Chapter Text
Ranking in the top ten for your whole grade was pretty good. Anyone would be happy to find their name near the top of the midterm results board.
Kikuchi Yuina.
It was right there, on the first page of many. A single-digit place next to her name. She now held the title of having the eighth highest grades of all the second years and Johzenji. It was a nice step up from the previous final exams when she had placed 14th. And she should have been happy. That was the keyword: should.
Her name at the top of the sheet felt completely overshadowed by the name in seventh place, right above hers.
Terushima Yuuji.
Every semester without fail, Yuina saw the same name sitting right on top of her own on the results board. Every. Single. Exam. It was infuriating! Terushima Yuuji! As in the infamous airhead-playboy-jock who was always playing hooky! How!?
They had been in different classes in the first grade, so Yuina had only heard the rumours. It wasn't until after winter break that year that she finally put a face to the name. To say it was a shock would be the understatement of the year. She couldn't believe that this gaudy, obnoxious and loud-mouthed jock was the one beating out all her test scores! He was bleach blonde, pierced and had way too much product in his hair. No way was this for real.
Unfortunately for Yuina, her stress levels took a turn for the worse in her second year. They were in the same class now. Heck, he sat right next to her now. She had to see him, up close, every single day for more than a third of her waking hours! He didn't even stay awake during class, and still, he scored better than she did. It was infuriating!
Brows knitting together, Yuina traced her finger over the board and followed the individual subject scores. She had done better in some subjects, but his total score was exactly one point higher than her own. One point. The difference between a single multiple-choice question.
A gentle hand on her shoulder snapped Yuina out of swirling thoughts in her head. "Yui-chan, you have that scary look on your face again..."
Yuina snapped out of it and relaxed her tensed muscles and turned to the taller girl behind her. The look on her face was still one of displeasure. "Kaori, it's not fair!" she wailed, pointing at the two names right next to each other.
The taller girl, Fujiwara Kaori, sighed and gave a hapless smile. "Your scores keep going up, but so does Terushima-kun's, huh?" To be fair, it was probably a mystery to the entire student body. Terushima Yuuji doesn't quite strike anyone to be the studious type. "There's just no winning against natural geniuses, Yui," Kaori joked as she steered her best friend away from the board.
Yuina opened her mouth to protest, but the words fell short at the sight of the familiar slicked blonde hair.
"Ohhh, look at you Terushima! Number 7, that's our captain!" the brown-haired boy next to him said in a loud voice, elbowing the blonde in the ribs. His name escaped Yuina, but she recognized him as one of the volleyball team members along with the darker haired boy walking with them.
The darker haired boy, she recognized him as Takeharu Futamata from the same class, piped up. "Didn't you just get put on cleaning duty for sleeping in class last week?" He laughed.
Yes, he did! That was precisely why Yuina couldn't figure out how he made the kind of grades he did. Taking a deep breath, she did her best to pay the trio no mind as she tried to slip past them in the hallway. She tried to avoid eye contact, but it was too late.
"Yuina-chan~" The blonde boy jogged up gleefully, hands in his pockets. "You did well again this time!" And this was the most infuriating part of all this, the fact that he sounded genuinely impressed every damn time he praised her grades.
'Don't stare at me so intently,' Yuina thought to herself as she averted her gaze. "Well, you did better," she had to make an active effort to not sound bitter, "as usual. So, congrats." She turned and tugged on Kaori's arm, motioning toward the courtyard.
Kaori gave a polite smile in recognition as she slipped past the boys following after her friend.
"You should tutor me sometime!" There it was, the Terushima brand pick-up line. How was this frivolous flirt always outperforming her!?
Yuina turned around sharply on her heels and shot the blonde a forced, tight-lipped smile. "Oh, please, I wouldn't even have anything to teach you." Without bothering to wait for a response, Yuina turned back around and pushed Kaori along toward the courtyard.
She was vaguely aware of his voice in the distance. "Man, tsunderes are so cute~" Ugh. Tsundere? Who?
Kaori gave a weak chuckle as the two girls finally got out of earshot of the volleyball team boys. "He just interprets things however he wants, huh?" That was one way to put it, for sure.
"How does someone like that even exist?" Yuina asked, holding her head between her hands. "When's the last time you've seen someone so glib and cocky and frivolous?" And how was he so smart? She had refused to believe those were really his grades when she first saw him for herself, but you can't consistently fake your grades. Not for two whole years. She was forced to accept the reality that for whatever reason, Terushima Yuuji was... dare she say it? Intelligent.
It was a well-accepted fact that teenagers don't tend to take "self-guided study" all too seriously. Even Yuina considered it a quiet break where you just don't get to leave your desk. Most students, however, still tended to sit at their desks and, at least, pretend to study in case the teachers made their rounds. Terushima Yuuji wasn't most students. As evidenced by the smartphone open to a mobile game in plain sight atop his desk.
As if that wasn't bad enough, he was gently tapping the corner of her desk for attention. "Yuina-chan," he whispered. Yuina pretended not to hear and continued rewriting her notes. "Yu-i-na-chan," he whispered right next to her face, his lips nearly grazing her earlobe. The chair screeched as Yuina jumped to her feet in surprise, causing heads to whip around in equal shock.
"What are you doing!?" she demanded in a loud whisper, flustered as she covered her ear with one hand. Oh god, he was practically blowing into her ear. What was he thinking?
"Ahaha!" He gave a peal of boisterous laughter that filled the classroom, and their classmates smiled and wrote it off as typical Terushima antics. "Oh man, if I knew you could jump four feet into the air like that, I would have recruited you into the volleyball team!" He slapped his leg, eyes watering from the joy.
Yuina's brows knitted together; it wasn't that funny. She pulled her chair back in closer to her desk and picked up her pencil, only to find Terushima's smartphone shoved in her face.
"You should do this gacha pull for me," he grinned, holding the phone over her notebook.
Yuina gauged his expression. "Will you let me study after?"
"Yeah, yeah! Just one pull! I've had the worst luck lately," he sighed as he placed his phone in her hands. She watched him carefully out of the corner of her eyes as she turned the phone in her hands. "Oh, and you can put your number in there while you're at it~" As if she hadn't heard that one before.
"Mm, no deal," the brunette replied with a smile as she tapped the "draw" button and promptly turned the phone back to her deskmate. Now to get back to peace and quiet--
"YUINA-CHAN?" Terushima's voice cut through the entire classroom again. "Are you a goddess? Maybe even Lady Luck herself!?" His eyes gleamed in excitement as he clutched his phone to his chest. He then turned it around and thrust it in her face for her to see. "Three SSRs in a single pull!?" A bunch of icons of anime girls floated on the screen. "You even brought my best girl home!"
This was that gacha game her little brother played, right? Was that a good thing? Three SSRs? Three out of what? She would have to ask Sakuya when she got home. "Um, congrats?" Then again, her brother acted pretty similarly with videogames too. Good for him if he's happy about it, she supposed.
Terushima suddenly put his phone aside and clamped both of Yuina's hands in his. "Yuina-chan if you can pull this off again, I'll do whatever you want. So please, do another pull for me when the banner changes next week!" Was he even speaking English anymore? "I'll treat you to ice cream! No wait, melonpan? Oh! Bubble tea? Whatever you want!"
"You really don't owe me anything," she laughed awkwardly under all his energy. "I just clicked a button, it's really not a big dea--"
But he didn't let her finish. "This is HUGE, this doesn't just happen to people!" The blonde picked up his phone again but the classroom door slid open loudly.
Takeuchi-sensei appeared in the doorway, red-faced and upset. "Terushima! Put your phone away!"