Chapter Text
The university was unusually alive that afternoon. Posters lined the halls in bold lettering:
OPEN DAY – Extra Credits for Attending Guest Lectures!
Students moved quickly from one building to the next, schedules in hand, eyes lit with curiosity and caffeine.
Renowned professionals from various fields had been invited to speak—authors, researchers, professors, and physicians.
Among them was Dr. Zayne Li, a heart surgeon whose expertise in heart disorders had earned him an undeniable prestige in the medical world. The tall, dark haired man glanced at his watch.
He had arrived early. An hour too early, in fact.
That wasn’t unusual for Zayne. Punctuality was its own form of order, and order made sense in ways people often didn’t.
Zayne hadn’t even wanted to accept the invitation. The university had been pestering him for years—polite emails, formal letters, occasional phone calls from increasingly desperate program coordinators. And every time, he declined.
He wasn’t a public speaker. He didn’t like being perceived. He had patients, schedules, actual emergencies.
But this time, he couldn’t say no.
He’d run out of excuses. So he cleared a day in his tightly packed calendar, traded his scrubs for a collared shirt, and resigned himself to spending a full afternoon in a place that smelled vaguely of printer ink and youthful ambition.
And he certainly hadn’t come here looking for anything—or anyone—interesting.
He moved through the corridors in his typical attire—a black shirt, buttoned to the collar, tucked neatly into tailored trousers, his glasses perched precisely on the bridge of his nose. Laptop bag in hand. Stoic facial expression.
Every step, every breath, every decision—measured.
He was headed toward the faculty lounge, already calculating the time needed for a coffee, maybe a review of his slides, when something stopped him.
A voice.
Soft. Low. Carried not by volume but by tone.
Through a door left slightly ajar, he caught sight of the auditorium—and a man who looked like he'd stepped out of a Botticelli painting and directly into a school open day event flyer.
Zayne paused at the entrance, gaze fixed on him.
Bathed in the soft gold of the afternoon light, the man on stage moved as he spoke, his voice rich with passion, hands painting something invisible in the air. The students leaned in, rapt. He didn’t just speak— he unfolded, charmed his listeners like a mythical creature with his unnatural power.
Zayne approached, almost despite himself.
" ...what the artist captures isn’t simply a figure,” the man was saying, voice lilting but clear. “It’s the tension between what we see and what we feel—between form and memory.”
Zayne didn’t intend to stay.
And yet, he did not move.
He told himself he was just observing. Just listening. Just filling time.
But that wasn’t quite true.
There was something disarming about the way the man moved—how his hands painted shapes in the air, how he bent toward the image on the screen like it was alive, sacred. Zayne felt something unfamiliar in his chest.
It was... unpleasant.
Still…
He glanced once down the hallway, as if to remind himself there were other options. But when he looked back through the door, the man in white was smiling softly at a student’s question, nodding, listening as if every word mattered.
Zayne stepped inside.
Quietly. Deliberately. He found a seat in the very back row and sat down without a sound.
Just to wait, he told himself again.
Just until the hour passed