brushed her teeth and eyed her unfortunately tangled hair in the mirror, she wondered thoughtfully what she should do with herself now that she had missed her lecture. It was a strange feeling, not attending class, and was probably one of the worst things Hinata had ever done in her life.

She giggled, feeling naughty, then immediately regretted it when Shikamaru walked in to wash his hands, giving her a weird look.

A little more careful of herself after that, she spat out toothpaste and went about rinsing her mouth. Maybe she should do some chemistry review with Ino, if her blonde roommate was willing, or go and actually eat lunch before class for once, or go over some of her notes –

Hinata's soul froze. Notes! How was she going to get notes for her missed lecture? She usually attended that class alone, having found no one with the same schedule and preferring to remain alone and undistracted anyway. She paled to think how her grade would suffer, and started to hyperventilate again into what Tenten called her "irrational panic" mode.

Then someone emerged from one of the showers, walking past the sinks on his way out. He was only wearing boxers and had a towel thrown over his shoulder and was dripping water everywhere. Perfect abs, messy dark hair, intimidating black eyes, regal bone structure – recognition dawned on Hinata. "Sasuke!" she squeaked before she could stop herself.

The young man stopped and stared at her, shower basket bumping against his leg. "What?" he responded, slowly.

Hinata was horrified at herself for initiating this conversation, but it was too late. She had just remembered that Sasuke, her floormate, shared the same class as she did. He would always intentionally come late to choose his own seat and avoid fawning girls, usually a few rows in front of her. Hinata, whose eyes were keener than the typical person's and tended to inadvertently wander, had noticed that he took fewer notes than others, often leaning on one elbow and looking bored as Professor Hatake explained neorealist theories of the end of the Cold War versus constructivist ones.

But it was better than nothing. And she had to have those notes! Even if he wouldn't take his eyes off her bedhead!

"Could I see your notes on Hatake's lecture from today?" she found herself asking, a pleading look in her lavender eyes.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, tired eyes looking faintly amused. "What's this, Hyuuga Hinata missing a day of class?"

"I overslept," she said miserably. "Please, can I see them? I'll return them to you as soon as I can, I promise."

Sasuke eyed her sweatpants decorated with Disney characters and shrugged. "Sure. Come by my room later."

He shuffled out of the bathroom, rubbing his wet hair and flicking water everywhere.

Hinata threw water in her face, wondering why he had been staring at her so intently. Then Kiba walked in with Akamaru, the dog he had smuggled into his room, and announced his intentions of potty-training him in the big stall and she forgot all about it.

After changing out of her pajamas, Hinata made her way down the hallway towards her destination. She had Sasuke's room number memorized, mainly because of her four month long crush on his rambunctious roommate that had lasted until Naruto asked Sakura out. Not that the introverted Hyuuga had ever actually gone in there.

She knocked on the door, warily eyeing the pictures of half-naked women pinned to it (drawn courtesy of Sai for Naruto's enjoyment), and waited.

The door was opened a moment later by Sasuke, who had put on pants and was fitting his arm into the sleeve of a shirt. "One second," he said, standing aside. "Come in."

Hinata was surprised to find herself stepping in. She supposed she would be more worried if there weren't so many rumors that Sasuke was as asexual as Sai. Somehow she didn't believe it, but felt Sasuke was unlikely to take advantage of her. She probably wasn't even his type.

What was more distracting was the wasteland she'd just walked into. The floor was strewn with dirty clothes, books, and discarded plastic ramen bowls. The lower bunk bed was unmade and had papers all over it. There was a creepy pile of socks in the corner that smelled like goats. What she assumed to be Sai's desk even could use a little cleaning up; parchment rolls thronged all over the surface and a drying ink brush lay quiescent on his chair. The only haven of cleanliness was the desk that Sasuke was currently walking towards, navigating the dirty floor like a pro.

While Sasuke rifled through his papers, Hinata glanced around curiously. The walls on the right were covered with Sai's drawings; on the left, there was a bureau with a family picture on it. Hinata blinked when she realized it was Sasuke's.

He had been adorable as a kid.

"Here you go," Sasuke said finally, coming up with two pages of notes. His black eyes fixed on her looking at his photograph.

Hinata's eyes dropped to the floor, blushing that she had been caught, and accepted the papers. "Thank you," she said. "I'm – really sorry for the trouble!"

"It's not a problem," Sasuke said with a sigh, seating himself at his desk and nudging aside from candy wrappers on the floor. "See you around."

Hinata tiptoed out, kicking aside some of Naruto's wifebeaters on her way to the door.

Later, Hinata was transcribing Sasuke's scrawling notes onto her laptop. Like she had thought, he only wrote down the most salient points; concise, but well-worded. Interestingly enough, he also had a penchant for drawing things in the margins.

There was a picture of a duck with a sword; a stick figure Sasuke kicking stick figure Naruto in the junk; clouds shaped like tomatoes; and scribblings about his observations of people around him. He was quite perceptive, though one had to expect that from him.

Most of his scribbles said things like "wish the girl two seats down would wear underwear" or "guy in front of me has a crush on Hatake" but one caught her attention. It looked like a list. As she read, her eyes narrowed in puzzlement.

Sasuke had wrote:

Uchiha Ino?

Uchiha Karin?

Uchiha Tenten?

Uchiha Sakura?

Uchiha Temari?

Uchiha Ayame?

Next to each of these unsettling names were a few remarks.

'too blonde / would have an affair with shikamaru'

'glasses'

'tomboy. into neji'

'hell no'

'we would murder each other'

'our kids would smell like ramen'

Hinata stared in confusion. But in the corner of the margin, underlined several times, was a name: 'Uchiha Hinata'

She felt faint.

What did that even mean?

Why would he leave that in his notes? Did he just forget about them? Why was he attaching his surname to all these females and creepily analyzing their flaws?

More importantly, why was her name underlined?

Most people (Hinata included) knew Uchiha Sasuke as an unreadable genius, stoic yet devastatingly handsome. Of all the people on her floor, he was the one she least spoke to; usually, they only interacted when their floor hung out as a group. He would walk with Naruto and utter dry one-liners while ignoring the adoring looks of passing females, and hold intense debates with Neji about neuroscience. He was always the designated driver when the group went to a bar, and since Hinata didn't drink, on the way back to the dorm sometimes they'd have fascinating arguments about politics that she always wished lasted longer than the drive back. Beyond that, though, they really didn't talk.

But this…this was weird and whimsical and made Hinata realize that there was an entire new dimension to his character.

Sasuke was a daydreamer.

He had been imagining himself married to different girls…and she had been his top choice.

Hinata turned a burning, furious red. She grabbed the notes, found Sai, and dumped them on him, mumbling in a rush "givethesebacktoSasuketellhimthanks" before speeding back to her room to put her head under a pillow.

She never did finish copying his notes.

Sasuke was quiet, but spent a lot of time absorbing the actions of people around him. So when Hinata started avoiding him more than usual (and if she did see him, she would be hiding her feverishly blushing face behind an upside down textbook), he was a little curious as to why.

Kiba - one of Hinata's closer male friends - didn't know when Sasuke asked, and started to get suspicious of his intentions when he questioned further. And if Kiba knew something was up, then he definitely couldn't ask Shino – he was about twenty times more perceptive than the Inuzuka.

So when she approached him at his brother's twenty-fourth birthday party, dressed in a sleeveless lavender evening dress and long hair spilling over white shoulders, he had to say he was surprised.

"Hi, Sasuke," Hinata giggled, putting her hand on his shoulder. Sasuke noticed the near-empty champagne flute in her hand and wondered who had let her get near the alcohol.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, eyeing her swaying feet.

"Your father and mine," Hinata hiccupped, "are thinking of merging companies. Isn't that dandy?" She laughed. "Dandy. That's a silly word."

Sasuke rolled his eyes and took the champagne glass from her. So she was a giggly drunk. He never would've guessed.

Well, this was as good a situation as any to figure out what was going on with her, he decided. Good thing she was such a lightweight. No wonder she never drank when the floor group went out.

"So why have you been avoiding me?"

Hinata blinked slowly at him. "Because, Sasuke, I know."

His aunt was calling him from across the decorated garden but he ignored her. "Know what, Hinata?"

The petite girl smiled widely and fixed his collar. "But it's okay, because I've started to think that I could like you too."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sasuke grew increasingly alarmed. No one was supposed to know about his secret crush on the Hyuuga girl! Not only was it embarrassing (if Naruto found out, he would never let him hear the end of it), but the young man who knew four languages fluently and could run a mile in four minutes had no idea how to express her feelings to her. At all.

Only Orochimaru had found out his secret, and everyone knew what had happened to him.

Sasuke really liked keeping things close to the belt.

"You're so handsome, no one's going to deny that," gushed Hinata, talking like she hadn't heard him. "But you're not dense like Kiba or passive like Shino. You could – you could really take care of me, and not talk my ear off in the process…y'see, that's why I can't be with Naruto or Ino…"

Sasuke tried to ignore these rising revelations of Hinata's sexuality and poked her in the cheek. "Seriously, Hinata, how did you find out? You weren't…supposed to," he finished lamely.

"Oh," Hinata waved her hand around, "don't you worry your pretty head about it. Haha."

One final drunken sway and she fell heavily against him. Sasuke breathed in vanilla and peonies and blinked as she wound her arms around his neck.

"But one thing, Sasuke," she murmured breathily into his ear, "if we do get married, I'm keeping my last name."

Then abruptly she fell asleep, head lolling on his shoulder.

With a sigh, Sasuke wrapped his arms around Hinata's waist and pulled her over to a lawn table. He sat down in a chair and put her next to him, leaning on his side, and stared at her peaceful, sleeping face.

Then he realized what she was talking about.

His notes.

"Oh, shit."

This started off a lot better in my head.

Might continue this. College stories are always fun to write.