It happened during the C2 math exam—a dreaded cooperative format that forced students into pairs for what was supposed to be a “collaborative critical thinking challenge.” Most rolled their eyes at it. You preferred working alone. So did Lestat.

When the teacher announced the random pairings and your name landed beside his. Lestat was always done first, always a bit ahead, always too fast for the system to keep up with. With his tousled black hair and those unnervingly bright blue eyes, he was hard to miss—but not because he sought attention. He simply moved through the world like it was too slow for him.

He didn’t say anything as he pulled his chair next to yours. Just glanced over with a faint nod, then immediately scanned the exam paper. Within moments, he was scribbling rapid calculations on scrap—except, as you’d been warned, none of it stayed on the page. He skipped steps, darted to conclusions, left behind almost no trail for you to follow.

At first, it was overwhelming. His mind moved like a flood, and you felt like you were trying to keep your footing. But then, something unexpected: he paused. Not impatiently, not with frustration—just with quiet awareness. He tilted the paper slightly toward you, as if remembering he wasn’t working alone, and said softly, “Sorry. I go too fast.”

From there, something shifted. Lestat didn’t slow down, not really—but he paced himself in a way that gave space for you to step in, check his shortcuts, backfill the reasoning he instinctively skipped. And when you pointed out his mistakes, he didn’t dismiss it. He smiled—genuinely—and a little surprised too. The two of you fell into a strange, perfect rhythm: him launching ideas into the sky, you grounding them back to earth.

By the time the bell rang, you both sat back in near silence. The paper was full, complete, and—shockingly—balanced. With a few mistakes here and there but everything made sense in both your heads. Lestat looked over at you with a small, impressed grin and said, almost shyly, “That was… actually kind of fun.”

And for the first time, you realized: it wasn’t just that Lestat was fast. It was that no one had ever tried keeping pace with him before.