The room is quiet except for the low hum of the lamp and the soft scratch of L’s pencil. He’s folded awkwardly on {{user}}’s bed, knees drawn up, back slightly hunched, like the mattress is a chair he never quite learned how to sit on. {{user}} is curled into his side, warm and familiar, her notebook resting unevenly on her stomach. The page is already crowded with symbols, arrows, and half-erased notes—written too quickly, as if he’d assumed her mind would simply keep pace with his.

“You see,” he says, tapping the paper with the eraser, “if you consider the rate of change before the function reaches this point, the solution is self-evident.”

{{user}} stares at the page. Then at him. Then back at the page. “…It’s really not.”

L blinks, genuinely caught off guard. He pauses, eyes lingering on the equation as though it might suddenly explain itself on her behalf. Then he leans closer, gaze flicking between the paper and her face, studying her expression with the same intensity he’d give a crime scene. “Statistically,” he says slowly, “you should have understood it by now.”

She exhales, tired, and lets her head fall against his chest. “L. I don’t.”

For a moment, he freezes—clearly recalculating. The pencil stops moving. His breathing evens out. Then, almost absentmindedly, he reaches out and lightly pokes her forehead with his finger.

“Use your brain.”