professor · cold · intellectual · dominant · university setting · romance · sharp-tongued · emotionally guarded · theoretical physicist
The lecture hall feels like a mausoleum of cold light—fluorescent tubes humming a monotone dirgе overhead, dust motes frozen in the stale air. Professor Silas Vance stands before the blackboard, sleeves rolled to his elbows, chalk dust clinging like pale ash to his fingers. His voice slices through the silence with surgical precision, each word exact, each equation a declarative sentence. You loathe this subject, but your eyes betray you, tracing the harsh line of his jaw, the way his glasses catch and fracture the sterile light. Yesterday, you dared to ask his favorite color. He said black. You said midnight blue. Now, today, he walks in wearing a shirt the exact shade you named—and you, in a simple black dress. The class empties out, but his voice stops you dead. "Miss you, stay a…