the triangle is the strongest shape (akabane karma x reader x asano gakushuu)
Studying together is a love language.
While you turn to Karma with the look of utmost betrayal, Gakushu faces him with frustration, “It was three points, you cretin! Besides, I’d like to see you keep rank one with the amount of extracurriculars I have to balance.”
Karma laughs mischievously as he sticks his tongue out at both of your disgruntled expressions. “Come on now, Rank 2. Let’s help our dearest Rank 4 with their educational struggles.”
“You are appallingly infuriating.”
“Aww, I love you too, Pres~”
fandom: Assassination Classroom by Yûsei Matsui
pairing: akabane karma x gender-neutral! reader x asano gakushuu
warnings: none
notes:
- cross posted on ao3 under the same name
- inspired by that one head-canon post on Tumblr involving these two that kickstarted my downward spiral, pls give this person appreciation (https://www.tumblr.com/jupiter-esque/709152335950200832/hiii-can-i-request-asano-x-reader-x-karma-in-poly?source=share)
- also aspects of trephacard (castlevania season 1 esp!!) AND iron widow's trio were quite helpful in building the dynamic.
- please enjoy! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡
After the hustle and bustle of the previous midterm week had passed, the school’s atmosphere had relaxed far too quickly for your comfort. Going from days of seemingly never-ending examinations to back-to-back class projects had left you on edge and hopped up on a near-illegal amount of caffeine.
Yet, after all that stress-inducing work, you were still antsy to do more. I mean, seriously, how does someone relax back into a schedule of only lessons after that assassination attempt of a school week?
You wouldn’t consider yourself an overachiever or workaholic by any means, but by God-
Seeing Koyama’s expression of absolute despair after you had wiped the floor with him on the biology examination had you beaming with vainglorious pride.
A score of 98 out of 100 to his measly 95.
Serves Mr. Memorization Monster right, you had thought. Whenever Gakushu would bring him around for study sessions, you always argued vehemently with Koyama against his reliance on memorizing the material over understanding the concepts.
Call it petty and childish, but that taste of victory and being objectively correct? Now that’s a drug you could get addicted to.
With Koyama down for the count, you have three people remaining on your ‘Kunugigaoka High School Hit List,’ and Ren Sakikibara was next in line to be absolutely obliterated by your spite-fueled rank climbing.
Ren has been a notably difficult target, but Korosensei never taught you to be a quitter. You had spent a good chunk of the last few years fantasizing about the flowery prose you would use in your future victory speech against the Japanese Virtuoso himself.
Now, all you needed was the scores to prove your dominance.
Hence your current situation: sprawled on a couch in Gakushu’s room, offhandedly reading through the annotated notes of the current lesson in your Japanese Folk Literature class. The sounds of quick typing served as your background noise as you reviewed your initial literary analysis.
You had mostly skimmed the sections you highlighted, having gone over them with Kanzaki earlier in the week. However, a rather confusing passage stopped you in your tracks; you had spent the better part of the past hour re-reading it in an attempt to understand the excerpt.
To no avail, you can’t seem to wrap your head around it despite all your best efforts. Disappointedly, you knew that it was time for you to swallow your pride and ask your two other targets for assistance.
Luckily, the two in question are currently in the same room as you. Quite convenient.
You lower your readings onto your lap and look around at your surprisingly tranquil surroundings.
Sitting at your front was Karma, who was on the floor beside you, plotting out motion time graphs for his Physics elective. He was rather focused, drawing out the lines for the acceleration-time section, so you decided to leave him be.
If you caused Karma to draw a jagged line across his worksheet, he would need to reprint it and draw all the graphs again. Knowing him, he might just end up poking you with the uncapped permanent marker in his hand as revenge.
You decide to bother Gakushu, who is sitting on the couch next to your reclining form. He had his laptop on his lap and had somehow not stopped typing for the past two hours that you three have been studying.
“Gakushu? Are you busy?” you ask softly, craning your neck to look up at him.
He doesn’t give you a verbal response, but you know he heard you as soon as the sounds of typing stop abruptly.
“Can I ask you for the historical context of this author? It might help me understand what he wrote.” you requested, flipping to the front page of your readings and raising them towards Gakushu.
He briefly glances at your paper, and you perk up in joy when he seems to adhere to your request.
“Thank you-” you start, before realizing he had just gone back to revising his Chemistry lab calculations.
Never before had you experienced such blatant disrespect. The audacity of this boy, all because he was a few grade points up on you.
Putting on your best, Irina-sensei-approved, pouty face, you reach forward and tap Gakushu’s knee.
“Aww! Please, it won’t take that long. Just a quick Google search?”
You look up at him with as much unrelenting cuteness as you can muster, but Gakushu doesn’t even give you the benefit of a glare. Not even you bonking your head lightly against his thigh had broken his concentration.
“If you truly need the information immediately, I don’t understand why you won’t just get up and grab your laptop,” he states coldly.
Unbelievable. Not even Karasuma-sensei was this much of a square. What made the electrolyte count of Japanese sports drinks more interesting to him than helping you?
“But Mr. President, your couch is so comfy. Its gravitational force is too strong!” you stretch out your limbs, leaving your arms to fall lax on Gakushu’s forearms.
He stops typing once more, and gives you a sigh, shaking his head. You smile up at him, vocalizing a mischievous “hehe.”
“I can assure you it has nothing of the sort. Why don’t you go bother Akabane instead.” Gakushu responds in exasperation, simply pushing your arms off of his while you cry out in complaint.
Karma, upon hearing his name mentioned, perks up with a ‘hm?’ and puts down his marker. You turn to look at him with faux dejection, noticing that he has almost finished his worksheet. He tilts his head at you in response, a mixture of confusion and amusement on his face.
“Whatcha say to them, Pres? Why do they look so sad?” Karma asks as he gathers up his graphing papers.
“Karma, he was being mean to me~” you whine, only for Gakushu to huff out air in irritation. “See! So cruel, I was just asking for help.”
In response to your silly antics, Karma snorts out a laugh. “Gaku-kun, aren’t you supposed to help out your fellow students in their education? You should be a good example.”
Gakushu groans in annoyance, “Akabane, don’t enable their childish behavior. They are just too lazy to get up and walk three steps to get their device.”
Upon processing his words, you shoot up in offense, moving to a quick sitting position while crossing your arms. You couldn’t understand why he couldn’t give you this short act of service.
“Gakushu! You’re so mean, I just wanted your help with this.” You frown, pouting with a little more anger. Karma’s lips pursed into a thin line as he glanced at Gakushu who had not stopped typing, seemingly unbothered by your distress. However, Karma doesn’t seem to say anything and goes behind the couch to put his graphs into his bag. Figures, he’d leave the growing tension for you two to deal with.
You let out a sigh of disappointment, “You know what, nevermind. I’m sorry for bothering you when you’re clearly busy.”
Swinging your legs off the couch, you awkwardly move back into your earlier reclining position and mentally prepare yourself to re-analyze the difficult Japanese excerpt again. However, right as you lift your readings towards your face, someone grabs the papers from your hand.
You look up in surprise, seeing Gakushu put down his laptop on the coffee table with one hand while he reads your papers in the other. After a brief silence, he speaks your name.
“You’re intelligent enough to analyze this regardless of historical context. I’ve seen you tackle more difficult prose than this one.” Gakushu states, giving you back the papers.
Furrowing your eyebrows, you try to process your next action. Were you supposed to preen at the praise, or be insulted at his lack of understanding of your intentions?
“Gaku-kun, don’t be so dense. I’m pretty sure they just want us to study together.” Karma finally cuts in, leaning on the couch’s backrest behind you and Gakushu.
You look up at Karma with silent thanks before clearing your throat. “Yeah, that’s what I wanted. Look- I’m really glad that you think so highly of me, but this is genuinely stumping me and I just wanted your guys’ help.”
Gakushu and Karma gaze at you silently, both processing your words with deep thought. You decide to continue and get your piece out, hoping to smooth over the tension you’ve created.
“I value your guys’ opinion, okay? Talking about these things with two of the most intelligent people I know really helps me understand them faster. Besides, we’ve been having non-stop study sessions for the past two weeks. Yet, we’ve barely spent any time together that wasn’t just an individually focused study period.”
You cover your face with your papers, feeling sheepish about your sudden vulnerability. The room is silent, and you start wondering if it’s time to back-pedal and try to avert course.
Once you gather enough courage to look at the two boys, you first see Gakushu give you a troubled, guilty look.
“I apologize for being so indifferent. I- I didn’t mean to disregard your needs.”
Upon meeting your keen, curious stare, Gakushu pauses for a moment and looks away, flustered. He takes a moment to recollect himself before continuing, “You’re usually so self-sufficient, and so I unfairly assumed you were simply just fooling around to get our attention.”
“Well, that last part is kinda true, but I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted your help,” you replied softly, cautiously reaching out for Gakushu’s hand in an attempt to give physical comfort. To your elation, he reaches out to take your hand, keeping yours in a gentle grip while moving to rest your intertwined hands on his lap.
Karma, who for the past few minutes chose to keep quiet while the two of you worked out your feelings, let out a big sigh of relief that he didn’t know he was even holding in.
“Geez, you guys sure know how to make things more dramatic than they need to be.” he voices, wiping away an imaginary sweatdrop in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“Hey!” you can’t help but smile as you reach up to playfully swat Karma’s shoulder with your note-holding hand.
The redhead dodges your papers with ease, laughing softly as he continues to tease, “Did you really need to put us through that soap opera just to ask for help? So theatrical of you~”
You let out an impish “hmph!” in response to Karma’s jests, choosing to ask Gakushu for support with a light hand squeeze and your best puppy-dog eyes.
To your chagrin, however, he simply shakes his head with a small grin. “Unfortunately, Akabane is right. That was a rather ostentatious way of asking for our assistance.”
Karma lets out a boisterous laugh as your face turns red. He even has the audacity to reach out and pinch your tomato-colored cheeks as you wallow in your shame.
“Ehh! Why are you two ganging up on me now? Just help me already! How else am I beating Ren and catching up to you two?” you whine light-heartedly, grabbing Karma’s wrist so he stops pinching your cheeks.
“Huh? Is that your motivation? Gee, I didn’t realize that was why you were on a ranking warpath.” he asks, finally moving his hand away from your face and straightening up.
“Ah- Yea, maybe? Ehe,” you utter, still reeling from the mortification of the previous topic.
Gakushu puts a hand to his chin, analyzing your statement. “Hmm, that does make sense. I thought you had just wanted to prove Koyama’s studying method wrong, but if we take into account your history, you’ve actually been slowly outranking the Virtuosos throughout the examinations.”
“You’ve already outranked Koyama? Hah! No wonder he’s been such a sourpuss lately.” Karma exclaims, moving around the couch and grabbing his practice problems from the coffee table.
“Yeah! Didn’t you guys see my name above his on the rankings board?” You question, amused at the thought of completely ruining Koyama’s week with your complete, and utter victory.
“I did,” Gakushu pats your head with his unoccupied hand, “Good work, please keep at it and go humble Ren.”
You preen at his praise, heart pumping and even more motivated to dethrone Ren Sakikibara.
“Ehh, sorry, I didn’t see. All I need to know is that I’m still above Gaku-kun over here.” Karma admits, seemingly completely guiltless about his offense to you both.
While you turn to Karma with the look of utmost betrayal, Gakushu faces him with frustration, “It was three points, you cretin! Besides, I’d like to see you keep rank one with the amount of extracurriculars I have to balance.”
Karma laughs mischievously as he sticks his tongue out at both of your disgruntled expressions. “Come on now, Rank 2. Let’s help our dearest Rank 4 with their educational struggles.”
“You are appallingly infuriating.”
“Aww, I love you too, Pres~”
Gakushu rolls his eyes as the redhead blows him a kiss, untangling your hands to reach out for his laptop.
“Scoot.” Karma taps your lower leg with his rolled-up problem set paper.
You lazily raise your head at him, “Mmm, nah. Maybe, if you were nicer, I’d let you sit with us.”
“Come on, move.” Karma starts incessantly whacking your knees with his Math worksheet. You kick back at his arm halfheartedly.
“Alright, don’t move. Fine by me.” he seemingly concedes, halting his paper-swatting assault on your legs—
Before plopping his butt on your outstretched legs.
“Hey!” You immediately struggle against his weight, “Hey! Move off, you're crushing my legs.”
Despite your best efforts, you can barely lift him off of you in your current position.
“Nope, these are the terms you agreed to, sweetheart~” Karma teases.
Still kicking and flailing, you call out to Gakushu for help, but he only goes back to work despite the disturbances. “You’re heavy! Gaku-kun, please get him off me.”
“Akabane, please refrain from causing bodily harm to our partner.” Gakushu requests with a hint of amusement present under his exasperation.
Karma groans but unenthusiastically complies nonetheless. You kick at him in playful revenge once the circulation returns to your legs, and he makes a mocking face at you before setting down his rolled-up Math worksheet on the coffee table.
“Come on, at least move up. I don’t have space.”
“Nooo, if I move up any further Gakushu might push me off the couch.” You protest despite Karma’s expectant looks.
Luckily, Gakushu cuts in, “I would do nothing of the sort.”
You look up at him in surprise. “Eh?” You breathe, waiting for him to continue. He responds by moving his laptop forward and patting his thigh, signaling for you to lie down on him.
Karma shares a surprised look with you before quickly encouraging you with wild hand movements to not pass up the rare opportunity where Gakushu initiates physical affection. You move up to rest your head on his lap despite your reddening face, and when you glance up at the strawberry blonde boy, you see a faint hint of red light up his cheeks as well before he clears his throat and continues typing.
After shaking off the brief shock, Karma finally gets to sit down on the couch. “You can stretch your legs over mine, I’m just gonna read your excerpt so we can finally help you with it.”
“Oh, uh- okay? Thanks,” you say, flustered at the close proximity to your partners. “Let me get them.”
You recover the papers squished between you and the couch and hand them over to Karma. He proceeds to start reading them, and the three of you fall into an easy silence.
Well, as easy of a silence as you can maintain, laying there with absolutely no clue what to do while in between your two preoccupied partners.
Karma is still reading the passages on the paper, however, his idle hand had started tracing circles on your ankle at some point. Despite your burning face, you still feel too meek to move or say anything about it.
Gakushu on the other hand, has moved on to his student council work, reading through club constitutions with his left hand scrolling the documents with the trackpad, while his right is combing absentmindedly through your hair.
Despite being physically frozen, your mind is overclocked with the proximity and their casual ministrations. Gakushu and Karma are much too uncomfortable for any overt PDA outside of hand-holding, and you’ve been so busy with schoolwork that you three rarely even have the chance to be physically affectionate in private.
Well, you suppose there has to be a start for everything. Still, you wish you couldn't hear your heartbeat so loud in your ears. You want to be able to relax and enjoy the rare domestic moment with your partners.
They aren’t really making it easy for you, though.
“Hey, hey. No falling asleep now. You still have to defeat Ren to havee any chance at beating us, remember?” Karma gives your leg a double tap to catch your attention.
You jolt, “Wait, eh- Did you say something before that?”
“Yeah, I was asking for which passage you didn’t understand,” Karma states, looking at you in anticipation.
You were trying to formulate a response, trying to remember what exactly you even wanted their help with. But Karma started tracing circles around your inner calf and Gakushu was lightly scratching your scalp with his fingertips, leaving you to do nothing but gape and stutter.
“Hey, sweetheart. You alright?” Karma asks curiously, as if it isn’t clearly obvious that you’re currently flustered.
Laughing awkwardly in response, you resort to covering your face before Gakushu notices that you are as red as Karma’s hair. “Haha, I’m fine,” you mutter into your palms, though the sound is muffled.
You peek out from in between your fingers just in time to see realization dawn on Karma’s face. He gives you a sly grin, now tracing the circles on your calf with more intent.
“Gaku-kun, it seems like we haven’t been the best boyfriends. Look how red they are, we aren’t even doing anything that scandalous yet.”
You let out a little squeal and cover your eyes one more.
“Eh! What do you mean yet? And no, you’re great boyfriends! The best! Just- I’m not- Not used to this.” you stutter out quickly, lowering your hands to uncover your eyes.
“If that’s the case, we’ll make sure you get used to it.” Gakushu gives you a casual head pat, as you look up at him. His heartfelt gaze combined with your comprehension of his statement causes you to shrink into his side to hide your face further.
“I- ugh! You two, you’re gonna kill me here,” you grumble.
Karma laughs loudly and you feel Gakushu vibrate with a chuckle, “Dying from too much love? Now that’s truly a modern-day problem, dearest~”
Comically peeved by his remark, you turn away from Gakushu’s side to glare at Karma, who simply waggles his eyebrows at you in response.
“Anyway—” you start, abruptly cutting yourself off when you feel a ticklish sensation at your feet.
You kick wildly, trying to get away from his hands. “Karma! Stop that- haha! Stop!”
Gakushu quickly lifts up his laptop to avoid your flailing limbs, and you end up falling off the couch from your frantic movements. You roll onto the coffee table with enough force to displace the items placed on it, forcing Karma to get up quickly and check on you.
The panic starts as soon as you raise your head and see Gakushu’s water tumbler topple over.
With the quickest reflexes you can muster, you dive for the bottle before it can hit the floor.
“Gotcha!” you exclaim, catching it just in time.
To your surprise, the tumbler is heavy, as if the water inside was barely depleted. Karma seems to pick up on your realization and raises his hand to his mouth in faux concern. “Uh-oh.” He side-eyes the strawberry-blonde boy on the couch.
Gakushu stiffens up, registering what you two have discovered. He tries to play it off, continuing to type despite knowing what’s coming next for him.
“Gaku-kun?” you smile sweetly at him.
“When was the last time you drank water?” you question, setting the bottle on the table and standing up to walk over to the couch.
“... I’ll drink some as soon as I finish reviewing the Debate Club’s renewed bylaws proposal,” Gakushu replies curtly, not wishing to elaborate further.
“Gakushu. Go drink water, now.” You demand sternly, tapping your foot on the floor. Karma stands next to you and leans over the strawberry-blonde boy’s laptop.
“Yeah, Pres, it’s not like their constitution will run away while you aren’t looking.” he jokes, using a finger to push down the laptop screen.
Gakushu tugs the laptop away, “Just let me finish this, it won’t take long.”
Despite his attempt to ignore you two, the both of you continue to stare at him expectantly. You have half a mind to just start telling him off again for neglecting his health.
However, before you can speak, Karma shrugs and walks away. “Whatever.”
You almost get annoyed at the redhead’s disregard for your shared partner’s health, until Karma signals something to you as he’s walking behind the couch.
‘Play along.’ he mouths, getting into position.
Not wanting to foil his plan, you put on a stern expression and put your hands on your hips. “Gakushu, what did we tell you about taking care of yourself?”
“I know, I’ve been keeping it in mind. I just got carried away today,” he replied, still averting his gaze and typing incessantly like a man on death row.
You crouch down to put your hands on his laptop and push the screen down, “Please look at me.”
Upon being forced to look you in the eye, Gakushu falters and loosens his grip on his laptop. You take the moment of weakness as an opportunity to place it gently on the couch beside him.
“Gakushu?” you ask softly, leaning in closer.
“Yeah, I know.” he shuts his eyes and exhales, bowing his head to meet your gaze once more.
Gakushu doesn’t notice you glancing towards Karma who is now positioned right behind him.
You drop the act and smile wickedly, “Sorry for this.”
Karma quickly dives behind Gakushu to scoop him up by his armpits. Meanwhile, you turn away from him and take hold of his legs, propping them up on your shoulders. “Hah?” your victim yells out in surprise.
In perfect synchronization, you and Karma lift him and start hauling him downstairs to the kitchen.
“Release me, you ingrates!” Gakushu shouts.
“No can do, Pres!” Karma responds, howling with laughter as you run down the stairs.
You can’t help but giggle at the situation, “Not a very polite thing to call your partners, Gaku-kun!”
Right as you reach the bottom of the stairs, Gakushu manages to struggle enough to send the three of you tumbling down into a tangle of limbs, complaints, and giggles.
Gakushu tries his best to untangle himself from you and Karma, but the two of you are much too amused to let go of him and get off the floor.
Eventually, he stops struggling and lays back down with you two on both sides of him, pinning his limbs down. “Never do that again,” he demands tiredly.
“Only if you promise to never neglect your health again!” you tease, getting close to his face and staring giddily, unable to control your smile.
Karma follows in tow, leaning over Gakushu’s face, “Yeah, Pres, can’t make demands without giving something in return~”
Gakushu looks at both of your grinning faces, exasperated at the two imbeciles he chose as his romantic partners. After a brief moment, rolls his eyes in faux frustration, before letting out a chortle of amusement, “You two are unbelievable.”
The three of you devolve into a series of giggles, snorts, and chuckles.
After you three calm down, you lay your head on Gakushu’s chest and look up at him, “But you still love us right?” Karma reaches over to pull you into a closer hug and settles his chin into Gakushu’s neck.
Gakushu smiles softly, answering your question confidently as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
motivation has returned full force like koro-sensei flying to hawaii at mach 20 (idk if that allegory makes sense LMAO)
was thinking of a final scene where Gakuho walks in on these buffoons cuddling on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, but nah, wanted to end it on a soft note
have a gold comment from my beta reader, she puts up with so much:
(Regarding Karma's circle tracing) - PUTANGINA MO GAGO, HINDI TO LARO, SERYOSOHIN MO TO, PUSO KO YUNG NAKA SALALAY DITO, TARANTADO
on a last note, i've been rereading Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao cause i just got Heavenly Tyrant, and i am this close to writing an au with karma and gakushu in that universe THIS CLOSE-
anw, thanks for reading! let me know your thoughts if possible, and constructive criticism is much appreciated
pls stay safe and have a good day :DDD
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