Lecture Me, Please

Variables

Dante’s POV

________

The first lecture of every semester told me everything I needed to know.

Not about calculus. About people.

Students revealed themselves quickly when they believed no one was really watching. The confident ones sat in front. The nervous ones hid behind laptops. The unserious ones occupied the back rows like they had signed a long-term lease there.

By the time the lecture ended, I already knew who would pass, who would struggle, and who would disappear halfway through the semester.

Though my course wasn’t an elective.

I gathered my files slowly, letting the room empty before I left. Conversations filled the hall immediately—complaints, laughter, plans for lunch.

My eyes swept the room out of habit.

Observation was instinct. It was how you survived.

And that was when I saw her again.

The girl from the middle row.

She was standing beside another girl, sliding her notebook into her bag with a focus that suggested she had actually been listening during the lecture.

Interesting.

Most students didn’t write that much during the first class.

They underestimated calculus.

Then they regretted it.

She laughed at something her friend said, tossing a loose strand of curly dark hair from her messy bun over her shoulder.

Careless.

Relaxed.

The type of student who didn’t look like she worried much about consequences.

And yet something about her didn’t match that impression.

During the lecture, she had followed the examples carefully. I noticed it when I turned from the board.

She had been writing every step.

Not half-listening.

Not scrolling through her phone like the rest of the room.

Focused.

I shouldn’t have been noticing all this, but I noticed her twice.

Which was twice more than I usually noticed any student.

Unnecessary.

I closed my folder and walked toward the door.

Her expression changed when she noticed me looking.

For a moment, our eyes met.

Only for a few seconds. But it was enough for me to notice two things.

First—she didn’t immediately look away.

Second—she was curious.

That was rare.

Most students reacted to lecturers with one of two emotions: fear or indifference.

Awareness crossed her face, and she broke the eye contact first, adjusting the strap of her bag as if she hadn’t just been staring at her professor.

The moment passed.

But it left an impression.

I didn’t like impressions. They complicated things.

I closed my folder and walked out the door. The noise in the hallway lowered slightly as I passed.

Reputation traveled fast in universities.

Strict.

Demanding.

Unpleasantly intelligent.

I had heard the descriptions.

They were accurate enough.

Just before I reached the stairs that would take me to my office, I heard a dramatic voice from behind me say, “I swear, he looks like the kind of professor who enjoys failing people.”

A few students laughed. Little did they know.

My office was on the last floor, three levels above the lecture hall where I had just taught. The walk there should have cleared my mind, but it lingered in that classroom longer than it should have.

I pushed open the door to my office and stepped inside.

Silence. Finally.

The room was large for a simple lecturer. Normally, I would have been in the staff room with the other lecturers, but I had been given a private office.

The only reason I had agreed to lecture here twice a week was because the university director’s son was my childhood best friend. He had 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 was neat.

A desk aligned perfectly in one corner, paired with a matching set of three chairs—one for me, two for visitors.

An L-shaped sofa occupied the other side of the room.

Books were arranged by subject along the shelves.

A door to a private restroom sat to the right, just beside the office entrance.

A large screen was mounted on the wall, with an untouched whiteboard directly across from my desk.

A small coffee station, microwave, and printer sat on a table near the large windows with blackout curtains.

Everything was perfectly organized.

I set my files down and loosened my tie slightly before sitting in my chair.

There was a lot to do.

Being a professor came with its perks, but also its demands. Research requests, academic collaborations, development proposals. And with the project I was currently working on, time was something I rarely had enough of.

Yet I opened the class register on my phone.

Three hundred-level students.

Four hundred of them. Eighty AI Engineering majors.

My eyes scanned the screen for a moment.

I wanted to look for her name.

Then I decided against it.

I closed the file.

I shouldn’t be thinking about her.

Still—

I found 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 pushed the thought aside and reached for the file containing the course notes for my next class. Though the world was already digitalized, I still preferred making my own handwritten notes. After all, not everything could fit into PowerPoint slides or notes sent to students. That’s why it was important for students to jot down their own notes.

The semester had just started.

I was handling nine courses, each with over seventy students.

There were eighty students in that class. Eighty variables.

One of them shouldn’t be occupying my thoughts more than the others.

And yet, I couldn’t deny one simple truth. She was the only student who made me look twice.

I didn’t like distractions. Not even breath-taking ones.