Variables
838 Words
Dante’s POV
———
The first lecture of every semester tells me everything I need to know.
Not about calculus.
About people.
Students reveal themselves quickly when they believe no one is really watching. The confident ones sit in front. The nervous ones hide behind laptops. The unserious ones occupy the back rows like they’ve signed a long-term lease there.
By the time the lecture ends, I already know who will pass, who will struggle, and who will disappear halfway through the semester.
Though my course isn’t an elective one .
I gather my files slowly, letting the room empty before I leave. Conversations fill the hall immediately—complaints, laughter, plans for lunch.
My eyes sweep the room out of habit.
Observation is instinct.
It’s how you survive.
And that’s when I see her again.
The girl from the middle row.
She’s standing beside another girl, sliding her notebook into her bag with a focus that suggests she was actually listening during the lecture.
Interesting.
Most students don’t write that much during the first class.
They underestimate calculus.
Then they regret it.
She laughs at something her friend says, tossing a strand of dark hair that has fallen from her bun over her shoulder.
Careless.
Relaxed.
The type of student who doesn’t look like she worries much about consequences.
And yet something about her doesn’t match that impression.
During the lecture she followed the examples carefully. I noticed it when I turned from the board.
She was writing every step.
Not half-listening.
Not scrolling through her phone like the rest of the room.
Focused.
I shouldn’t even be noticing all this, but I noticed her twice.
Which is twice more than I usually notice any student.
Unnecessary.
I close my folder and walk toward the door.
Her expression changes when she notices me looking.
For a moment our eyes meet.
Only for some seconds.
But it’s enough for me to notice two things.
First—she doesn’t immediately look away.
Second—she’s curious.
That’s rare.
Most students react to lecturers with one of two emotions: fear or indifference.
Awareness crosses her face and she breaks the eye contact first, adjusting the strap of her bag as if she hadn’t just been staring at her professor.
The moment passes.
But it leaves an impression.
I don’t like impressions.
They complicate things.
I close my folder and walk out the door. The noise in the hallway lowers slightly as I pass.
Reputation travels fast in universities.
Strict.
Demanding.
Unpleasantly intelligent.
I’ve heard the descriptions.
They’re accurate enough.
Just before I reach the stairs that will take me to my office, I hear a dramatic voice from behind me say, “I swear, he looks like the kind of professor who enjoys failing people.”
A few students laugh.
My office is on the last floor, three levels above the lecture hall where I just had class. The walk there should clear my mind, but it remains in that classroom longer than it should.
I push open the door to my office and step inside.
Silence.
Finally.
The room is large for a lecturer. Normally I would be in the staff room with the other lecturers, but I was given a private office.
The only reason I agreed to teach here twice a week was because the university director’s son is my childhood best friend. He asked me to fill in for a semester after their JavaScript lecturer resigned unexpectedly.
What was meant to be temporary somehow became permanent.
Or at least… longer than intended.
The room is neat.
Desk aligned perfectly in one corner.
Books arranged by subject along the shelves.
A door to a private restroom on the right.
A large screen mounted on the wall and an untouched whiteboard across from my desk.
Everything perfectly organized.
I set my files down and loosen my tie slightly before sitting in my chair.
There’s a lot to do.
Being a professor comes with its advantages, but also its demands. Research requests, academic collaborations, development proposals. And with the project I’m currently working on, time is something I rarely have enough of.
Yet I open the class register.
Three hundred-level students.
Eighty AI Engineering majors.
My eyes scan the screen for a moment.
I want to look for her name.
Then I decide against it.
I close the file.
I shouldn’t be thinking about her.
Still—
I find myself remembering the exact moment our eyes met.
That brief hesitation before she looked away.
Almost like she had been studying me the same way I had been studying her.
I push the thought aside and reach for the next set of course notes.
The semester has just started.
There are eighty students in that class.
Eighty variables.
One of them should not be occupying my thoughts more than the others.
And yet—
I can’t deny one simple truth.
She was the only student who made me look twice.
And I don’t like distractions.
Not even small ones.
- Writer
