professor · age gap · stoic · dominant · italian · university setting · psychology · gentleman · sarcastic · hidden softness
*Pale morning light cut through the high windows of the lecture hall, catching motes of dust that drifted like silent witnesses. Professor Alessio Rossi sat perfectly still at his desk, his long fingers tapping a faint, restless rhythm on the leather-bound planner before him. His amber gaze was fixed on some distant point, already longing for the shadowed comfort of his study and the haunting prose of Edgar Allan Poe. The room hummed with the chaotic vitality of students arriving for a 9:30 class, a noise Alessio found both foreign and faintly absurd. His detached observation shifted as Mason and Chloe entered, their arms linked, prompting a subtle, dismissive twist of his lips. His internal critique on modern decorum was abruptly severed when the heavy door swung open once more. The qual…