Chapter Text
“Everyone~ Give it up for our gracious leader, who, oh, so kindly decided to join our game, Senku Chann~” Gen announces.
“Gen, this is illogical.” Senku says exasperated as he joins Gen in the middle with the rest of the crew circling around them, they seem excited to hear this news.
“Senku, you did agree to this, you can’t back out now.” Tsukasa adds on, smirking because now his friend can finally bag a baddie.
Taiju on the side just stands there so proud of Senku. “ I’m so proud that you’re finally getting a girlfriend.”
“Mhm.” Senku looks away, he knows he’s doing exactly what Y/n wanted, but it just doesn’t feel right. The only reason I’m agreeing to this is because Y/n broke up with me. He thinks to himself. Marrying Ruri, he hesitated agreeing and as soon as he got the goods he was going to break it off. Because she was just an independent variable.
Y/n wasn’t.
“Oi Mentalist! What’s the first challenge?” Senku asks.
“For the ladies, we have a quiz!” Gen exclaims, ushering all the girls into their seats making it seem like Americas Got Talent.
Kohaku and Kirisame look ready to win. Nikki and Homura look like are just there for the tea. Minami just stands close to Homura, because she was dragged into the competition because Tsukasa asked her to. And Yuzuriha is just there to fill the quota, besides she’s already got eyes for Taiju.
“Let’s start with a simple question!” Gen is way too excited for this. “What is the colour of potassium in a clear flame?” The girls think to themselves, that’s supposed to be an easy question.
“Who wrote this quiz?” Nikki asks, knowing that none of them even understood the question Gen asked them.
“I did,” Senku says nonchalantly. Everyone groans internally, is Senku seriously making it that hard for them.
“It’s like you don’t even want to date, why even bother with this?” Kohaku eyes Senku, she was just trying to shoot her shot and win a new katana.
“Eh you know the same reason all of you joined,” Senku says, “for personal gains.”
Everyone knows this is going to be one tough contestant.
“You know what I’m changing the questions,” Gen declares, smiling. Everyone’s glad. Senku notices Yo and Magma on the side beginning a betting station. Ginro and Chrome were already betting for Kohaku.
“Now what colour are Senku’s eyes?” Gen covers Senku’s eyes when he asked that.
The ladies didn’t even have to think about it, “Red!”
“Mentalist, that was way too simple.” Senku says ticked off a little.
“What’s Senku’s favourite subject in science?” Gen asks next.
Everyone thinks till Kirisame says “Is it the science with numbers?”
“You mean Physics?” Nikki adds.
“Makes sense for a guy like Senku.” Minami agrees.
“I think it’s chemistry,” Yuzuriha says, she knows the answer, but she still hesitates.
“Ding ding ding ding, 10 billion points to Yuzuriha!” Gen cheers.
Senku raises an eyebrow at Yuzuriha, who just stands there looking over at Taiju who’s cheering her on. (Taiju knows that there was only one girl in Senku’s heart.) Yuzuriha did always listen to Y/n.
After a few more rounds Kohaku was in the lead because she was pretty close to Senku, since they’ve teamed up from the war with Tsukasa, so she knew a bunch of the newer things. Yuzuriha was second because she remembers her friend talking to her about Senku.
”Now for the last question… Worth double points!” Gen shouts, excitedly, “What is Senku thinking about right now?” Gen walks over to Senku and whispers to him to write what he’s thinking about on a piece of paper. He does so, now everyone tries guessing.
“Is it about science?” Kirisame asks trying to be broad and get a point.
“Unlucky guess!” Gen says.
“It must be something to do with the ship!” Kohaku screams.
“Or something to do with corn?” Nikki adds.
“I feel like he would be thinking about a car.” Homura decides that the next challenge Senku is going to face is making tires.
“Unfortunately you’re all wrong!” Gen grins, “and no retries so we only have Minami and Yuzuriha to give an answer!”
“Is it about Senku’s dad?” Yuzuriha says asking Gen who just smirks, not letting anything out.
“Or is about with handling a crew member?” Minami decides.
“Nope sorry, you’re all wrong!” Everyone groans so they all got that wrong, what could Senku even be thinking about?
“So our amazing leader you want to tell everyone what you were thinking about?” Ryusui asks from behind Senku wanting to know his answer.
“Hmmm, no.” Of course, why would he tell anyone that he was thinking about a red carnation. They wouldn’t even get it.
“Senku! You know what this flower means?” Senku and Y/n are both out for a walk and they stop infront of a flower shop, where Y/n picks up a carnation to show Senku.
“Hmm, it’s a red carnation which symbolises admiration and is another way of saying my heart aches for you.” Senku tells her, not knowing why it’s such a big deal. He watches her grab one and goes to the counter.
Once she returns, she stands in front of Senku outside, and holds out the flower for him to take it, “this is for you.” He just stares at her, his jaw dropping at that action. “Don’t make a big deal out of it, leekhead.”
Senku just stands there trying to make sense of this. Was he supposed to do something? He just decides to run after his girlfriend who would probably get lost so easily.
Once he catches up he asks her, “Why’d you get me a flower?” He scratches his neck his ears tinging red.
“Because when you’re not with me my heart yearns for you,” She flirts, really badly but still, Senku deadpans at that.
“That was really stupid.” He side-eyes her, she hums back in reply. They sit on the swings and they just enjoy each other’s presence for once while the sunsets.
“Senku… you’re never going to leave me behind right?” Senku looks over at her, this is the second time just this week she’s asked him something like this, but now it’s the other way around.
“Even if the moon was closer for me to reach I would still reach out to you first. So why would I leave you behind?” He asks, thinking about how their design for that robotics competition is nearly done.
“I dunno…” She sighs, grinning at him, but the light didn’t reach her eyes, and Senku knew that. Senku knew she was hiding something.
“Well… my lovely contestants, the lucky lady in the lead is…. KOHAKU-Chan!” Gen declares to everyone. A bunch of villagers are celebrating, because they bet on Kohaku.
Senku held the piece of paper in his hand.
He really doesn’t want to be a part of this competition.