Szayel Aporro Granz had spent his entire life ignoring other people and working to be the best. His natural bubblegum pink hair had attracted as much negative attention as possible, and other boys, and girls sometimes, hadn't stopped taunting him and making subtle comments since he was fourteen, and he doubted they would stop. Of course, he personally liked the colour of his hair, and never dyed it. It would be like changing out his glasses from their usual thick white frames for something less noticeable. Many saw him as the fancy boy who wouldn't look twice at anyone. Nobody was interesting enough for Szayel. In high school, he had briefly formed a friendship with a fellow misfit, a Mayuri Kurosutchi, but he was arrested six months after he started school because of his experiments being considered homicide. It was fine, though, Szayel just shrugged it off and continued with his studies, and from then on he started developing a very uncaring exterior. He was attractive enough to have a relationship, if he could pull his head out of his work and even talk to a girl. However, Szayel didn't like girls. He didn't really like men either, but he certainly liked them more than the whiny, emotional creatures that populated half of his classes.
After a particularly satisfactory weekend (Szayel had finally figured out the formula in the end of chapter six of his advanced textbook) he had forgotten that they had taken a rather important test on Thursday and the results were finally graded. The top twenty were written down on the board, and Szayel immediately looked at the first name. He completely expected it to be his, as usual.
But it wasn't. Whoever Ishida Uryuu was, Szayel had never remembered him as something special. However, once he thought about it, he recalled the stoic boy, with glasses and a constant frown, sitting in the front and often reading a book before the rest of his classmates joined him. He would have to be polite, and ask how his test score was so high. But he would not, by no means, show any other degree of courtesy to the man. His reputation was spoiled, and he could never get back that single point that he had missed, and Ishida had not.
As usual, he was sitting in the front, reading a novel, which looked rather interesting actually, and ignoring Szayel, until the pink haired man made himself known by clearing his throat.
'What is it?' He was as unsocial as Szayel himself. It was mildly surprising.
'I wanted to congratulate you on your score. I'm usually first, so it was a surprise. Good job.' Malice dripped from those last two words as Szayel plastered on a wide smile that looked terribly menacing.
'Maybe you let yourself get sloppy because you expected no competition. It seems like the rest of the class is a collection of simpletons.'
'We can agree on that. Do you enjoy chemistry?'
'I do. Science has always been interesting to me. It's my best subject.'
'Mine as well.' Maybe he wasn't as bad as he'd previously thought, but he would not show signs of a desired friendship unless he did so first. And his appearance did nothing for Szayel. There were plenty of attractive men at the university, but it was what they believed in that would make Szayel curious.
'We should study together, since you seem to need a little help.'
'…Indeed.' Bastard. He turned sharply on his heel and sat back down, seething. How insulting to his pride! He would have to think about this another time. The teacher had entered the room.
Of all his teachers, Aizen Sousuke was his least favorite. He picked obvious favorites in the class; those who weren't even intelligent to begin with, just suck ups, like Ulquiorra Schiffer. He'd heard a few of the girls talking about he would completely shrug off their displays of affection towards him. He was undoubtedly handsome, but in a very cold way.
Aizen's other obvious favorite was the one he did nothing to, no matter how many times he would interrupt, or make rude comments aloud. Szayel detested Grimmjow Jaegerjacques with a fervent passion, because of his brash, crude ways and his disrespect for everything that involved rules. Women loved him though, drooling over the ground he walked on. He knew that they loved him, and he, in turn, picked the prettiest ones out for a week and then dumped them. If they had any sense of intelligence whatsoever, they would realize his game and stop encouraging him, but once again, the weak minds of his female classmates astounded Szayel as they swooned over his smiles and fought each other for a chance in his bed for just one or two weeks. It was trashy.
After class, Szayel gathered his materials and headed back to his room (nobody would share a room with him) as usual for a dinner and studying. He was going to try even harder now that he had competition in the class to be number one again. Grimmjow stopped him, though.
'Heey, Pinky.' Szayel said nothing, and continued on his way. He would not admit that Grimmjow frightened him just a little, not even to himself sometimes.
'Come back here!' He grabbed the collar of Szayel's long sleeved white shirt and pulled him back.
'I noticed you weren't on top of Aizen's little list today. Losing your magic touch, eh, fag?'
'It was a miscalculation on my part. Do not try and worry yourself, Grimmjow, it won't happen again.'
'Hehehe, maybe I should start talking to that Ishida kid. He seems to be smarter at this than you, dumbass.' Szayel didn't say anything else. He merely nodded and walked away, before he was stopped once again by Ishida himself. Joy.
'Hello.'
'Hello.' What did he want?
'If you wanted, you could borrow this book. It helped me understand the fundamentals for what we're going to be covering, and if you want to keep up, you would be better off reading it.' He smiled at him, handed Szayel the book, which was surprisingly light, but Szayel was sure it would have very small print, and strode off in the opposite direction where Szayel could only assume was his own dorm. He leafed through the book and found it fascinating. It really could help him with some things, if he started reading it. Fresh material can help you learn better, and it would be a pleasant break from the textbook he'd been working out of recently. He would thank Ishida tomorrow.