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Infuriating Conversations
Professor Nazyalensky courteously allowed her students to call her Professor Zoya because the majority of them cannot manage the Ravkan name, and she has found it better to bypass the issue altogether by giving them the ability to call her Zoya. It’s a minor misstep in conduct, but one that soothes her nerves overall.
And these days, with Nikolai here, that is something that does not come often enough.
If Nikolai Lantsov had not taken the position as Dean of Ketterdam College, then she might have had peace. If he had decided to stay in Ravka for whatever reason he deigned appropriate, she might have the ability to put her past behind her and forget everything she’d been wrapped up in there. And yet he followed, acquired a position at the same university that she taught philosophy and psychology at as easily as he did all things, because make no mistake as infuriating as he was, he was also extremely proficient at many if not all things.
After all, no one else could claim to be a bigger thorn in her side than Nikolai Lantsov.
With the notable exception of Kaz Brekker.
A double major in business and economics who took his extra curricular classes in philosophy and had to have decided on them for the sole purpose to be the bane of her existence. There was no other reasonable conclusion at this point.
This wasn’t to say he was a bad student. Mr. Brekker was an exceptional student. She never had to worry about his work being late or his papers being rubbish. She never needed to worry about him disrupting class, and she had even noticed that the classroom quieted when he walked in.
A Pavlovian response to the rapping of his cane on the tile floor. She had seen it develop over the semester, a slow quiet that fell upon the students as he walked in, black leather gloves clenched over the crowhead cane as he made his way to his seat. It was a curious response. He was not large nor physically intimidating. He was gangly and crippled, but when he walked in and his gaze swept the students it was almost as effective as when she did it herself.
No. Kaz Brekker was almost an ideal student.
He was bright, intellectual and clever. He never needed concepts to be explained to him, he read ahead, he grasped the idea of the topic firmly and without much recourse. He understood how people’s minds worked, and it showed in his papers and in his interactions with people. He was a bit pessimistic in his papers, but she didn’t have to look far to see why.
On paper and in class, Kaz Brekker was a wonderful student.
The issue was that he was so much a wonderful student, it was damn near impossible to prove that he ran an illegal essay writing hussle on the side.
He changed his wording, his sentence structure, his prose and grammatical mistakes. He understood the person who he was writing the paper for, and it made it nearly impossible for anyone to pin anything to him. It was infuriating.
There was one exception.
An exception that she had caught, and now it was nearly a game to him.
He was one of the few students that did not stumble on her last name.
The Ravkan word did not stumble over his Kerch lips, and he spoke it fluently and without pause, and when his papers would reference her, they would do so with ‘Professor Nazyalensky’ whereas other students would use ‘Professor Zoya’.
She stared at one such paper now. It was an essay on Kerch philosophy compared to Fjerdian religion by one of the mediocre students in class. She had graded it without thought, assigning it a C, which was a hair above average for this student. The material had been understood, and the argument made albeit poorly. A handful of grammatical mistakes and she had tossed it to the side.
Until she reread the heading and saw her last name instead of the first.
An anomaly that did not reoccur in any of the students' other papers. Which meant that though she could not prove it on the singular basis of it being her name , this paper had to have been written by Kaz Brekker.
The knock on her door brings her out of her musings, and she huffs and steels herself for an unwelcome, yet unfortunately scheduled, intrusion.
“Come in.” She calls, setting the paper aside for now. She had no grounds to toss it out, so she would have to grade it like normal.
“Zoya my darling, so good to see you.”
Nikolai Lantsov is infuriatingly good natured as he walks in the door. The effect is further enhanced by the tailored nature of his blue slacks and vest, the shined quality of his shoes, all topped off with that fucking hair. The issue with Nikolai was that it became increasingly difficult to focus on anything other than him once he walked in.
He was charming and elegant and optimistic to a fault. He had grand ideas, and the grander they were somehow the more likely they were to work. It was baffling.
“You’re early.” She glanced at her clock, noting he’d arrived ten minutes early to this particular meeting, never a good sign.
He smiled, taking a seat on one of two couches across from her desk. He considered the room, the same room that had not changed since his last visit, and yet he still perused it with those bright hazel eyes. They combed the bookshelves lining either wall of her office, then the couch opposite her and the books deposited on the coffee table between them.
And then those eyes focused on her. And she had to remind herself that light was a tricky thing, and that people’s eyes could appear to lighten as a result, or soften when exposed to it. The large window behind her would do the trick, even with herself, her desk, and the two ferns behind her blocking some of it. So it was only a trick of the imagination when she thought she saw Nikolai’s eyes take a different hue and his smile shift a bit.
“I can’t simply wish to spend time with my favorite professor and co-conspirator?” He asked, reclining on the couch as he picked up one of the books.
For being the Dean of the college, Zoya couldn’t help but picture Nikolai as he was in his own university days. The life of the party, and yet still one of the best students on campus, despite him turning in nearly everything late.
She gave him a withering look, and he returned it with a smile.
“And what are we conspiring exactly?” Zoya huffed back at him.
Nikolai flashed her a secretive smile.
It was one of the smiles she had only seen him use with her, a twist in his lip, a half-grin that was more lip than teeth. Most of his smiles didn’t quite reach his eyes, but these smiles… the smiles he gave her almost always did. She pursed her lips, trying to ignore the sudden burning sensation in her chest.
He was being ridiculous and it would be the death of both of them if he wasn’t careful.
“I finally found probable cause.”
Zoya perked up at that, slowly standing. “Probable… cause? You mean…?”
If he finally found some… then they could finally get to work on having a reasonable avenue of approach to deal with some of the corruption that was flowing into Ketterdam.
“Oh yes.” Nikolai winked, sending her heart fluttering for entirely inappropriate reasons. “And it’s from a truly interesting party as well.”
“Who?”
The door clicked open, and Zoya stared as the bane of her existence walked in. The steady tap of his cane on the hardwood of her office before it became muted on the thick rug. He stood calmly, in front of her and the Dean with a thin manilla folder in his hands. His expression was severe, and the casting of the light on his skin made him seem only all the more pale.
“Mr. Brekker?”
Kaz considered her for a long moment, then turned his attention to Nikoali, extending the folder. “You’ll find enough justification in there.”
There was a brief moment where nothing moved. Tension threatened to boil over just before Nikolai sat up, accepting and opening it. He paged through the documents, then whistled softly.
“Remind me to never get on your bad side Mr. Brekker. These are Kerch official documents. I can’t imagine who you had to bribe to get these.” Nikolai chuckled, pulling one sheet from the stack and holding it out towards her.
“Bribes are for people that don’t have proper leverage.”
Zoya cast a glance at Brekker, and found he hadn’t moved, the same passive expression on his face as he waited for them to examine the files.
It was Tante Heleen’s tax returns. Nothing unusual, but she skimmed the document, frowning slightly as she noticed a deduction that didn’t make sense. That question was soon answered when Nikolai handed her another document, bank statements.
“Oh my Saints.”
Nikolai chuckled at her.
“Let me know if you need anything else for her.” Mr. Brekker said, straightening up. He adjusted his gloves
She could diagnose him from the first day he walked in, long sleeves and trousers on top of worn leather gloves in the middle of the Kerch heat. She could see it in how he leaned away from others, how he selected his seat based on not only how much distance was between him and the next student, but also where the traffic of entering and exiting students would be. It was an extreme case of haphephobia, possibly the worst she’d seen or heard of.
Those leather gloves stretched tight over his knuckles as he adjusted his grip on his cane.
“What’s in this for you Mr. Brekker?” Zoya asked.
He considered her in the same way he considered everyone else. There was no posturing, no catering to position or authority in his demeanor or posture. Kaz Brekker stood stoic and daunting and if you were smart then you understood this wasn’t a game of power or position but leverage and dirt.
“I’m a concerned student trying to make his future alma mater a name worth mentioning.” He rasped.
Nikolai snorted, glancing at him. “This is hardly about the school for you and we all know it.”
He cocked an eyebrow at Nikolai. “So then let’s call this personal and leave it at that.”
Nothing was ever personal for Mr. Brekker. It was business. That was why he wrote papers for children that paid with dirty money and children that were the scum of the university. There was no differential for him. Business was business as long as he got paid. She had seen the same taunting ‘Professor Nazyalensky’ on the top of papers for jocks, socialites, bullies and the bullied. There was no standard for who was and who wasn’t eligible, only the question of if he got paid.
“So it’s just business?” She asked, and he smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, no it was a sharp dangerous smile. A smile that he and Nikolai had in common, though where Nikolai’s smile promised something exciting and new, Brekker’s promised something darker.
“Business is many things, Professor Nazyalensky. In this case… I find it advantageous to have a woman that reportedly has been prostituting girls under the guise of paying for their college loans, a matter that needed to be dealt with directly and swiftly by the correct parties.” He settled, stance wide and open, cane firmly in front of him. He was comfortable with this confrontation.
Which meant he knew the cards to play, which ones he needed to present and which ones he would need to dismiss. He would own the trajectory of this conversation should she start down it.
“And what about the rampant plagiarism that’s been cropping up here?”
“As a student, that concerns me, but surely that’s what we use a plagiarism checker for is it not?” Kaz’s smile did not shift.
Had he prepared for this as well?
“I’ve been told that someone else has been writing genuine papers for students for a price. I don’t think that benefits the academic model that the Dean and I are trying to cultivate here at Ketterdam University.” Zoya took a step forward, behind Nikolai to directly confront Kaz. He didn’t seem phased, gaze steady and unwavering.
“That does seem like an unfortunate problem Professor. Would you like me to look into that as well?”
She couldn’t help but wonder if all that would lead to would be him ratting out any competition.
“I think I’ll keep it professional Mr. Brekker. You are a busy individual with two majors and my classes.”
“I’m sure you’re well aware of my GPA.” She was. He maintained a near perfect 3.9 average on a four point scale. “So I’m sure that it could stand to slip if you wanted assistance.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary. Tell me Mr. Brekker, I’ve noticed that you don’t slip when saying Nazyalensky as the other students do, did you study Ravkan?”
“Ravkan imports and exports generate a sizable portion of Kerch’s economy each year. If I plan to be successful then I would need the tools to properly deal with such a large potential buyer.”
“How forward thinking of you. It’s important to equip our students with such thinking and the proper tools. Depriving them of those tools I think stunts their growth, leads to people getting degrees they don’t deserve.”
He clicked his tongue, the first move of irritation he’s made since they started talking. And then curiously his expression smoothed over, his eyes narrowing into a small smile. As if he was impressed.
“A forward thinking person would likely be able to note exactly whom they were dealing with. If we have such a rampant plagiarism scheme happening, I can’t help but worry about the students that have used it. It would be a shame if word got out who exactly paid for those services.”
Oh.
Oh.
By the Saints.
He was…
Zoya blinked, then looked over to Nikolai, who hadn’t moved an inch from his position on the couch. Nikolai seemed to notice the halt in conversation, glancing over his shoulder at the two of them. He snapped the folder closed.
“Thank you Mr. Brekker. We’ll be in touch.”
Kaz bowed his head slightly, and then left. The tap of his cane momentarily paused as he crossed the rug. The door creaked open, and then whooshed shut behind him.
She whirled on Nikolai. “You know about this!” He nodded, rising from his seat and walking over to her desk. “Nikolai, this is the exact thing we are trying to prevent, students that do this, commit crimes and the professors that tolerate it! How could you-”
“Allow a known threat to operate within our structure?” Nikolai interrupted her, setting the folder down on her desk and crossing his arms. “We have no grounds against Brekker. We have the shoddy basis that he writes papers, but how can we prove it? Based on him using Nazyalensky instead of Zoya? Hardly. Kaz Brekker isn’t the type of man who is going to get caught unless he wants to be, or someone manages to pull the rug out from under him. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed this Zoya, but he isn’t the type of person to walk into a room without knowing who is going to be in it. I would rather have that kind of person on my side. And if each year he hands me a list of students that don’t deserve their diplomas, then all the better for it.”
She stared at him, trying to fathom the decision he had made. He was allowing plagiarism to happen. He was allowing a student to knowingly cheat the system, and then turning around and striking down those that tried to use that method. It was…
She huffed, marching back around to her desk and snapping up her papers.
“You’re infuriating when you’re right about something.” She snarled, shoving her half-graded papers into her bag. “And the only way I can deal with you is with a bottle of scotch.”
He winked at her. “I’d be happy to treat you to one. I’ve been told I’m an excellent cook, care for me to demonstrate?”
He was going to be the death of them.
“I think you have better things to do than flirt with me when you should be addressing this.” She snapped, picking up the folder and slapping him in the chest with it.
Nikolai gave her a smile that made her chest burn and ache. “I don’t think I could ever think of anything better than spending time with you Zoya my dear.”