Chapter Text
Zayne was on the final stretch of his Master’s degree, his goal of becoming a doctor so close and yet so far out of reach, dependent on the approval of one final professor: Dr. Noah. He of all people knew Zayne’s incredible potential, his brilliant mind, his keen eyes. He’d make a great doctor in due time. There was only one problem. Dr. Noah recognized that while Zayne was smart enough to be a doctor, he lacked in one category: his people skills. Zayne was blunt to a fault, lacking ill intentions with his harsh words, but they still always came out in the most condescending of ways. He said things as he recognized them, regardless of offense, to the point of pushing many away that would otherwise be great colleagues. He needed those people. They were resources, learning materials, and, more importantly, if he were to truly step into this field, he’d deal with far more difficult and far less patient people every day. Furthermore, Dr. Noah hadn’t just looked into the near future for the soon-to-be Dr. Zayne with concern; more distantly, he saw excessive challenges when it would eventually be his turn to teach. Zayne wasn’t just on the path to be a good doctor; he was set to be the best, and minds like his didn’t just come around every day, or even every year. Zayne would certainly be a trailblazer in the medical field, and thus the responsibility to teach a new generation would inevitably fall to him, but if he could never build the trust necessary to teach… he and those who follow him would be doomed.
Dr. Noah’s concerns… They were also personal. He’d known Zayne since he was quite young, watched him excel in studies but struggle to make friends, with a couple of exceptions. He was both his best and most concerning student all at the same time, but he was far from being his only problem student. There was also you, a senior struggling to reach the finish line to your Bachelor's, stuck in a class you’d already failed… twice: Anatomy and Physiology, the lowest difficulty science Dr. Noah had the pain and pleasure of teaching. Studying was hard for you, as was simply staying attentive in a lecture. It always had been, and Dr. Noah knew this, having also known you since you were quite young. You had attention issues, chronic ones that a well-intentioned but horribly mistaken caretaker decided did not warrant the usual treatments, diagnosis, medication, therapy… Grandma didn’t want you to feel different, but you were, and science had always been your kryptonite. You’d dropped several sciences within the first week over nearly every one of your 8 semesters of college, hoping that one would stick, before a generous old acquaintance made an exception to let you into his class, hoping maybe that having known you for several years might increase your attentions, your successes. It was to no avail.
Looking at his desk, that final spring semester was two papers staring back at him desperately. One was from Zayne, his final thesis, a brilliant work, especially for a college student. Zayne was already out-writing some of Dr. Noah’s colleagues in the field, and a paper that would normally receive an astounding A+ was something he hovered over with hesitancy. Giving him that A was also agreeing that Zayne was ready to progress in his career, begin a residency, see patients, and practice patience. Dr. Noah knew he wasn’t. The other, a letter from you, thanking him for making an exception to his overbooked class to let you in, and assurances that you’d do anything to pass. He’d learned after agreeing to this that several other professors had banned you from signing up for their classes altogether, citing not only incompletion, but being a “class distraction”. Despite that, Dr. Noah knew none of that was for a lack of intelligence on your part, even your letter was carefully crafted with flowery persuasive language, although the fragrant smell of it he found confusing. Was this… perfume? Dr. Noah shook his head, fearing to give credit to some of the more derogatory conclusions his professor colleagues had drawn up about you. There were rumors. Surely you weren’t stupid enough to attempt to seduce your way through this class, with a teacher who’d known you long enough to remember your milestones. He was there to treat you as your doctor when you broke your ankle in primary school, when you had your first menstrual cycle in secondary school. Surely this was not your plan, because if it was, he’d be obligated to call you up before an honor board, and yet he ignored all that, and thought, “What if I could kill two birds with one stone?”
It was perfect. If Zayne could reel you in, Dr. Noah was certain he’d be well prepared to reign all kinds of unruly patients in as well. There was the slight concern that you would try your feminine wiles on him, but Dr. Noah knew his prize student too well. He wasn’t interested. Girls flocked to him all the time, and he brushed them off like dirt on his shoulder, always in a rush to get back to studying, and yet maybe his alluring qualities were exactly what you needed to find your focus. According to his fellow professors and the whisperings of male students, to the disdain of his poor ears, if you were motivated by anything, it was the opposite sex. This could work.
Dr. Noah asked you to stay behind after the lecture, which you did, but not without thinking about that letter you’d left him. Even you were embarrassed to have stooped so low. Attempting to seduce teachers wasn’t totally unfamiliar to you, but you’d usually stopped at student aids, assistant teachers, those within a decade of your age bracket, not your old doctor, who once had to teach you that toilet seats could not, in fact, make you pregnant and you were simply a little late on your cycle. You knew exactly what you’d done. You were far from proud of it, but having failed 2 sciences and dropped 3 more, you were desperate, knowing that rawdogging college as a whole was such an uphill battle, no accommodations, no stimulant prescription drugs to get you through like others around you. You didn’t want to disappoint your Grandma by relying on such crutches. You were so desperate, you’d do it if this nearly senile man asked, and as you approached his desk, you could see the spread of disappointment riddled across his face.
“Miss, Y/N,” Dr. Noah addressed you, eyes darkened, gaze harsh.
You gulped, unsure exactly where this was going. “Yes, Dr. Noah?” you spoke back softly, not even bothering with your normal sing-songy tone you’d use with your other teachers, attempts to charm their pants off that stopped working after sophomore year.
He sighed, pressing his fingers into the bridge of his nose. “Don’t think the implications of this little letter of yours evaded me,” he spoke coldly. “Y/N, I’ve known you a long time, and I’ve also taught a long time. Never in my years has a student had such gall. I should report you to the Dean for this. What were you thinking?”
Guilt immediately washed over you, hands cradling your face in humiliation. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” you exasperated. “I swear, I regretted it the moment I slipped it under your door, I just- I can’t fail this class. Everything is riding this-”
“So this was your solution?” Dr. Noah chastised, holding up the perfume-soaked paper. “ This is no solution, Y/N. This is giving up! You’re better than this. What would your grandmother think?”
Embarrassment turned to panic as you instinctively went to snatch the letter, and Dr. Noah pulled it back. “You can’t tell her about this. Please. I would do anything- but not like that !” Words continued to come out like vomit, gross and inescapable, a cacophony of pleases and apologies that got more desperate as Dr. Noah continued to fall to silence, waiting for you to simply stop and listen. Eventually, you grew quiet.
Dr. Noah took the letter, crumpled it up, and threw it into the trash bin next to his desk. You sighed in relief, opening your mouth again to spew out thank yous, but he simply raised a hand up to you, urging you to say no more. He spoke frankly. “If I see you trying to take any more such shortcuts, you’re out of my class. I will report you to the Dean, and your actions will be reviewed by an honor board, pending review. Behavior like this is grounds for expulsion. Given that several other professors have gripes about your class etiquette, I would not expect any mercy from her. Understand?”
You nodded silently, the weight of the consequences that nearly befell you heavy on your lips. Words that rarely evaded you, that poured out of you without a second thought, were left hanging in the air. Like the sword of Damocles, you saw your demise hanging by a thread. 4 years of struggle could quickly have turned to nothing if Dr. Noah had not been so understanding. All you had left was a single question: “What am I gonna do?”
Dr. Noah looked at the other paper on his desk with a glint of hope. “I’m going to set you up with a tutor, and you’re going to study until the class material is burned into your retinas.”
“ What’s a retina? ” you asked bluntly.
His face dropped. “Your eyes, Y/N.”
You nodded, head hanging down under his gaze of disappointment. “I don’t know… I’ve tried tutors. It hasn’t worked out in the past.” By which you mean you’ve either chased them away with your inability to grasp basic concepts, or you’ve had your hands all over them throughout your study sessions and end up learning nothing either way.
Dr. Noah gave an all-knowing nod. “I’m certain you have, which is why I’m not assigning you just any tutor. I’m arranging for my best student to personally mentor you through this first unit.”
In near-perfect timing, Zayne walks into the lecture hall, hands grasping the straps of his bookbag, which is filled to the brim as he skims over a paper in his hand, button-up shirt on with the sleeves rolled up to his wrists, scars and veins running across his skin. He sets a fast walking pace toward Dr. Noah’s desk, brushing straight past you, as if you weren't even there.
“Dr. Noah,” he addresses matter-of-factly. “Have you had time to review my thesis? I put a lot of thought into it, and I eagerly await your thoughts.”
Dr. Noah nearly glares at Zayne, who only seems to grow confused at his annoyance. “Zayne,” the professor spoke bluntly. “As you can see, I am with another student right now. Do you- perhaps- have anything you’d like to say to this young lady whom you’ve just rudely interrupted?”
Zayne turns his stern gaze to you, standing only a couple of paces to his left.
Even hearing the name "Zayne" catches you off guard, your memory briefly flashing back to years past, to the boy you'd lost touch with. Grandma Jo had once told you about your old childhood friend attending the same university as you, but for nearly four years, your paths never crossed. It was a large campus, and while you were barely scraping by in remedial classes, Zayne was a revered honors student. You never saw him. It was as if you two had existed on two different planes of existence until you met his nostalgically familiar earth-toned eyes, shrouded by a pair of unassuming lenses. This was the Zayne who disappeared from your life all those years ago, and yet it also wasn't.
It struck you as your breath instinctively caught in your lungs, eyes traversing his features and taking in his defined jawline, prominently sharp nose, and his ivory skin, lightly marked with stubble: Zayne Li grew up and got hot.
Zayne bowed his head slightly, one of his hands reaching for his glasses to prevent them from slipping off his face. “My apologies,” he spoke, his gaze so dull and unchanged, it was as if you'd become transparent nothingness before him. Zayne turned back to Dr. Noah with an intent look in his eyes.
You, too, turned to Dr. Noah, hands drooping to your sides and expression contorting to a slight annoyance. The boy you'd known fondly known in childhood had just brushed you off, staring through you like you existed as nothing more than additional atoms to fill the space.
Dr. Noah saw it in both of you, your painfully predictable social challenges on full display in one another’s presence, and he sighed. “Y/N, could you take a seat and give me a moment to talk to my honor student?”
You nodded, trailing back to the front row of desks with wandering eyes that continued to sneak peeks behind you as you did.
There was a bit of angered silence from Dr. Noah, as he simply picked up the paper he had been eyeing from his desk. “Zayne. Your paper is excellent.”
Zayne cracked a smile, though his face revealed a lack of surprise. This was the response he expected, one he’d argue he had well-earned at this point. “Thank you, sir-”
“I wasn’t finished,” Dr. Noah interrupted, a cold stare piercing into Zayne, where, for the first time since barging in, he seemed to understand that something was bothering his favorite mentor (something he’s never bothered to say aloud). There is a hint of offense in Zayne’s gaze. “It’s not such a nice feeling to be talked over, ignored, now is it?”
Zayne sighs. “No, sir,” he conceded.
Dr. Noah continues. “You’re not going to like what I say next, but you need to hear it. This paper is excellent, but I cannot in good conscience allow you to pass this class where you currently stand.”
Zayne, taken aback by this notion, drops his head into a perplexed tilt, eyes sharpening into an unintended glare, breath becoming short and choppy as he searched for the words to say. “That- that doesn’t make any sense-” is all that came out before Dr. Noah was back on his rambling.
“Listen carefully, kid, because I’m about to tell you something you will need to know for the rest of your career. Being a doctor is as much about the people as it is about the science, and you’re really good at the science, but you have a lot to learn about people,” he told his pupil, who looked at him like a kicked puppy, sad, confused. “You walk into my classroom, interrupting another student, demanding my attention. It shows me everything I need to know. Zayne, you’re getting to a point where you don’t even see people unless they serve you as a means to an end.”
Zayne resorts to a state of taciturn muttering. “I-I apologized to her. It won’t happen again-”
“But this isn’t new behavior, Zayne,” Dr. Noah intervened again, a habit that is slowly clawing underneath Zayne’s skin. “Time and time again, you show behavior toward your other classmates that they find quite… off-putting, and I know you don’t mean to offend, but I’m not sure you’re putting in the effort to find middle ground with people you don’t see eye to eye with. You’re going to have to deal with a lot of difficult people as a doctor, Zayne. You have to learn to communicate with people who don’t necessarily want to meet you halfway, and that’s concerning, given you seem to be struggling to do that with people who do want to meet you there. I need to see adjustments before I can let you graduate.”
Usually quick to respond with professionalism, Zayne grew silent, the criticisms of his professor weighing heavily on him. Zayne knew he’d faced challenges with communicating with people in ways that they didn’t take kindly to. He had all his life, but he never saw the point in the small talk, the tiptoeing around important subject matter. He preferred to be direct, save time, and focus on what mattered. This whole year had been about his push to the finish line, and he thought he was so close, just to be saddled with the knowledge that he was facing a hurdle he thought was just that, a small obstacle to hop over. According to Dr. Noah, that hurdle was a wall, and he was slamming into it as fast as he’d moved this year, trying to accomplish everything he could in his final year of university. He buried it, that feeling that he’d already failed, and looked back toward Dr. Noah with a newfound sense of determination. “I can make those adjustments,” he said. “What exactly do you need from me?”
Dr. Noah felt thankful to see the combativeness fade from Zayne’s face, seeing his more usually perceptive student before him. “I need you to prove to me that you’re capable of helping people who pose challenges to you, your way of thinking, etcetera.”
Zayne nodded, even though he still wasn’t completely following. “How would you like me to go about that, sir?”
Dr. Noah pointed behind Zayne, motioning toward you, who was attentively glazing your eyes over Zayne from several paces behind him while he was in conversation with the professor. As you saw the two of them turn to you, your back straightened, hands instinctively pushing your hair back behind your ears. Caught off guard, you cocked your head to the side slightly and gave a small wave, attentively looking at Zayne, who seemed to turn back toward Dr. Noah in confusion.
They had been talking, but you had been staring. When did Zayne get so fucking hot, you wondered. He was tall, always was, but he definitely shot up since you last saw him. His button-up shirt was clingy, and it practically melded onto his toned upper body. He wasn’t jacked, but his back muscles were well defined enough that you could already imagine yourself tracing those muscles with your delicate, manicured fingers. It made you want to watch him flinch but eventually melt under your touch. You didn’t dare look too closely below the belt, not wanting to lose your cool too early, but his arms? Toned like the rest of him. He definitely worked out, but not religiously like other guys you knew. His hands especially showed signs that he used those hands for something, what you weren’t sure about. Some guys had callouses from playing guitar, picking up a sport, maybe they had some sort of part-time job that involved heavy lifting, but his hands were both fairly roughened, yet still well-maintained. He had a habit of fidgeting with his fingers, and you could see that each had a wide range of motion and flexibility, and- you basically had to pull your attention away. He had faded scars up his arms, but those, too, left you with the thought of wanting to trace them, as well as the blueish purple veins that popped through the skin ever-slightly. Whatever he was doing in his free time, it certainly involved his arms and hands. They were trained for something, and you knew from experience and experiments that men who used their hands for some sort of specialty were usually quite good at using them in other regards. When they both turned to look at you, you knew your time to fantasize would need to be cut short. After all, why fantasize when you could strategize? You wanted nothing more than to make those wanton fantasies a reality, and you were confident you could. You always did, after all.
When Zayne's eyes reconvene with yours, sparkling intently up at him from the desk you've perched yourself at, the glint of familiarity vaguely alights in his memory, an old recollection of a young girl he used to waste away afternoons within his youth. He mutters your name like an impossibility, not even realizing he's verbalized it until Dr. Noah confirms.
"Yes, Zayne," Dr. Noah concurs. "Miss Y/N is also one of my students. If I recall correctly, you two were quite friendly with one another as kids."
Zayne quickly and rigidly shakes his head, casually shrugging the notion off. “I’m not sure we were ever that close,” he said, keenly remembering a girl he always struggled to understand where he stood with, one who often felt just out of arm's reach. He turned back to you once again, with more interest than before, and you just smiled warmly. Zayne got this crawling feeling on the back of his neck, the sensation of something insincere looming behind that smile. You, too, were the same girl he knew, and yet different. That smile told him as much.
“She’s struggling in one of my basic classes, Anatomy and Physiology. I was hoping you could help her with the first unit.”
Zayne’s eyes scrunched. “It’s the beginning of the semester, how can she already be behind? Also, shouldn't she take a more basic class?”
“She’s flunked this class twice before,” Dr. Noah spoke bluntly. "And she can't take a different science. Other professors simply wouldn't take her. I made an exception."
“Oh,” Zayne spoke, almost gasping. He finished this class in his freshman year, over five years ago. To flunk such a rudimentary subject once was a wild concept- but he shoved that thought. This was exactly what Dr. Noah was talking about. He was already judging her too harshly. “That’s fine,” Zayne agreed. “I’m sure I can help her work out whatever her issue is.”
“Good,” Dr. Noah spoke with a smile, before motioning over to you. “Y/N, won’t you join us!”
You felt jutted out of a trance when Dr. Noah called out to you, jolting out of your seat before making your calculated pass over beside Zayne, hands sliding down your skirt as you walked, straightening out the fabric, a move that would normally draw the eyes down, but Zayne’s gaze stayed attentively at eye level, which truly made you more nervous than anything.
“Y/N, this is the star student I was telling you about before,” Dr. Noah beamed as you stood before the two of them. “He’s agreed to help you get ahead in my class.”
Oh, you’d love nothing more than to get ahead with Zayne, alright.
You quickly pushed that thought aside to turn instead to Zayne sweetly. “Long time, no see,” you told him. “Remember me?”
Zayne nodded.
You giggled like a schoolgirl. “Well, I almost didn’t recognize you. Someone’s all grown up,” you said, biting your lip. You were already intent on laying it on thick. The Zayne you remembered? Easily folded when people made bold moves, gave up his toys to whoever begged the hardest, and took on chores for whoever asked the sweetest. Subtlety be damned, you thought, until you saw Dr. Noah in the corner of your eye with a death stare. He had his hand up in the shape of a phone and mouthed the words: I will call her.
You pursed your lips and rolled your eyes, flirty expressions dropping off your face as quickly as they came.
Zayne’s face showed no discernible emotion, but inside, he could almost laugh at that line about being all grown up. What was this, a melodrama, he thought. What exactly were you getting at with your sing-songy tone and eyes looking up at him all big and glassy, your chin downturned to create an illusion they were bigger than the rest of your features? He shook off those thoughts, cutting directly to the pressing matter. “I should have some free time tomorrow afternoon if that works for you. Any particular spot you’d like to meet?”
“We could link up at my place,” you suggested with a tone of false innocence, earning you an “ahem” from Dr. Noah. You suppressed the urge to groan in annoyance. “How about the dining hall on the west campus? I like to study on a full stomach.”
“That sounds perfectly acceptable to me,” Zayne replied. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a class coming up in the next hour. I’ll take my leave now.” And he did, leaving the room with a slight shake to his head, the whole interaction leaving him with unanswered questions he needed to process to make sense of.
“See you tomorrow!” You called out to him, to no response, watching his figure disappear behind the doorway. You sighed sweetly, seeing Dr. Noah in the corner of your eye, looking at you with utter disappointment.
You turned to him with a face that showed you were utterly unentertained.
Dr. Noah was stern in his tone. “I mean it. No funny business.”
You groaned. “Like he’s even gonna let me, that freaking stick in the mud,” you muttered, leaving out the part where you found him to be a stick in the mud with pretty eyes and hands that were made to run across your body. You, too, begin to make your leave from the classroom before turning back to Dr. Noah. You hesitate, but speak your mind anyway. “Thanks,” you said, eyes wandering to the trash bin beside him.
Dr. Noah nods. “Don’t ever do anything that reckless again,” he replied.
And you leave the room, thinking about the self-inflicted bullet you managed to dodge. Dr. Noah was right to warn you of your own recklessness, and yet you knew it would only halt you so much from getting what you had set your eyes on, and you’d just set them right on him.
*********************
The next day, you quickly began to question Dr. Noah’s judgment in pairing you up with him. Through the two classes you had that day, you couldn’t screw your head on long enough to get anything done, thoughts consumed with your plans for Zayne. You always got like this, riled up when the right person came around, struggling to think straight or even sit still. There you were, sitting in the back corners of classes with thighs pressing together and eyes dazing off somewhere that wasn’t the class projector. You caught the all-knowing glances of some of your male classmates, people who you’d hooked up with before or who heard about one of your wilder escapades: janitors' closets, RA’s dorm rooms, in the rafters of the theater. Far too many people knew exactly what you looked like when you're worked up, and you blatantly didn’t care. You’re too busy thinking about Zayne, that hot loser. You haven’t screwed a nerd in a while, and something’s telling you Zayne’s a cut above the rest.
Before you even realize it, you’re already at the West Campus Dining Hall. You buzz in with your meal plan card, Zayne waiting for you with his prepacked dinner at a corner table. He’s already got textbooks strewn about and is reviewing flashcards. Riveting, you think, but you’ve got better entertainment in mind as you pass over the buffet-style serving tables. You grab a couple of slices of pizza, a soda, and a banana, and sit down across from Zayne. He’s already halfway through a keenly organized bento when you join him, wiping his lips with a napkin as you approach.
“I’m nearly finished with my meal, but don’t feel like you need to rush finishing yours,” Zayne says. “I’ve got plenty of other assignments to keep myself occupied.”
You set your plate down and place your book bag in one of the empty chairs, “That’s very considerate of you. Thank you,” you tell him with a soft smile, an entirely forced reaction. Wish he had waited for me to join to start eating, you thought.
The moment Zayne sees you pick up your first slice of pizza, he’s opening his laptop and proofreading a paper he’s written for one of his final classes. Every work of his needs to be flawless. With the finish line so close, this is no time to get lax and let his GPA slip. His 6 years of work are far from over. He has no time to waste waiting around on anyone, and truthfully, if he felt he had a choice, he would’ve given you a hard no on the prospect of becoming your tutor, but the contingencies placed around this ordeal were not a matter he could simply ignore. He rarely peeled his eyes up from that laptop, only taking slight glances to check if you were still eating. He was content to leave you to your pizza as he looked up synonyms for words he didn’t think were expressive enough in his current draft. You’re an afterthought as he messes around with the font, knowing there were small psychological effects certain styles could have on a reader's mood and the perception of the writing. He looks up at you briefly and sees you’ve finished the pizza and are onto the banana. It’s a weird combination for a meal, but bananas have a lot of nutritional value that pizza certainly doesn’t, so he ignores that and goes back to his paper. It’s a wonderful piece, but is it perfect? He’s not sure. He’s stealing occasional glances at you as you work on that banana, and he works on his paper until he looks at the time and realizes it's been 5 whole minutes, and you haven’t hardly eaten it at all.
So then why do you seem to be mid bite every time I look… up? For the first time since sitting down, Zayne looks at you for more than two seconds straight. You’re staring straight up at him with big, bright eyes, tongue sliding down the length of the banana. Your upper lip encases the fruit, and you slide your mouth halfway down, before grazing back up with pursed lips, taking the smallest bit off the top and swallowing it slowly, and before Zayne can protest to your suggestive display, your tongue is already lapping down it once again.
Zayne is sort of dumbstruck before you, a man who normally struggles to maintain eye contact seems to have developed a sudden staring problem, his chest is tightening, and there’s a lump building in his throat. It’s the first time your strange behavior and mannerisms, totally different from the genuinely sweet and well-intentioned little girl he used to know, are starting to show their true intentions. Now, Zayne was a little dense at times, but he was far from stupid. He knew this whole show was an innuendo; it just took him until this moment to realize you’ve been doing a lot of those since yesterday, and truthfully, he’s not sure how he feels about that at the moment, but his ears are burning red and his breath is hitching just a little. Is it nervousness, embarrassment? Zayne is trying to sort himself out mentally in the moment, which is only causing him to stare harder with no concern for how it must look from an outside perspective, from your perspective.
You see, you’ve finally got his attention and take it as an invitation to continue your routine. It’s shameless and cliché, but you don’t care to admit the number of times it's worked. The classics are classics for a reason, and this is the first time you’ve had the pleasure of having Zayne’s undivided attention, his green eyes with gold undertones watching you like he’s studying you, like he’s deep in thought. You’re actually not sure what to make of his exact reaction. He’s staring, but it lacks the lust of most guys you pull this act on. It’s attentive, but there’s no craving behind those eyes, no desperation. You don’t like not knowing what’s going on in his mind, and so you stop, deciding maybe you should just ask. “Can I help you, Zayne? I’m almost finished, I promise.” And your tone is laced with suggestion, and the sheer directness of it has Zayne’s pupils blown.
Zayne immediately jumps from his chair, pushing it away from the table, eyes darting around the room to anywhere but you. “I- I need to excuse myself for a moment. Pardon me,” he forces out with a shaky and uncertain tone before darting out of the dining hall, leaving to sharply turn around in your chair, confused as you watch him bolt out of there.
You sit in awkward silence, shutting Zayne’s laptop in front of you. You didn’t think Zayne had a shy bone in his body. He seemed very self-assured yesterday, very calm. That was a whole flip-out, and you worried you just came on too hard and he was running for the hills. You scarf down the damn banana. This is stupid , you think.
Zayne hovers around the entrance of the dining hall, hands rubbing together, pacing back and forth like a madman. He swears he’s short-circuiting, still failing to settle his emotions enough to figure out what he was actually feeling watching you deepthroat fruit in some strange exhibitionist display. Eventually, his pace slows to a halt, and he’s got one set of knuckles resting against his lips and the tip of his nose, the other buried deep into his hair, tugging on it ever so slightly. He’s bewildered by the whole thing. He must be paying really bad attention to have missed your transgressions up until this point, and at the thought of the bizarreness of it all, he laughs a tired, exasperated, low laugh. He can’t keep his hands still. They’re now pressing on his forehead, and he’s still laughing. He must look absolutely mad, and he wonders if he may be losing it.
What was going through that pretty little head of yours to think seducing him was a good idea? Zayne pondered that thought but reached no conclusion. It truly was lost on him just as much as his own feelings on the matter. Why didn’t he get up and leave earlier, he wondered. Maybe part of him somewhat enjoyed your little show. It was a simple fact that Zayne hadn’t had sex in a while. He zeroed in on his studies. Free time was spent polishing Med-school applications and networking with colleagues in attempts to build connections, and he’d been like this for the better part of the past year. Early on, he had to brush off lots of girls vying for his attention, and eventually they stopped trying, so this was additionally the first time in a while anyone attempted to pursue him, and he found it strangely flattering, if he were to be totally honest. But from you of all people? The thought of that cute girl from his hometown acting like a total fool for his attention, as opposed to the other way around, that was the part he just couldn’t fathom.
All those thoughts faded into a singular question: what was he gonna do with you? He shook his head, another slight chuckle escaping his lips. Regardless of how he felt about you and you felt about him, you had a class to pass and he had a course to graduate. His whole life was hanging in the balance of a horny college girl.
Zayne settles the thought in his head that getting you through this course was going to be his only goal, and if that meant brushing off any other sly advances you’d make, he’d do just that. He heads back into the dining hall.
Meanwhile, you wait, glued to your seat for a good five minutes as you fear you’ve scared away a man you completely misread. One more minute from now, and you’ll be packing up your things and heading back to your apartment to pretend that none of this ever happened. There’s a sinking feeling in your chest. You feel the only explanation for what just happened is utter rejection, and you haven’t experienced that in a while. Maybe the problem was Zayne, you rationalized. After all, you two did grow up together. Maybe he can’t see past the little girl you once were. The thought makes your teeth grit, the idea that anyone would see you as too immature, too novice, too innocent. Rejection was not only seldom an experience you had to face, but you didn’t handle it well either. At all. Yet you were pleasantly surprised when Zayne walked in calmly and took back his seat.
Zayne was the picture of composure, as focused and calculating as when he walked in that dining hall the first time. “Looks like you’re all finished,” he said.
He’s unnaturally calm, given the way he stormed out a couple of minutes ago. You’re taken aback. It has you frazzled. “I’m sorry?” you ask for clarity.
His eyes flicker over to the empty plates before you. “Your food. Did you… Enjoy your meal?”
Is this a trick question, you wonder. “It was fine,” you tell him instead, your eyes probing him for what he means by that, as if he didn’t just see you whorishly slop up that banana.
What you don’t see is the way he fidgets with his fingers under the desk. You wanted his attention? Well, you certainly have it now. You wanted him to look at you? Now Zayne was worried he was making too much eye contact, but you didn’t notice all that. You were just thankful he came back.
A slower, subtler approach was clearly what you needed. The last time you had to play the long game, you couldn’t remember.
There’s a lull of silence that Zayne breaks as he reaches into his bag and pulls out a deck of flashcards and a paper. He hands you the paper. It's a sheet of terms for Anatomy and Physiology Unit 1. “Shall we get started?” he asks. “I’d like to get a basic idea of where you stand.”
You nod. “Ya, sure,” you tell him, despite the fact that you had fully mentally prepared to skip the studying part of this escapade altogether.
“Alright, then,” he says, flipping through the flashcards, shuffling them with precision. “We’re just going to do an easy flashcard activity. I will read you a definition for a word from that list, and I want you to tell me which term matches the description best. Does that sound okay to you?”
You give him a sort of unenthused smile. “Sure,” you say.
He begins reading from a flashcard, something about a “group of cells with a common function”. You’re already zoning out fast. Your eyes are back on his hands, the way his fingers are running the length of the flashcards. He’s got big but slender hands, long fingers. You’re back to wondering what he can do with those pretty hands of his, practically salivating. You’re naming entirely random terms from the list he gave you, dazed as you stare up and down at him. Halfway through, you’re quite literally snapped out of it. Zayne takes his free hand and reaches out to you, snapping in front of your face.
“Hey, no zoning out,” he tells you, no cruelty or judgment, just plain.
You jerk in your seat. “Sorry,” you answer him, eyelashes feathering in quick, recentering blinks.
You notice his lips upturn subtly, his head cocking to the side slightly. “Perhaps I should bring a spray bottle next time?” he suggests.
You pause, eyes widening as you shoot a perplexed look in his direction, lips falling slightly agape. Was that... a joke? Zayne simply hadn't struck you as the teasing type, but his face remains slightly contoured in those subtle deviations. A slight laugh or disbelief bubbles out of you, nervousness embedded as if there's a chance he's not even jesting about the spray bottle. You half-consider that he may be serious, because why would Zayne joke about anything?
His eyes seem to glow up at you with something you hadn’t seen from them yet, something you can’t put your finger on. “I was only kidding. No need to worry yourself,” he replies, his lips still in that slight upturn.
You nod in relief, head turning away in slight embarrassment. Of course, he was kidding. Zayne returns to the flashcards.
When he concludes the last card and takes a look at his score sheet, any tells on his face that showed that maybe he was enjoying your company a little were gone, his expression dropping. If a person were to completely guess the terms from a fixed list, the statistically most likely outcome was 50%. You got 15%.
He chooses his words carefully. “I won’t lie. It’s… not ideal.”
You could see it all over his face, that face you’d been getting since grade school from teachers who could not fathom how you managed to get so behind. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” you come out plainly.
It was, in fact, bad, as Zayne notes internally.
He chooses his words carefully. “It’s… not ideal, but there’s plenty of time to get you to where you need to be. I would like to plan on hitting the ground running, though. Is it possible we could meet every weekday? At least for now.”
You’re conflicted. On one hand, you have the thought to thank some omnipotent presence that not only did he return to his seat, but he wanted to meet so often. On the other hand, you understood this had nothing to do with seeing you more, whether he wanted to or not. It meant you were likely more behind than even you thought. In your head, you weren’t dumb. The idea that anyone would think that of you was far worse than any other horrible names people could and did call you. You smiled at him half-heartedly. “Let’s do it. Do you want to meet here again? Same time?”
Zayne shakes his head. “Can’t. I have class during this time tomorrow. Also, I think maybe we should consider some quieter areas of campus. How about lunch? 1 o’clock?”
“My English lecture lets out at 12:30. I’ll just find food and bring it with me wherever we meet if that’s okay with you,” you explain. “I’m not really sure where the best quiet spots on campus are, so I’m open to suggestions.”
“Just… meet me by the quad around 1, and we can find somewhere together. How does that sound?”
You begin to gather your things as you answer. “Sounds good to me,” you replied, handing him the terms sheet.
Zayne took the paper, hesitantly holding his next thought, but deciding he should ask anyway. “Hey, Y/N?”
You turn your gaze back up to Zayne, pausing your effort to collect your things.
His hands begin to fold beneath one another as he rubs them, a nervous habit you noted from yesterday. “Is it typical for you to struggle with class material for all your subjects or just this one?”
You sigh, the thought washing over you that he’s thinking exactly what everyone else has been thinking your whole life: you’re an idiot. “I’ve struggled in all my classes to an extent, but with science… It's different,” you tell him. “You can bullshit your way through writing-intensive classes pretty easily, at least at a lower level, but classes like these only have one right answer, and they never seem to stick in my head long enough.”
Zayne chuckles slightly, but quickly stops himself when he sees your face: upset, slightly embarrassed. You find yourself pulling at your shirt sleeves, wishing for a place to hide, and Zayne is quickly feeling the need to correct himself. “Y/N, I’m not laughing at you,” he attempts to reassure you.
Your lip purses into a pout, a genuine one, the most genuine reaction he thinks he’s seen out of you since starting. “Then what’s so funny?” you spit out, arms folded at your chest.
Zayne leans into the table, elbow resting on the terms sheet you’ve just handed him, chin resting on the side of his hand, fingers interlaced with his hair. “It’s just- I’ve never been able to… bullshit my way through any of those interpretive-type classes, as you put it,” he tells you, seeing doubt growing across your face as you look back up at him. He can’t help but continue with slight redness growing across his face. “You know, I nearly failed Art History my freshman year? I thought it was an easy elective, and I barely grazed by.”
Your eyes show perplexity as you attempt to scan his face for a bluff. “... you’re lying,” you tell him plainly. He just turns his gaze away for a moment before flashing green eyes back at you, shame weighing on them ever so slightly. A smile grows across your face. “No,” you sigh. “How do you even fail Art History?”
“My professor kept telling me I was answering the prompts too literally, and that I needed to form my own opinions on the artists' works. Said I was just regurgitating what the textbooks said,” Zayne explains, feeling that frustration creep over him but quickly wash away.
“Well… were you?” you ask probingly.
“Of course I was,” he answers matter-of-factly. “If you ask me what the mood and tone of a painting is, I’m simply going to tell you what I gathered from the textbook.”
You laugh. “Did you not gather anything from, I don’t know, the painting?”
He glares, but only momentarily. “No,” he says, before low laughter overtakes him again, and he’s pressing his hands over his eyes. “It was one of those paint splatter pieces done over those tarps, and all I could think was it was a mess, a waste of paint, and that a toddler could put more conscious thought into a painting. The question never said “in your opinion what is the mood and tone of the painting” , it presented as if there was one objective answer, and if she’d put it that way to begin with, I would’ve told her exactly what I told you just now, and… I think I would’ve definitely flunked if I did that.”
You laugh harder, louder, and Zayne, slight red tint noticeable feathering his ears, just allows it to run its course. His lips upturn to one side of his face, a subtle movement you barely catch. It’s quite cute, you think, but you can’t control your laughter, so the redness across your cheeks just seems like the result of your hysterics to Zayne. It doesn’t fail to entertain him, though. He’s just happy you’re no longer scowling. When you finally manage to contain yourself, you offer Zayne a simple “thank you.”
He smiles softly. “I am happy to help. I just… want you to know it’s normal to find difficulty in certain subjects over others,” he tells you. “Even if I can’t fathom how one could find it hard to define the function of a diaphragm,” he slips in playfully.
You jest back. “And I can’t imagine comparing Jackson Pollock to a toddler without realizing that his work is about bringing fun and freedom back into art, as opposed to being shackled by criticisms on technique.”
“Ah, impressive,” Zayne concedes. He leans over the table and gently tilts his head toward yours. He whispers slightly and says:
“ Sounds to me like someone is a lot smarter than she’s giving herself credit for. ”
You turn your gaze towards his, meeting his earth-toned eyes. Only for a moment are you two inches apart. For a moment, your eyes interlock with his, the depth of the color mesmerizing you, unable to lose the sight of them as he leans back into his chair slowly, and you instinctively track them with your own. When he breaks from your observance, he begins collecting his flashcards, stacking up his papers, and you hurriedly and frantically do the same, attempting to ignore the heat rising in your chest and bubbling onto your face. Your breath heaves into your lungs thoughtlessly.
As reflexively as he collects his cards, Zayne says: “ That’s your diaphragm, by the way.”
You pause. “Huh?” you let out in confusion.
Zayne continues to load his bag with his things, putting his laptop neatly into its case. “When you inhale,” he says. “Your diaphragm is the muscle that contracts when you inhale, allowing more oxygen to enter your lungs, and it expands as you exhale, forcing carbon dioxide out.”
You inhale more subtly this time, manually, hoping Zayne is as preoccupied in thought as he seems to notice the shakiness of your breath. Why are you suddenly so nervous, you wonder. You note as you let that same breath escape your lungs… diaphragm. “Got it,” you respond to Zayne.
“Glad to hear it,” he says, zipping up his bag and strapping it onto his shoulder. “Anyways, I suppose I will see you tomorrow.”
“At the quad!” you answer him.
He nods, stands up from his chair, and smiles gently as he passes by you. You smile back at him, eyes darting away slightly under his.
When you hear the door open and shut behind you, your stiff body goes lax, tension leaving your shoulders. You pack up the rest of your things with a smile you can't seem to shake. You’re blushing, and you think about how you can’t remember the last time someone made you feel shy. You don’t hate it, you think. You leave the dining hall with the same irremovable smile.