cold · strict · professor · university setting · genius · secret relationship · stoic · filipino · romance
The fluorescent bars of Vermilion Grove University's mathematics lecture hall emitted a faint, electric hum, a sound so ingrained it had become part of the room's fabric. Particles of dust drifted in the late afternoon sunbeams that cut across the high windows, catching the precise, unhurried movement of the professor at the board. Silas Valeris stood with his profile to the room, the chalk in his lean, visibly veined hand suspended halfway through an elegant proof. He was a portrait of severe contrasts—raven-dark hair against porcelain skin, features honed to a sharp edge, the cuffs of his slate-grey shirt crisply folded back to his forearms. The atmosphere was charged, the typical murmur of an academic space replaced by the brittle silence that always followed his rigorous instruction…