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If what she was seeing was really true—not just her eyes playing tricks on her—then it was Kira’s lucky day. A tall, model-beautiful girl with dirty blonde hair and a giant headset around her ears was sitting in her seat. She didn’t look the type to be a regular at the library, which was probably the reason she’s sitting in Kira’s seat—the seat she sits in every single day after school.
As she approaches her small table, she takes note of more interesting things about this stranger. She had two highlighters in her mouth and one behind both ears, all different neon colors. A loose-fitted Star Wars shirt hung off her shoulders and her grey sweatpants tucked unkempt into her blue Doc Martens. She was kind of threatening.
Hesitantly, Kira approached the girl jamming along to some very loud rock song and quietly cleared her throat. When the girl didn’t respond, she gently tapped her shoulder, but she still didn’t show any inclination that she heard Kira. So instead of wasting perfectly good study time, she sat down opposite of the seat she usually sat and opened up her chemistry notes.
Finally, the girl noticed Kira sitting there and took off her headphones, the glare burning into the side of Kira’s head.
"What are you doing at my table?" the girl said, much too loud for a library. "There’s not enough room for both of our stuff."
It was true, which was exactly why Kira claimed this table to set up her textbooks and homework. No one wanted to have a few square feet space to share with someone.
"It’s my table every other day of the week."
The girl rolled her eyes dramatically, not even attempting to hide her annoyance. Kira glanced across at the girl’s sloppy, colorful notes to see that her name was Malia. Kira didn’t think she was aware that you weren’t supposed to highlight every line.
"Look Malia, I’m not a mean person so I’m not going to ask you to get out of my seat, but this is my seat and—"
"There are no assigned seats in the library," she snapped, stuffing Cheetos into her mouth. For a moment, Kira was mesmerized at her red, heavily lipsticked mouth, but she quickly collected herself and shot back with another jabbing comment.
"Go to the front desk and ask the librarian herself. I sit at this table every day so." She was trying to be as assertive as possible, but it wasn’t really working. Malia was too intense to be intimidated by her small, soft voice.
"The only way I’m moving is if I’m dragged off of this seat by the librarian herself. And I don’t think she really cares."
For the rest of the afternoon, Kira and Malia shove each other’s notebooks off the table, Malia “accidentally” gets highlighter on Kira’s notes, and then Kira bluntly pulls on Malia’s headset so she could yell at her to move her giant book bag off her brand new shoes. It was slightly entertaining, but also an unhealthy form of procrastination. Most days, Kira was able to get almost all of her schoolwork done, but today she maybe got a page in of studying at least.
Kira stood up from the table to get an encyclopedia from the shelf, and when she got back, Malia and her things were gone. Perhaps she wanted to spare Kira the awkward goodbye and death threats, but Malia didn’t seem the type of person who would care how Kira felt. It was a little disappointing: Malia was seriously cute, but also way out of her league. Hopefully next time she saw her—if there ever was a next time—she wouldn’t be lounging at Kira’s seat with her feet resting on the table and a Harry Potter backpack taking up the only other empty space.
…
However, the next day the only thing at Kira’s usual table was highlighter streaks scribbled on the usually clean surface. Kira’s perfectionism got the best of her before she could get out her third textbook, and she pulled out the baby wipes she kept in her bag and cleaned it off. She was almost done getting rid of it when a familiar voice broke the nice silence of the library.
"You don’t like my drawings? I thought they were quite impressive." Although it was probably meant to be a joke, Malia seemed actually offended.
"Of course, vandalism is my favorite art form. It reminds me of Michelangelo," she said, pointing at the dicks Malia had drawn that were not yet erased.
"Oh my god I love Michelangelo! Maybe you’re not completely useless after all," Malia smiled, taking a seat at the other side of the table. So Kira was right: sarcasm was not in Malia’s repertoire.
"Riiiight."
Today, Malia a long ugly sweater hung over some movie t-shirt that Kira didn’t get the reference of. She couldn’t decide whether she always looked pretty and fashionable in an untraditional kind of way, or if her style was just childish. Kira opened up her chemistry textbook and attempted to study—for only a good five minutes thanks to Malia—before she gave up and closed it with a loud snap.
"Can you stop groaning? It’s getting on my nerves." Kira tried her best to keep eye contact with Malia, but her bright, intense brown eyes were admittedly a little discerning.
"NO," Malia yelled, earning more than a few stares from the other tables. Seeing Kira’s warning glare, she continued her explanation in a still slightly loud whisper. "I don’t understand any of this. Why is calculus so hard?"
She leaned over to look at her messy notes. They looked like the same ones from yesterday, but she managed to cover even more of the paper in highlighter streaks and pen than before. ”Maybe if you could see the actual problems you would do them correctly.”
Malia rolled her eyes dramatically. ”But I can’t understand it if it’s not color coordinated.”
"You can’t understand it at all now. I’m trying to do you a favor, so take my advice."
More people turned at the aggravated noises Malia was making, but she didn’t seem to notice or care. ”I don’t even know how to use the freaking mean value theorem.”
"It’s simple, Malia." Kira ripped out a lined paper from her notebook and copied down the steps from memory. "All you have to know is the steps and you’ll do fine."
She eyed Kira dubiously, reaching for a pencil to continue her homework on this new paper.
But when she grabbed a highlighter instead, that was the last straw.
"MALIA. Use. A. Pencil." Kira forcefully put her pencil into her hand and mimicked writing on the paper, just in case Malia still didn’t get it.
She raised her eyebrows.
“Highlighters are only for key points and titles and all that!"
She still looked confused, which was extremely cute. That reminded her that their hands were still clasped together, so she shook it off, fighting the blush creeping up her neck. There was no way Kira was going to let herself have a crush on this girl.
Nope.
No way.
"Do you think you can … help me with it? I’ve always wanted a tutor."
All the defenses came crashing down with one sentence, and there was no stopping her face from becoming beet red in seconds. This gorgeous, scary girl would be the death of her.
"Of course," Kira stuttered, silently cursing herself for being so easily impressed. "But not here at the library."
"Why?"
She rubbed her eyes sleepily. ”Because you are too loud. And you’ll be even louder when I try to teach you long division with polynomials.”
…
They agreed to meet outside Kira’s dorm. She is a year older than Malia, so they live on complete opposite sides of the campus. Although their dorms were pretty small and the hallways were loud—especially on Saturdays—it wasn’t completely out of the question to stay there instead of the vast, quiet library.
After a half hour of waiting for Malia to show up in the pouring rain, Kira gave up and headed back. Although she was disappointed, she wasn't surprised, that Malia didn’t show, secretly it gave her a good reason to stop crushing on her. Kira was so not Malia’s type; she probably liked partying, beautiful, sex-freaks, if she even liked girls at all. So maybe this was for the best.
But that all went to hell before she could even step through the front door.
"Hey!" Malia shouted, running towards her with her small backpack lifted over her head. "Are you trying to get out of our study date? Uh-huh not happening."
"Apology not accepted!" Kira yelled back, pointing out the drenched umbrella she was holding and her ruined shoelaces. She swiftly chose to ignore Malia’s comment about a "study date" because there was no point getting her hopes up for this girl. "Where have you been for the past half hour?"
"Uhm," Malia scrunched her nose, searching for an explanation that wasn’t there. "Class?"
Kira rolled her eyes. ”Are you coming or not? We don’t have much time because I have a class in an hour.”
Smiling wide, Malia nodded excitedly and followed her up the elevators into her room. Thankfully, Kira’s roommate spent most of her time in her boyfriend’s room, so it was usually peace and quiet just how she liked. Whenever she was actually here, she made a mess and it seemed like she made her weekly trip while Kira was out.
"Sorry about the mess," Kira apologized, nervously pushing all of the crap and dirty clothes into the closet. "It’s usually really clean and all—"
"Oh shut up its fine." She plopped down on her roommate’s mattress, obviously not in the mood for any sort of math or studying. "Can you turn on some music? I can’t think straight without it on."
It was the complete opposite for Kira: she hated music while she worked, with the special exception to the rule being Beethoven. But something told her that Malia wouldn’t like classical very much.
"Maybe you should get out your notebook first?" Kira snapped, wringing her damp hair with a hand towel. She desperately wanted to change out of her soaking wet dress and stockings, but after thinking about it, it wasn’t really appropriate. Especially when she had a huge crush on the girl who would be a couple feet away while she stripped naked.
"Come on Kira! Let me relax for a couple minutes. Is that so much to ask for?"
"I’m on a packed schedule here. You’re wasting your own time here."
Malia groaned so loud, Kira was again reminded why she chose to study here instead of the library. ”But I hate math!”
"Then why did you ask for my help?"
"Because." Her long black nail polished fingers fumbled with the peeling corner of Kira’s giant Star Trek poster. They obviously weren’t going to get anything done with this kind of procrastination coming from Malia. "Star Wars is better than Star Trek."
"Not a chance," Kira laughed, flipping through her textbook casually. "If there’s two things I know for sure it’s calculus and that Kirk and Spock are infinitely better than some Luke Skywalker trash—"
That got a pillow thrown to the head, which only made her laugh harder. ”You shut up!” Malia sassed, hanging upside down off the edge of the bed, her hair dangling in light brown curls to the floor. ”Star Wars is better and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”
"How about I’ll shut up if we actually get work done? I took this class last year and I aced it. I consider myself a qualified teacher for you."
"I have a better idea," Malia said, tying her hanging hair into a messy bun and flipping back over onto her stomach_. "Forget_ studying, let’s just make out."
"WHAT?" Kira felt her entire face go red, and the sweat already beginning to form underneath her armpits. She had no idea what this meant, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. "What are you talking about?"
"You know," Malia said in her usual chill and nonchalant manner, "kissy kissy and touchy touchy. Maybe a little hair tugging or foreplay if you’re into that."
Kira couldn’t believe this was happening. Things like this didn’t happen to girls like her; she didn’t get the princess. All she got was an A+ on her exams and a bunch of migraines despite the peace and quiet of the library all day long.
"Are you for real?"
Malia rolled her eyes dramatically and leaned up from her relaxed position to stare into Kira’s eyes. Standing up and closing in on her small, reserved body, Malia murmured, “Do I seem for real to you?”
Before she could respond anxiously to that, their lips touched, Malia’s soft and smelling of cherry lip balm. Kira couldn’t remember the last time she did this, but she didn’t even want to think about that.
Malia’s hand caressed her cheekbone, sending shivers down her spine. Although she had a class in who knows how long, that wasn’t relevant. Not when Malia was kissing her like this.
Soon, their shirts were on the floor and their fingers were in each other’s hair. ”I thought you wanted to study calculus or Michelangelo or something?” Malia laughed, leaning back with her legs straddled over Kira’s hips.
"Shut up," Kira sighed, pulling her back to her lips. They definitely weren’t getting any studying done today.