Life hated you. It was as simple as that. You must have done something horrible in a past life to deserve this. You copy off the smart kid one time and now everyone thinks you're a genius and you get switched out of Algebra 2 and into Calculus!
You groaned and hit your head on your new desk. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You thought angrily. You could barely understand Algebra 2 and now you got yourself stuck in Calculus.
"[name]?" A surprised voice asked. You picked your head up and looked to see Shikamaru sitting at the desk next to yours and staring at you confused. "Why the hell are you in this class?" He asked.
Your obvious lack of mathematical skills was clear to everyone (except apparently your teachers, principal, and parents). So it was no wonder as to why he was surprised to see you. There was also the fact that the two of you had been friends since elementary school so he knew a lot about you.
"Well... I decided to copy off the smart kid for the last test we took and now everyone thinks I'm a genius and switched me here. Now I'm going to horribly and utterly fail." You explained casually.
"Uh-huh... Did you bother to tell them that you cheated?" He asked while placing his head in his hand and his elbow on his desk; relaxing boredly while staring at you.
"Umm... well I protested! I told them I didn't want to switch!...but no I didn't tell them I cheated... My parents were so proud of me, I didn't have the heart to tell them it wasn't me doing the work." You explained.
"Soooo what's going to happen when you fail?"
"I-...I didn't figure things out that far." You answered scratching the back of your head. You then looked at him grinning. "Hey Shika-
"No." He replied knowing what you were about to ask.
"Hey! Don't say no until I finished asking the question!" You snapped
"You're going to ask me to let you copy off me and the answer is no." He responded.
"Oh come on Shika-kun! We're friends aren't we?"
"Troublesome women. Look you got yourself into this mess because you refused to admit you cheated. You can get yourself out." He answered setting his head down on the desk to take a nap.
"Gah! Evil! I thought we were friends Shikamaru!" You exclaimed before also setting your head down on your desk, though for you it was out of self pity.
"[name] would you like to come up here and do this problem on the board? I know you just started this class so just do what you can." Your teacher called and you looked up at the huge problem that was on the board.
"Do I have to?" You asked not wanting to get up there and you heard Shikamaru chuckle from beside you.
"Yes now don't be shy. Come up here and do what you can." He answered.
'Uhg. Shoot me now." You groaned as you stood up and made your way to the board. You reached it and then just stared at the board. Looking at all the combinations of letters, numbers, and strange symbols with a blank look on your face.
Shikamaru sighed and sat up in his desk to watch this. After a few moments of you not doing thing and making lame excuses he sighed again.
"Troublesome women." He growled as he pulled out a piece of paper, quickly doing the problem.
"Um well let's see... first I would... umm..." You trailed off, you weren't even sure how to start this thing. A strange sounding cough got your attention and you looked back to see Shikamaru sneakily motioning you to come over. "Umm Sensei, would it be alright if I borrowed Shikamaru's notes and brought them up here to do this?" You asked, trying not to sound to desperate.
"Of course." As soon as he said that you quickly went back to Shikamaru.
"Help me." You begged in a low tone.
"Here." He muttered handing you his notes and a paper on top that had the whole thing worked out for you.
"Thank you." You muttered before walking back to the board.
"Ok so first I'll do..." You pretended to read the notes as you stared at the problem he did for you, quickly putting it to memory. "Ah! Ok!"You exclaimed and looked backup at the board quickly doing the problem.
"Very nice [name]." Your teacher congratulated. "Go ahead and go back to your seat now." He added before getting on with the lecture.
"Thank you so much Shika-kun." You whispered when you handed him his stuff back.
"Yeah yeah." He muttered.
~~~~Time skip~~~~
You were now three weeks into your new calculus class. Every day you brought your desk right up next to Shikamaru's and had him help you. Every single time you asked for his help he grumbled, and complained, and called you troublesome but every single time he would help you anyway. He coached you through the problems, explained the directions so you could understand, and helped where ever you needed it. The only thing he wouldn't do was let you copy on the tests. You were on your own for that and you quickly came up with the excuse that you had a test phobia and that was why you could do the homework but failed the tests. Your teacher bought that (with the help of some waterworks) and tried to be more lenient with you.
"Gah! I don't understand this shit!" You exclaimed for the millionth time.
Shikamaru picked his head up from his napping position on his desk and looked at the problem. "[name] we've done these problems a hundred times now. You should get it by now." He muttered.
"Well I don't. I mean when you explain it and help me through it I understand but I don't understand when I'm on my own and I don't understand the directions out of the book, or on the tests, or the ones the teacher gives us, hell even my own notes I don't understand." You explained; extremely frustrated at yourself.
"Alright calm down." He grumbled as you started getting worked up again. "Look this is how you do it..."
The rest of what he was saying started going in one ear and out the other as he moved over to help you; moving so your bodies were touching and placing the arm closest to you behind you on the back of your chair so he could be closer. A light pink dusted your cheeks and you stared at his handsome face out of the corner of your eyes.
"[name]?... [name]... [NAME]!" Shikamaru snapped trying to get your attention.
"Huh what?" You asked confused, blinking at him slowly.
"You didn't hear a word I said did you?"
"Yes I did!" you defended.
"What did I say then?"
"Ummm... I like pie?" You replied stupidly and he sighed; face palming and shaking his head.
"If you want my help then pay attention to me. Damn troublesome women." He grumbled.
Believe me Shika-kun. I'm paying attention to you alright...just not wait you're saying... You thought and mentally giggled. "I'm sorry Shika-kun. I'm bad in math and it's boring as hell. If it's boring and I suck at it then I lose interest in it and can't stay focused." You explained.
"Alright well try to focus. Or I won't help you anymore." He snapped and you sat up straight and at attention.
"Yes sir!" You laughed and he just shook his head.
"Alright so one more time. This is how you..."
You started toning him out again. Your mind wandering off to a daydream about him instead. You have always had slight feelings for the lazy boy but they hadn't become so strong until you started spending everyday side by side with him helping you through math. Now you were finding it hard to focus on math not because it was hard for you but because all your focus kept going to the lazy genius next to you.
Shikamaru sighed knowing you weren't paying attention again. grumbling to himself he got right up in your face so your faces were just inches apart.
"[NAME]!" He yelled and you jumped in fright.
"Ah!" You exclaimed finding his face so close to yours and leapt backwards, only to fall and crash to the floor.
"What are you two doing back there!?" Your teacher yelled as the whole class turned to stare at the two of you.
"T-there was a bug." You lied and looked up at Shikamaru with a dark blush on your cheeks.
You were surprised to find a blush also present on his face. You were confused until you noticed that the fall had caused your dress to bunch up; revealing far too much more leg then you would have liked. you blushed darker and quickly scrambled to fix your dress. You then stood up and sat back down trying to look dignified.
"Sorry." he muttered before looking away, and he couldn't help himself, he had to tease. "Nice legs though." He added and you turned to glare at him.
"S-Shika!" You yelled smacking him in the back of the head while blushing beet red.
"What is it now?" The teacher demanded.
"Sorry I was just teasing her." Shikamaru answered, while rubbing the back of his head. "That hurt woman." He growled at you.
"Well while everyone is nice and distracted from their work I might as well use this time to remind you all that the midterm is next week and is worth 20% of your overall grade." He reminded before talking some more but you ignored the rest.
"Noooo I forgot all about it!" You wailed to Shikamaru and he sighed rubbing his temples. "I'm going to fail!" You wailed. You then looked at him with a waterfall of tears flowing down your face, huge puppy dog eyes, and a puffed out trembling bottom lip. "SSShhhhiikkkaaa-kkuunnn..." You cried.
"Alright! Alright! Stop crying I'll help you." He growled.
"Thank you!" you exclaimed and latched onto him in a tight hug.
"But I'm not letting you cheat off me." He reminded.
"How am I going to pass then?" You whined.
"You can use notes on it. Use my notes on the test."
"I don't understand your notes. They're not written the way you explain them and you got doodles all over the place. It's confusing."
"I'll figure something out for you then." He grumbled.
When Shikamaru got home from school he tossed his stuff onto his bed and plopped onto his bed. He sighed heavily staring at his ceiling. He didn't understand what it was about you. You made his usual genius head spin and he could never resist doing whatever you asked. He felt like a fool around you.
He looked over at the small desk in his room with a thoughtful look on his face. "Troublesome women's got me whipped." He growled getting up and grabbing his calculus notebook and a blank one. He sat down with both and began copying his old notes into the new one, rewriting them so they were simpler and written so you could understand, he added diagrams, and random little notes on the side of each page for encouragement.
Around ten that night he decided to stop for the day and set his pen down to look at how much he got down. "Hope this helps." He muttered. He smiled as he thought about you and thought about the cute little habits he started noticing you had when it came to math. When you were concentrating really hard your tongue would stick out of the side of your mouth and you had a serious look in your eyes but an overall silly face, when you were frustrated you would repeatedly run your hand through your bangs, chew on the eraser of your pencil, and your cheeks would be puffed out, and when you knew what you were doing you got excited and danced around in your seat. Shaking his head he got ready for bed. Wondering what you would do when he gave this to you.
~~~~Time skip again~~~~
'I'm going to fail!" you cried as Shikamaru tried to help you prepare for the midterm.
"Have you been studying like I told you to?" Shikamaru asked.
"Yes! I just can't remember any of it! The test is tomorrow! What am I going to do!?" You wailed and Shikamaru sighed shaking his head.
"Come over to my house after school. I'll help you study." He stated and you blinked in surprise.
"Seriously?"
"Do you want my help or not?"
"Yes! Thank you!"
"Sure."
With that said the two of you went back to work but neither of you were really focusing. You were too busy being excited about hanging out with him after school and Shikamaru was too busy wondering why on earth he liked such a loud troublesome girl as you.
After school the two of you went to his house and he let you inside. You were surprised to find nobody home.
"Where's your parents?" You asked.
"They left to go another honeymoon thing. I got the place to myself for the week." He answered.
"Oh."
"Well come on." With that said he quickly lead you to his room.
"If you got the place to yourself why are we staying in your room? Couldn't we work at the table or something?" You asked confused.
"I wanted to give you something first." He answered.
"What?" You asked eagerly.
"Stop asking so many damn questions women." He snapped and you heard him mutter his trademark troublesome. He went over to his desk and he grabbed a notebook off it. "This is for you. Use it tomorrow." He stated, handing it too you and looking the other way to hide a light blush.
You blinked in surprise and opened the notebook. Your eyes widened in surprise as you looked over all the simple to understand notes, diagrams, and little chibi Shikas on each page giving hints and words of encouragement. "You did all this for me?" You asked in awe as you flipped through the whole thing, it had every lesson that had been covered so far.
"Yeah... you needed help right? I thought it could help you..." He muttered still refusing to look at you and the blush still refusing to go away. "Umm...t-turn to the back page..." He added hesitantly.
You did what he said and turned to the back page of the note book. You stared at the words written on it and then at him and then back to the words several times; shocked speechless.
The words I love you. Were scrawled onto the back of the page.
"Uhh... you going to say anything?" He asked scratching the back of his head nervously.
You promptly dropped the notebook and kissed him; wrapping your arms around his neck tightly. He was taken back at first but then relaxed and wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you closer to him. When you two broke away for air he leaned his forehead against yours.
"Ssoo I take it the feeling's mutual?" he asked smiling.
"Yeah..." You answered pulling him closer for another kiss.
"Wait. We need to study remember." He stated pulling away from you.
"What!? How can you pull a stunt like that on me and expect me to focus on math of all things!?" You exclaimed and he just smirked.
"Because I can show you how fun math can be..." He answered and picked you up, setting you down on his bed and grabbing the notebook opening it to a random page. He looked at it then grinned tossing the book to the side and leaning over you.
"So tell me [name] what's the squeeze principle?" He asked lightly squeezing your thighs.
'S-squeeze p-principle?" You stammered trying to get your brain to function but it was going into standby due to his actions.
"Yes what is it?" He requested again; once again lightly squeezing your thighs but this time higher.
"Umm uhh it's...The Squeeze Principle is used on limit problems where the usual algebraic methods are not effective. However, it requires that you be able to ``squeeze'' your problem in between two other ``simpler'' functions whose limits are easily computable and equal. " You answered quickly, not even sure how you managed to remember all that.
"Good girl." He muttered leaning in and kissing you passionately. He pulled away quicker than you would have liked and grinned down at you. "Now what's...
Needless to say you passed your midterm the next day and math was a hell of a lot more fun for you.