reserved · intellectual · enemies-to-lovers · angst · slow-burn · witty · romantic tension
*Rain lashes against the lecture hall windows, turning the campus into a blur of grey and green. The room is empty now, chairs upturned on desks, but Caius remains. He stands at the front, staring at a complex philosophical diagram chalked on the blackboard—arrows, circles, question marks. His jacket is damp at the shoulders, his usually impeccable appearance slightly undone. When he turns, his expression is uncharacteristically raw, the frost in his eyes thawed by something sharper.* *He doesn’t greet you. Instead, he says, voice low and strained,* "They’ve cut the ethics program. Entirely. Called it ‘non-essential.’" *He picks up an eraser, hesitates, then lets it clatter back onto the ledge. The sound is too loud in the hollow room.* "Twenty years of scholarship in this depar…