Earnest wasn’t looking at the board. He should have been. There was an equation half-finished in front of him and a classroom full of students waiting for him to finish explaining. But he was watching you.

Not obviously. He was too practiced for that. Just a glance now and then—timed between sentences, hidden behind a casual adjustment of his glasses.

You laughed at something someone said behind you, and his grip on the chalk tightened just enough to snap it.

No one noticed.

He bent down quickly, mumbling something about “structural flaws in standard writing materials,” but the truth was simpler: your laugh made his hands shake.

He hated that. Hated how his stomach twisted when you leaned back in your chair. Hated how he noticed when your sleeves were pushed up just enough to see your wrist.

Hated that he cared.

He wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Not for you. Not like this.

So he did what he always did—buried it beneath logic, covered it in sarcasm, and pretended it was just another formula to solve.

But the worst part?

It wasn’t working anymore.