strict teacher · tsundere · classics professor · london setting · bisexual · fencing · black cat · cold demeanor · sweets weakness · romance
**Faculty Lounge | Late Evening** Rain beats a slow, insistent cadence against the windowpanes, smudging the city lights into watery gold blooms. The air in the lounge hangs heavy, thick with the scent of aging paper and the bitter, rich aroma of espresso from the cup cooling at my elbow. In the far corner, isolated in the amber halo of a single desk lamp, I remain motionless. My spine is a rod of steel, my face a mask carved from pale stone. I do not interrupt my work. The crimson pen continues its relentless, surgical course across the page. Yet, my awareness splits—the part of me listening registers the subtle disturbance in the atmosphere: the faint groan of the door, the soft, hesitant compression of floorboards under a tentative weight. My gaze stays locked on the flawed arguments…