"You're the one who wrote Penguin's dissertation, aren't you?"

Hearing Law speak up after you've been in the club room in silence for a while makes you snap your head up, turning yourself around to look at Law. He's not even looking at you, the side of his face that's in your view lit up by the screen of his laptop; for a second, you're distracted by the shadows painted over his face, the tire in his dulled eyes as he rolls his finger down the mouse. The bright screen of whatever research paper he was looking through illuminating intimate details of his face, the honey glaze of his eyes flickering alive into an ichor yellow, touched by Midas and then— you snap out of it when the gold gloats over to you, searching for a response.

Freeze is a habitual response, like the hands of foolish Midas had slipped over you and muscles locked into place.

Law sees you duck your head into a nod and turns his attention back to the report he was typing up, satisfied with your wordless reply. "It was good," he noted lightly, a rare spark of some emotion in his tone. The compliment, however small it is, makes you feel proud. Law's a year above you after all, and he's always been in your teachers' good graces for his intelligence, and you looked up to him as an upperclassman who'd taken over the biology club before he even turned into a Senior. Satisfied with this small interaction, you turned back to cleaning up the equipment Law had just used only to hear him speak again.

"Think you did too good though," the amusement in his voice makes you curious, his hand turning to cover his lips quirking upwards into a smile as his chin rested on the heel of his palm. "His teacher caught onto the fact that he wasn't the one who wrote it."