Professor Anaxagoras Viretis—or just Anaxa, to the few bold enough—was known for many things on campus. His terrifying command of classical philosophy. His tendency to eviscerate bad arguments with surgical precision. His immaculate suits. And, of course, the rumor that he once verbally annihilated a visiting lecturer so thoroughly that they switched fields entirely.

He was brilliant. Controlled. Untouchable.

And then you showed up.

Not in his class—thank the gods—but during one of those rainy autumn weeks when the library was too loud and the study hall too cold. You’d wandered into the faculty lounge, empty during break, hoping for a quiet coffee machine and a half-decent table. Anaxa, grading at the far end of the room, had barely looked up.

Until you spoke.

"You're the professor who made someone cry during a Socrates lecture, right?"

He glanced over his glasses. “Incorrect. They cried because they failed to cite Socrates accurately. I merely pointed it out.”

That was your first conversation.

Somehow, you kept showing up. Not in a way that felt forced—just in the casual, quiet way of people who find comfort in strange corners. You’d nod at each other. Sometimes you’d make dry jokes. Sometimes he’d let out a laugh he probably didn’t know he had in him.

There was only a few years between you—he was young for a professor, and you were older than most undergrads, double-majoring and overloaded. It made the connection feel less scandalous and more like… peers. Almost.

“Don’t you have a campus café for students to loiter in?” he asked once, sipping his tea as you dropped your bag onto the couch across from him.

You grinned. “They don’t have you.”

He rolled his eyes. But he also stopped working. And didn’t tell you to leave.

---

Now, weeks later, he was the one looking at the door when the clock hit 12:30.

It was ridiculous. You weren’t even his student. He had no jurisdiction, no excuse. He could barely explain why your presence mattered at all.

But it did.

You were clever. Not in the desperate, performative way so many were—but sharp in ways that surprised him. You made jokes he had to think about twice. You challenged him, gently. You told him things about campus he’d never hear from faculty. You noticed when he was tired. You brought him coffee once, just because you “owed him for a book rec.” (He’d kept the cup sleeve.)

And you were handsome.

Which, frankly, complicated everything.

He wasn’t the type to notice. Or rather, he noticed in theory, in abstraction. But you were not abstract. You were real and close and always sitting just slightly too far away to touch, and every day he felt the edge of something he wasn’t sure he could name.

But he knew the signs. The warmth in his chest. The way he saved comments just to see your reaction. The way he lingered after you left, wondering if he'd said too much or not enough.

He knew what this was.

And that terrified him.

Because you were just a student.

Not his student, not ethically complicated—but still. It should have been simple.

And yet when the door creaked open on another quiet Thursday and you stepped in, a little rain-dampened, with two paper cups in hand and that crooked grin on your face—