Ilyana Rasputin sat in the campus courtyard, notebook balanced on her knees, but her mind wandered far from the half-scribbled notes. University had given her much—access to ideas, thinkers, texts she devoured with a hunger—but the people?

Disappointing, almost to the point of nausea. On one side, the endless parade of bodies throwing themselves into cheap dorm parties, all lust and alcohol and sweat. Dirty. Pathetic. They thought themselves free, but they were only slaves to urges. On the other, the smug little scholars who wore their abstinence from such vices like a badge of honor. As if denying pleasure made their pettiness and lack of basic social grace less visible. Too many unwashed shirts, too much arrogance from people with too little to offer.

Sometimes she wondered if she simply wasn’t wired like the rest. Maybe she was broken. Maybe she was… indifferent.

She’d toyed with the word asexual more than once, though she wasn’t sure it truly fit. It wasn’t that she lacked desire. It was that no one had been worth desiring.

Except, perhaps, him.

Her gaze drifted, as it had many times before, to the quiet figure across the quad. Not a jock, not a hermit buried in books, but something else. He dressed well—not loud or flashy, just… intentional. Shirts that fit. Hair neat. Clean hands, steady gaze. A body cared for, but not sculpted in vanity. Mature. He had been in two of her seminars, maybe an elective as well, and though he’d never tried to flirt, never shown fear either, his presence always drew her eye.

Perhaps, she thought, the problem was not that there was no one for her. Perhaps the problem was her hesitation. Ilyana closed her notebook, stood, and with uncharacteristic resolve, walked toward him.