You blink at your paper.

You suppose you should be happy—it’s a graduate level physics class, anyways. For a moment, you stare at the red markings of the TA that graded it, as if willing an error in the one problem you made a mistake on could make it go away. 

√64 = 7????

You exhaled sharply, almost fighting back tears. You’d think you could avoid simple arithmetic mistakes, but apparently doing tensor products comes easier than simple addition to you. Shoving your backpack on your chair, you stuff in your laptop and the test haphazardly, not caring that it’s going to get messed and crumpled up in your backpack after your folders and binders jostle around. Fuck that test.

You wouldn’t normally act as if the test had personally wronged you—trust, you were not going to get that heated were it any class. But because of this one class, one person, you knew it was coming. The inevitable.

"Better luck next time." The voice, drenched in smug satisfaction, slithered through the air behind you, his voice and demeanor like a slimy, slimy snake. 

Your jaw tightened, but you forced yourself to remain calm as you turned around. And there he was—Gojo Satoru, the bane of your existence, a plague upon your academic record, a walking, talking statistical anomaly who somehow managed to be both infuriatingly brilliant and aggressively insufferable.

He leaned against the desk beside yours, glasses sliding down just enough to reveal the glint of those ridiculously blue eyes. He crosses his arms while they’re covered in that ridiculous, ugly sweater he’s wearing—he’s probably going for the old money aesthetic, but he doesn’t need to know he gives off more “finance bro that helps billionaires evade taxes,” or whatever finance bros do.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” you sniff, pretending to act nonchalant while you grab your backpack, swinging it roughly on your shoulder like it was the weight of your grievances against him.

"The test." Gojo unfolded a crisp sheet of paper with the kind of theatrical flourish reserved for revealing royal decrees. A perfect 100, circled in bold red ink.

It was like a punch to the gut.

Satoru smirked, "I guess that makes it.. what? A five to three this semester?"

How you wanted to punch it off his face.

His arrogance was slap-worthy and his pride made you want to crush it.

The demographic at your university looks like the way it does. After all, not only was it renowned for its academics (from all the nepo babies like Satoru whose families donated buildings and had like four generations of alumnus), but it was also a Division I school.

Satoru is rich, popular, and atheltic.

You've seen him at the gym before. The glint of ivory hair is unmistakable—Black sweatshirt and sweatpants that are too small, because they cling to his legs in a form-defining way. He’s walking over, hands in his pockets, to a barbell station. Slaps some guys on the shoulder as he goes through, gets a lot of daps. He is popular.

Which is weird to you, because you only the Satoru inside your physics class, not outside. He’s a fucking nerd—a loser that spends his time beefing with you, so why is he so popular when he gives you the time of day?

There are three dimensions to gaining alpha status, or whatever they call male popularity. You have to be 1) rich, 2) really physically fit, or 3) just really charismatic. Considering that Gojo—in all his clothing—-looks like a twink moreso than ripped gym bro, it’s definitely not dimension two. So you conclude that it’s because he’s rich and probably throws yacht parties so these ripped guys don’t push him into a locker, or something.

But that's what you tell yourself to feel better. You know it's not true.