Erm, actually...
Academic rival!Senku x gn!Reader
note: Academic rival Senkuu save me from this writing block!!! Academic rival Senkuu you're my only hope! I hope I didn't write him too ooc.
“Sir, is it true that biologically, our brain processes hate and love in a very similar way?”
Neurology and the study of the brain was always your favorite topic in biology class. And you weren’t afraid to make it clear to everybody else by asking an ungodly amount of questions. Was it obnoxious? Absolutely. Did you care? Not one bit.
But your classmates were used to it now. Yeah, you might have been annoyingly nerdy, but you made up for it by always helping the struggling students, and asking the teachers for favors for the whole class because you knew they were less strict with you. It was an unsaid pact of mutual respect respected by the whole class. Almost the whole class.
“That’s a good ques-…” the teacher began his explanation before he was interrupted.
“I think what you mean is passion. Both feelings can be described by extreme passion. That being said. Love and hate are two different things based on what you choose to define them as. Familial love? National love? Self love? Sexual love? All have their own separate words that should be used instead. Many of which in extreme forms become unreasoned and ambivalent like word passion.”
You sighed. The overglorified headache, you had been cursing for years, decided to bless your day with his condescending once again. All hail the uncrowned king of ‘erm, actually…’! All unite under the flag of ‘no, because I read…’!
“Thank you Mr. Ishigami, but I believe I’m perfectly qualified to answer y/n’s question.” the teacher laughed. Of course he just laughed. What else could’ve he done when the guy was notorious for bringing back a prize from almost every competition he ever attended. He was untouchable by the teachers.
Ishigami Senku. The only guy in the class who refused to respect the unsaid pact. The guy who singlehandedly turned your teenage dream into a never ending, confidence destroying competition. The guy who always seemed to be just one step above you.
He was popular as well. While you were loved for your generosity and brains, he was surrounded by people swooning over him. I mean the guy was seriously hot. Not even you could deny it. The little smirk he did when he thought he won, the glint in his eyes looking down at you when you said something incorrect. Although they made your blood boil and your stomach shrink, there was something else to them too…
You often fantasied about finally defeating him. Where instead of his usual condescending attitude, you’d be the one looking down at him. You could almost see his beautiful red eyes looking up at you, eyebrows curling up pathetically, gaze begging for something, eyelashes stuttering as you run your fighters through his hair… HUH?! Where in the sweet and sour fuck did that came from?
“…I hope that answered your question.”
Oh shit you forgot to pay attention. Now you’d have to search it up once you get home. See, he was also ruining your ability to focus! He was clearly the worst! You knew he didn’t deserve the amount of time you spent thinking about him. So why? Why couldn’t you get him off your mind? Why was the stupid, childish competition between the two of you so important? Why were you always peeking over his shoulder to see if he got a better percentage than you?
You cared so much about his opinion you often overworked yourself. ‘I want to defeat him’ you told yourself but maybe in reality your goal was to impress him. Whatever the feeling was, staying in the library until closing time wasn’t an unusual act.
A warm tear ran down your face. You had been sitting in the library for hours working on an assignment you forgot about. You spent the whole afternoon studying for other tests until you suddenly remembered the assignment slipped your mind. A moment of panic washed over you but you quickly calmed yourself after realising it would take an hour max. Except it didn’t because your stupid computer broke and now it was slower than the principle’s speech on the last day of school.
You only had two hours before midnight and you were completely exhausted. You couldn’t handle the frustration and fear of failing, and your vision started to blur as your eyes filled with tears. You were so done with this. You wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep. But you couldn’T stop thinking about how Senku would react when he heard you failed. Would he laugh? Would he rub it in your face? Or would he just shrug and find a new rival? A smarter one? No you couldn’t let that happen!
You stared at your disgustingly slow computer’s loading symbol while wiping away the tears that just kept coming. Why wasn’t it WORKING?!
“Y/n? Don’t tell me you’re still working on that stupind assignment? I’ve already-… Are you crying?”
No no no no no no no!!! What was he doing there? Why did he have to come in right now? Why did he have to see the absolute mess you were?
“I’m not crying, it’s nothing.”
You did your best to hide the knot in your throat as you were speaking but it was painfully obvious. You didn’t dare look at him.
“If you think I’m going to leave you here to cry alone you’re wrong. So you either make it easier for the both of us and just tell me what’s going on or I’ll just stay here, annoying you.” You could hear his voice move closer until he was squatting next to your seat to catch your gaze. You were too tired to resist.
“I’m just frustrated. I want to sleep but I can’t finish my assignment because my dumbass computer refuses to cooperate on any level. Look, switching between open pages takes a minimum of 10 seconds. I would have already finished if it wasn’t for this shittery!” you burrowed your head in your hands and let out a shaky sigh. Why were you opening up to him of all people? All your remaining hope for comfort from him (which let’s be honest wasn’t much) was obliterated when you heard the sound of his chuckle.
“Oh, just a bug?” he snickered, “I thought it was something serious. Like someone was bullying you or a teacher was giving you a hard time.”
“Someone IS bullying me.” your gaze was ice cold but he just chuckled again.
“Yeah but I’m the only one allowed to do that. Now go wash your face, you look like a mess!” he smiled and flicked your forehead.
You grumbled but complied. Thankfully you had some make up remover in your bag so you had no trouble cleaning the smudged mascara off your face. Although your eyes were still noticeably red, you looked much more presentable. And you managed to calm down as well.
That was until you returned to your table and found Senku typing away on your computer.
“What are you doing?!”
“Calm down, I’m just looking through some programs running in the background. I’m trying to figure out what was slowing your computer down so much. Also I deleted some unimportant files that were also slowing it down. You’re welcome.”
“Huh?! Do not do that please? This is my computer and I am perfectly capable of doing that myself!”
“Relax, I’m not going through your personal stuff. Your love letters and fanfictions are safe.”
This was starting to get ridiculous. He had to be teasing you, there was no way he didn’t see a problem with going through your stuff.
“I have nothing like that on my computer!”
“Wouldn’t know. ‘Cause you know, I’M NOT LOOKING! But check this out, it’s already much faster.”
You stepped behind him and Senku could feel your hair tickling the side of his face as you looked over his shoulder. A shiver ran up his spine. To your surprise he was right, and your old laptop was working like a dream. You were just about to thank him when, with a few swift clicks, he turned it off.
“What are you doing?!”
Don’t worry, I saved your work.”
“That’s not the problem!” you scolded “Why did you turn it off? I was still working!”
“No the fuck you weren’t, it’s 10pm and we have school tomorrow. Go home and sleep!”
“Oh you’d love that, wouldn’t you. Watching me fail.”
You knew this was unfair to him, he was just trying to help in whatever fucked up way he could. But admitting you’re not resilient enough, you couldn’t finish it like he did was much harder than just being a prick.
He shut you up by stepping closer and holding your cheeks in his palm. His eyes kept contact with yours as you both flustered slightly. This was the closest he had ever been to you.
“Y/n. Nobody gives a shit. Go home and sleep, ok?”
The next day you were just as cranky. You were still tired and you couldn’t believe you let yourself be talked into quitting. That wasn’t something you do. It felt… like a betrayal. Like you took something you believed was a foundational part of your identity and just threw it out the window for it to perfectly fall on your ego and bruise it like it has never been bruised before.
Thankfully your teacher didn’t call you out in front of the entire class and Senku didn’t tease you about it either. So a naive part of you actually thought you could get away with it.
“Y/n! Ishigami! Can I talk to you for a moment?” the teacher called after you as you were leaving the classroom.
“It came to my attention that both of you failed to submit your assignments. Is there something going on I should know about?”
Wait a minute? Both of you? You looked at Senku who avoided your gaze. There was no way in hell he couldn’t finish his, in time. Did he seriously not hand it in just so you wouldn’t worry about your silly rivalry?
“We’re sorry Miss! We had a lot of tests this week and we didn’t have much time. It won’t happen again.” he explained.
You were speechless. Where did the ‘we’ come from? Why was he making excuses for you too? Your breath hitched as you got a glimpse of the slight smirk on his lips.
“Fine, because I know how active you guys are in my class, I'll make an exception. Upload your work until midnight okay? Oh and don’t tell the other students!”
You both expressed your gratitude in sync before scurrying out of the classroom. The walk to the entrance was awkward. His expression mirrored something akin to boredom which drove you crazy as you were still trying to figure out why he did that.
“Thank you…” you mumbled under your breath.
“What are you thanking me for?” he scoffed. “Do you really think I didn’t upload my work to help you save face? Pfff get over yourself!”
“No, idiot! I was thanking you for fixing my laptop yesterday!” nice save. “Wait a minute! Did you really not upload your work, to help me save face?” you laughed. Sure it was mean but one doesn’t just pass up a chance to tease the airtight Senku Ishigami.
“Are you dumb? I literally just said I didn’t do that!” he protested but the slight flush of his cheeks betrayed him. The slight flush of his cheeks from which you couldn’t tear your eyes away. The slight flush of cheeks which awakened a feeling in your stomach you were not quite ready to face yet.
You looked away and mumbled a quick “Whatever thanks i guess” before flying out the entrance and hurrying home.
It was no secret Senku was jealous of you. Not only were you irritatingly smart, generous, and popular because of the first two, but you also happened to be exactly his type. And you had the audacity to hate his guts. Seriously, how dare you?
But he couldn’t lie in some sadistic way he couldn’t get enough of your hate. The goal of defeating you gave him motivation to constantly improve and learn. And the sight of your pout when he got a higher percentage or a teacher praised him instead of you, never failed to draw the most annoyingly confident shit-eating smirk on his face.
So yeah, he wasn’t surprised you hated him and to be honest he hated you for being so perfect as well. And while the rivalry between you two pushed both of you to improve it also often resulted in harmful effects to your lives. Constant anxiety, self-doubt and most importantly a dreadful sleep-schedule.
After a long night spent studying, Senku could not concentrate to save his life. He usually liked that class and the teacher but he was constantly drifting off. He realised he missed something. Something elementary. Something obvious to anyone not half asleep. However the teacher’s-pet instincts kicked in and before he realised he asked a headache-inducingly stupid question.
“Ishigami for the love of god, it’s one thing to almost sleep in my class but you seriously interrupted to ask something this evident? It is so unlike you!”
What? Was he the… interruption? The distraction?
“I mean seriously, what were you doing yesterday that was so much more important than sleep?” he tried to sink into the ground as the teacher flew off the handle for absolutely no reason. “I swear you young people and your phone addict-…”
“Excuse me, Miss?” a hand rose in the air, “I didn’t quite understand what you were saying either. Could you explain it one more time?”
The class froze. It was clear to everyone that a question like this was beneath you both. They could tell Senku was sleep deprived, but you? Or were you lying to save his reputation? But why would you do that to your enemy?
“You too, y/n? Maybe I rushed over the topic too fast. I’ll explain it one more time but pay attention!”
Senku’s jaw was metaphorically on the floor. He was staring at you but he could tell you were lying. You completely understood everything, like you always did. You noticed him staring and with a quick shake of your head you scribbled something down on a piece of paper and threw it on his desk.
“Dude, I got you another explanation and you’re still not paying attention? You’re hopeless! >:c”
He couldn’t help but let out a quiet chuckle at the sight of your angry note.
The next months followed the same bizarre pattern. You and Senku fought endlessly for recognition, your brutal rivalry only intermitted to give a helping hand to one another once in a while. Yet you grew closer day by day until Senku became an integral part of your life.
“No, you’re not listening to me! “ you were walking out of the library side-by-side after a joke of a study session. “ ‘If you eat a lot of chocolate, you’ll get sick.’ This sentence is a first conditional because it’s likely to happen!”
It’s safe to say you were at your wit’s end. This argument was so dumb you couldn’t imagine how he managed to piss you off so bad, but it was in his nature. With him, you could turn the slightest disagreements into a full blown fight.
“I don’t know what you fatass, do in your free time but I’ve never eaten enough chocolate to actually feel sick. ‘If you ate a lot of chocolate you’d get sick.’ makes a lot more sense!”
“Who are you calling a fatass? Also not everything is about you! There are plenty of children who would eat chocolate until they throw up, if they could. We can assume a parent is saying this to their kid.”
“No.”
“No?
“No.”
“The fuck you mean no?”
“My version still makes more sense.”
You were about to fly, with a gorgeous fucking pirouette, off the handle when you noticed the slight smirk on the edge of his lip.
“You’re fucking with me.”
He couldn’t hide his smile anymore. The sight of his shit-eating grin made your blood boil and the only thought left in your brain was to wipe that fucker off his face. Looking back you had absolutely no idea what in tarnation compelled you to grab the collar of his shirt and shove him up against the wall behind him, but the second you saw the look on his face and felt his breath stutter, you knew you couldn’t stop.
Your mouth crashed into his, fingers aggressively tugging at his collar. His wide eyes and muffled yelp betrayed his surprise but it didn’t take him much time to adjust. The kiss was fast, rough and desperate. His hand was grabbing your waist, ass, thighs, pulling you closer like a drowning man fighting for fresh air, while your hand found its way into his hair, tugging on it, making him release ridiculous noises, to which you reacted with grinning into the kiss. Your other hand was still working on keeping him pinned against the cold, rough wall, refusing to give him control he was fighting so hard for.
The knowledge that you managed to reduce him into a flustered, desperate mess was driving him crazy. But you filled every one of his senses, he couldn’t concentrate on anything but the smell of your hair, the feel of your skin on his and the taste of your lips.
The frustration, which had been dwelling in both of you for quite a while, only made the kiss more passionate. Hate and love mixed in your movements, and all sober thoughts were thrown out the window. This was dumb, you both knew it, yet for some reason it felt so right!
When you finally pulled back, both of you just stared at each other completely dumbfounded, chests rising and falling together as you were trying to catch your breath. It didn’t take long, however, for Senku’s signature smirk to reappear. But it was different this time, his eyes stayed soft when looking at you. With a sigh you rested your forehead on his shoulder to cover your flushed face.
“Could you, just once in your life, keep your mouth shut?” you muttered.
“Don’t worry!” he chuckled, “I won’t tease you for this.”
It would be an exaggeration to say your relationship really changed after this. Your rivalry continued just as mercilessly as before, you’d still correct each other every given chance and you’d still rush to see who’s got a better percentage. And if one of you walked in with an obnoxious, deep-purple hickey one day, no one dared to question it.
