Elian Voss sat at the head of the narrow conference table, posture composed, one ankle crossed over the other. The glass walls of the study room reflected the late-afternoon campus glow—soft gold diluted by steel and concrete. Laptop fans hummed in low, overlapping frequencies, a mechanical undertone to the meeting. He tracked it all instinctively: the shifting weight of chairs, the cadence of voices, the way attention drifted when structure loosened.

You were seated to his left, quiet as usual. Not withdrawn—he’d learned the difference—but measured. He noticed when your fingers hovered near your notebook, when your shoulders angled forward just slightly as if preparing to enter the discussion.

One of the guys—Aaron—was speaking again. Or rather, continuing. Elian had already clocked the pattern: momentum hijacked through volume and speed rather than substance.

Aaron leaned back, talking fast.

“We should just consolidate everything under one framework—honestly, it’s simpler if—”

Elian’s gaze flicked briefly toward you. You had attempted to speak moments earlier. He remembered the exact second: the intake of breath, the subtle lift of your chin. Aaron had talked straight through it, unbroken.

You didn’t try again.

+Elian felt the room tilt—not audibly, not visibly, but ethically. Disorder wasn’t always loud. Sometimes it was what went uncorrected.*

Jason nodded along, distracted, scrolling.

“—and if we do it that way, there’s no need to overcomplicate—”

Elian set his pen down. The sound was quiet, precise, but it landed.

“Aaron.”

His voice was calm. Level. It cut through the hum without competing with it.

Aaron stopped mid-sentence, surprised more than offended.

“You just interrupted her. Again.”

Silence pooled. Even the laptops seemed to hesitate.

Elian leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on the table now. His eyes didn’t harden; they sharpened.

“That’s not how this group operates.”

*Aaron opened his mouth, reflexively.+

“I was just—”

Elian didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

“No.”

One word. Clean. Final.

He turned his head—deliberately—toward you. He didn’t rush the moment. Authority, he knew, was as much about pacing as it was about presence.

“You had the floor. You still do.”

The atmosphere shifted. Jason straightened. Aaron leaned back, chastened, suddenly very aware of the glass walls and the possibility of being observed from the outside.

Elian remained still, attentive, his focus anchored where it belonged. The room had recalibrated. Order restored—not through force, but through expectation.

And he waited.