𝙋𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 : Kim Seungmin × afab!reader
𝙏𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙚 : Academic Rivals to lovers ; Slow burn
a/n: not really proud of this 💔
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First semester of senior year.
You and Kim Seungmin have been at war since the first day of freshman orientation.
It started with seating arrangements.
You sat in the front row of homeroom.
You both reached for the same pen when the teacher dropped a box of spares.
You both yanked back like you’d been electrocuted.
“Looks like we’ve got some healthy competition already.”
That was the beginning of the end.
Every group project that forced you into the same orbit.
You were always neck and neck.
He got 98 on the first math exam.
You won the English essay contest in sophomore year.
He won the debate tournament the same semester.
You both applied for valedictorian.
The teachers started joking that they’d have to flip a coin.
(You both secretly kept track of each other’s scores like it was a blood sport.)
Junior year, things escalated.
The biology teacher paired you for a semester-long dissection project.
You argued for forty-seven minutes about who would hold the scalpel first.
He called you “overly competitive.”
You called him “insufferably smug.”
You ended up with the highest grade in class.
He wrote “good job” on a sticky note and stuck it to your lab notebook when you weren’t looking.
You told yourself it was evidence.
Class president elections.
Scholarship applications.
College recommendation letters.
And the final, school-wide academic decathlon.
First place gets automatic full-ride consideration from three top universities.
The first study session is mandatory—teacher-assigned pairs for review.
You sit across from each other in the library after school.
Seungmin opens his notebook.
Then he says, without looking up:
“Your handwriting is still illegible.”
“Your personality is still insufferable.”
He smirks—tiny, barely there.
Your heart trips over itself.
You kick him under the table.
The study sessions become routine.
Every Tuesday and Thursday.
Same table in the back corner.
Same two iced Americanos (his black, yours with vanilla syrup).
Same routine: argue over every single answer, correct each other viciously, then quietly fix the mistakes when the other isn’t looking.
You start noticing things.
The way he pushes his glasses up when he’s concentrating.
The way he bites the end of his pen when he’s thinking.
The way his ears turn pink when you accidentally brush his hand reaching for the same highlighter.
You hate that you notice.
He starts noticing things too.
The way you hum under your breath when you’re focused.
The way you doodle tiny stars in the margins when you’re stuck.
The way your laugh—real laugh, not the polite one—sounds like music when you think no one’s listening.
He hates that he likes it.
One Thursday, two weeks before the decathlon:
You’re arguing about a literature question.
He says the theme is isolation.
You’re both too stubborn to admit it.
Your faces are inches apart.
He’s looking at your mouth.
The librarian coughs loudly from the front desk.
You both jerk back like teenagers caught in the janitor’s closet.
You look at your notebook like it personally offended you.
He speaks first—voice quieter than usual.
“You’re… really good at this.”
“At everything.” He shrugs, ears pink again. “You always have been.”
For once, neither of you looks away.
You’re both in the final two.
“In which novel does the protagonist say: ‘I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will’?”
Your hand slams the buzzer first.
“Jane Eyre,” you say clearly.
The room holds its breath.
Seungmin is already walking off stage—head down, shoulders tight.
You push through the crowd.
Catch him in the hallway outside the auditorium.
“Yeah. Just… congrats. You earned it.”
You step in front of him.
He still won’t look at you.
He finally meets your eyes.
You feel your throat close.
“I didn’t want to win like this,” you whisper. “Not if it meant you looked like that.”
“I’ve been trying to beat you for four years. And the one time I almost don’t care about winning… I still lose.”
“I don’t want to compete with you anymore.”
You reach up—slowly—cup his face with both hands.
“I want to be on the same team,” you say softly. “With you.”
You lean up on your toes.
Like you’re asking a question.
He answers by kissing you back—hesitant at first, then deeper, hands finding your waist like he’s been waiting four years to do it.
When you separate, foreheads pressed together, both of you breathing hard:
“I’ve been in love with you since the pen incident.”
You laugh—wet, surprised.
He kisses you again—slower this time.
Someone wolf-whistles from the end of the hall.
“FINALLY!” he yells. “Took you idiots long enough!”
Seungmin flips him off without looking.
You laugh into Seungmin’s neck.
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