FOOLS
Who adore you
NOTES: HOLY SHIT MY FIRST DR STONE FIC??? and I know I know, I'm back to posting!! I'm gonna try cranking out a few more fics today, but no promises!
CONTENT: Senku x academic rival!reader, pre-petrification, you're both in highschool, Senku is lowkey into ragebait, you get ragebaited, no established relationship, debating, senku has a bit of a crush
WORD COUNT: 1.9k
REQUESTED BY AND DEDICATED TO: @tsillyy
The first time it happened, neither of you thought much of it.
You arrived at the school library fifteen minutes before lunch, backpack slung over one shoulder, already planning to spend the entire break reviewing chemistry notes.
The table in the back corner was perfect. It was away from the windows, away from the noisy students, away from literally everyone.
You'd been using it for weeks.
So naturally, you stopped dead when you saw someone already sitting there.
The boys head looked like scallion sprouts.
He has a stack of books, and notebook covered in formulas too.
Senku Ishigami.
Of course.
You stared.
He stared back.
Neither of you two moved.
"...You're in my seat."
Senku glanced around the completely empty library.
Then back at you.
"Nope."
"What do you mean 'nope?'"
"It means you're wrong."
You narrowed your eyes. "I sit there every day."
"I got here first."
"That's not how ownership works."
"Pretty sure that's exactly how ownership works."
The librarian shushed both of you before the argument could escalate.
You ended up sitting at a different table.
You hated it,,, and apparently so did he.
Because the next day, he was there again.
And the day after that.
And the day after that.
By the second week, the situation had become ridiculous.
You started arriving earlier?
Senku started arriving earlier.
You came before school?
He came before school.
You showed up twenty minutes before the library officially opened? Somehow Senku was already waiting outside.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"Morning."
"I hate you."
"Likewise."
Then both of you marched straight toward the same table.
Every. Single. Day.
The rest of the student body became invested alarmingly fast.
"Who's winning?" one student whispered.
"I think it's tied."
"No way. Ishigami got there first yesterday."
"You keep track?"
"You don't?"
The weirdest part was that eventually you both stopped trying to force the other away. Instead, you simply occupied opposite ends of the table.
The table was large enough technicallyâ so now the competition evolved.
Who could study longer? Who could focus harder? Who could completely ignore the existence of the person sitting three feet away?
You considered yourself excellent at ignoring Senku.
Unfortunately, Senku appeared equally excellent at ignoring you.
Hours would pass in complete silence.
Pages turning, pens scratching, calculators clicking.
Sometimes, you'd glance up and catch him already looking at you.
Then both of you would immediately look away as if nothing had happened.
The first direct conflict came three weeks later.
You were reviewing physics problems.
A difficult one.
You'd nearly solved it when a piece of paper slid across the table.
You frowned.
Looked down.
Looked up.
Senku didn't even glance in your direction.
The note contained a single sentence.
"Your acceleration variable is wrong."
You stared.
Then looked at your work, then looked back at him.
"You looked at my paper?"
Without raising his head, he replied "It was visible."
"You were spying."
"That's a pretty emotional interpretation."
"You corrected my equation."
"You're welcome."
You immediately flipped the paper over.
And spent the next ten minutes proving he was wrong.
Except he wasn't.
The variable actually was wrong.
The following day, you returned the favor.
Senku was working through a chemistry problem.
He hadn't gotten it wrong, per say, but he hadn't written it correctly.
It was an errorâ a small one. But an error none the less.
You considered ignoring it, but then you grabbed a sticky note.
"Wrong conversion factor." You slid it across the table.
Senku paused.
Read it.
Checked his calculations.
Then sighed.
"Ten billion percent annoying."
"You're welcome."
After that, the notes became routine.
"Wrong equation."
"It's actually on Page 142."
"There's a calculation error."
"You forgot a negative sign."
"That's not how statistics works."
"Your graph is ugly."
That last one started a fight.
Somewhere along the way, students stopped assuming you hated each other.
Which was ridiculousâ because obviously you did. Yet every afternoon, they always found both of you sitting at the same table. And every afternoon involved some form of interaction. Every afternoon ended with one of you leaving while the other remained.
It didn't help that neither of you ever sat with anyone else.
Or that everyone constantly saw you together.
One day, two girls from another class approached your table.
One pointed at Senku, then at you.
"How long have you two been friends?"
You almost choked.
Across from you, Senku looked equally horrified.
"We're not friends."
"Absolutely not."
The responses came simultaneously.
The girls exchanged a glance.
Then smiled.
"Oh."
"Oh what?"
"Nothing."
"There is definitely an implication in that 'nothing.'"
The girls left still smiling.
You looked at Senku, Senku looked at you. Then both of you immediately returned to studying.
The library war continued.
Days became weeks.
Weeks became months.
Neither side surrendered, and neither side won.
And somehow, despite all logic, the table had stopped feeling like territory that needed defending.
It simply became expected.
You arrived, and senku was there.
Or, he arrived, and you were already there.
The routine settled into place so naturally that neither of you questioned it anymore.
Not yet.
Because at this stage, conversations rarely lasted more than a minute.
Arguments remained short.
Brief.
The real problem hadn't started yet.
The real problem would begin the day one argument accidentally stretched past closing time.
And neither of you realized you'd stopped arguing about the subject and started arguing simply because you enjoyed arguing with each other.
The first debate lasted two hours.
Neither of you intended for that to happen.
It started with a textbook, as most disasters involving you and Senku did.
You were flipping through a physics book when a sentence caught your eye.
A simplification.
Technically correct, but deeply annoying. Before you could stop yourself, you muttered,
"That's a terrible explanation."
Across the table, Senku looked up. "No, it's not."
"It absolutely is."
"It gets the point across."
"It gets the point across incorrectly."
"Sounds like a skill issue."
You stared.
He stared back.
The challenge was immediate, and neither of you could leave it alone.
Twenty minutes later, your notebooks were covered in diagrams.
Forty minutes later, you'd abandoned your original assignments entirely.
An hour later, the librarian had shushed both of you seven separate times.
Neither side conceded, and neither side won.
And somehow the library closed before the argument ended.
As you packed your things, still annoyed, Senku casually said,
"You're wrong, by the way."
You nearly threw your textbook at him.
The next day, he brought it up again. Which was weird. Normally, your arguments died the second they ended.
But halfway through studying, a folded piece of paper slid across the table.
Inside was a graph.
Along with one sentence.
""Still wrong.""
You immediately wrote a response.
""No, you are.""
The paper returned thirty seconds later.
""Compelling argument.""
You hated him.
The debates became routine after that.
You'd arrive intending to study, so would he. Then, one of you would say something.
A comment, an observation, a correctionâ and suddenly an hour had disappeared.
The worst part?
You were starting to enjoy it.
And unfortunately, so was Senku although he would never admit it. That was information you couldn't pull from him when with torture.
The signs were there, though.
For example, he started collecting material.
Not for school, but for arguments with you.
You discovered this by accident one afternoon.
You arrived at the library and found several articles stacked beside him.
When he noticed you looking, he casually slid them away.
Too late, you'd already read the titles. Every single one related to a debate you'd had the previous week.
Your eyes narrowed.
"...Did you research our argument?"
"No."
"You absolutely did."
"Nope."
"You brought sources."
"Maybe I just found them interesting."
"You're lying."
"Prove it."
The smug look on his face was unbearable.
And even worse, Senku had begun intentionally provoking you.
At first, you thought it was accidental. Then you realized he was doing it on purpose.
No one could possibly be that annoying naturally.
You'd mention a scientific theory? He'd deliberately oversimplify it.
You'd correct him.
He'd double down.
You'd explain.
He'd act unconvinced.
Then twenty minutes later he'd casually reveal he understood the concept perfectly from the beginning.
The first time it happened, you nearly crashed out at him.
"You knew that already."
"Yep."
"You let me explain it for twenty minutes."
"Mhm"
"Why?"
The grin he gave you should've been classified as a weapon.
You wanted to strangle him.
The truly embarrassing part was that everyone else noticed.
Again.
One afternoon, two students passed your table.
One slowed down.
The other glanced between you and Senku.
Then she sighed dramatically.
"There they are."
"There who are?"
"The debate couple."
Both of you froze.
"What?"
"We're notâ"
"No."
"Absolutely not."
The response came in perfect synchronization.
The students exchanged a look before they walked away laughing.
You dropped your forehead onto the table.
Across from you, Senku looked mildly disturbed.
Which was fair.
You felt mildly disturbed too.
The problem was that the rumors weren't entirely unreasonable anymore.
You spent nearly every day together.
Not intentionally at first, it just happened. The library had become routine. And somehow Senku had become part of that routine.
You hated how normal it felt.
How expected it felt.
Sometimes you'd arrive before him.
And find yourself checking the door.
Waiting.
Just a little.
Which was ridiculous, obviously.
Senku noticed your absence immediately, and the realization irritated him.
One Tuesday, you didn't show up for a perfectly valid reason.
You were sick.
Unfortunately, Senku didn't know that. All he did know was that your chair remained empty.
All afternoon.
Which was strange.
Because you were never absent.
Not from school, not from the library, not from your endless campaign to challenge every statement he made.
The library felt unusually quiet.
Productive.
Peaceful.
And somehow worse.
By the end of the day he was irritated enough to pack up early.
The next morning you walked into the library carrying medicine and tissues.
Senku glanced up.
"You were gone."
The words left his mouth before he could stop them.
You blinked. Then blinked again.
"Were you keeping track?"
"No."
"That was suspiciously immediate."
"Coincidence."
"Liar."
"Can't prove that."
You rolled your eyes, the familiar irritation settled comfortably into place.
And for some reason, Senku found himself relaxing.
That should've been a warning sign.
Unfortunately, neither of you recognized. Neither of you were paying attention to the important details.
The way arguments started feeling less like competitions, the way conversations lasted longer, the way silence between you stopped being awkward.
The way both of you automatically looked for the other when entering the library.
You still called each other annoying, you still argued constantly, and still refused to admit friendship.
But somewhere along the way, the library stopped being a battlefield.
It became a place you expected to find each other.
And for two people who claimed to dislike one another, that expectation was becoming dangerously important.
Neither of you realized it yet.
But Senku was already collecting things he wanted to show you.
Already saving articles you'd find interesting. Already mentally composing arguments before you arrived.
And worst of all? Every afternoon, around the exact time you usually entered the library, he found himself glancing toward the door.
Just once. Only once.
Then twice.
Then three times.
Purely observational, just some scientific curiosity.
Definitely not because he was waiting for you.
No way.
Okay guys I hope this was okay, a kyouka fic is in the works so be prepared for that soon. Also I am SO tired someone put me down I signed my dumb ass up for summer classes even tho I took 12 a day ALL YEAR. Fml.
Taglist: @n4tsukis
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