Even behind the fall of dark bangs shielding his eyes, Sascha could see the woman's unwavering stare. She certainly seemed like a quiet one, though her gaze on him was anything but shy and demure. Sascha was used to getting appraising looks from people- not that he was particularly vain, but fact was fact, and he knew for a fact that he was somewhere on the attractive end of the spectrum- but there was something about the intensely hopeful look in her eyes that made him realize she wasn't interested for the reasons he'd first assumed. So why was she so interested, then?

When he spoke to her, she turned away as if to avoid looking at him. Sascha wasn't sure if he'd said anything to offend her (and he'd said very little as it was), but she was obviously upset nonetheless. At this point in their interaction, he saw only two logical responses: 1) play the oblivious desk clerk and check out the materials as requested with no questions asked, or 2) be a compassionate gentleman and see if there was something he could do to resolve her distress. He decided to try his hand at both.

"Did you say sharks?" he asked with a friendly smile, gathering up the materials in his hands and setting them down on the counter with a fwump. "Haven't heard that one before. Does that mean you're used to biting off more than you can chew?" Yes, he knew it was horribly cheesy, but he'd hoped it would be enough to bring just a tiny smile to her face. She was a very pretty girl (and Sascha had seen a lot of pretty girls, so he was a decent judge) and probably even prettier when she smiled, although he had yet to see it.

Sascha gingerly took the books from her arms and added them to the pile on the counter before turning back to her, and in a rather bold move, he reached out to carefully tuck a long strand of hair behind her ear and out of her face. "That's fine, I'll get everything fixed up for you. Is that all?" He figured that asking if she was alright would have been too cliched; she could evade that line of questioning with a simple 'yes,' anyway. Even in her introverted mode, she still seemed to be searching his eyes with her own as if she expected him to recognize-

Ah, now he understood. Sascha almost wanted to smack his forehead with his palm, but he restrained himself; instead, he cocked his head slightly to one side in curiosity. "I get the feeling I must remind you of someone, miss," he said simply as he waited for a reply.