Chapter Text
It was one night.
That’s how it stays in Wemmbu’s head—simple, contained, easy to dismiss if he doesn’t look at it too closely.
One night. Too loud music, too many drinks, the kind of atmosphere where everything feels slightly unreal and choices don’t carry the same weight they should. He remembers flashes more than anything solid—dim lighting, the press of someone close, a voice low and steady even through the haze. A hand at his wrist. The brief, grounding pressure of fingers at his jaw, tilting his face just enough—
He cuts the thought off there.
No names.
No expectations.
Just something intense enough to linger, and fleeting enough that it shouldn’t matter.
It doesn’t, he tells himself.
It shouldn’t.
They don’t talk after. Don’t exchange anything. The night ends the way those nights always do—quietly, without ceremony, like it never meant to last beyond itself. No numbers, no promises, no awkward morning-after conversations to complicate it. Just distance. Just absence.
Wemmbu lets it go.
Or at least, he thinks he does.
Second year starts like everything else—too early, too routine, too familiar. The kind of morning where everything feels slightly off just because it’s happening again. Alarm, snooze, regret, repeat. He drags himself out of bed, half-awake and already tired, running on autopilot more than anything else.
By the time he gets to campus, he’s functioning just enough to pass as present.
Barely.
He walks into class with his bag slung over one shoulder, already bracing himself for another lecture he’ll have to force himself to pay attention to. New semester, new professor, same cycle. He doesn’t even look up at first. Just finds a seat somewhere in the middle, drops his things with a quiet thud, and leans back slightly like he’s settling in for something he’s already decided to endure.
There’s noise around him—people talking, chairs scraping, someone laughing too loudly—but it all blends together into background static.
He barely registers it.
He pulls out his notebook, flips it open, stares at a blank page without really seeing it.
Then the room quiets.
A shift. Subtle, but enough.
The professor steps in.
Wemmbu still doesn’t look up.
There’s the sound of something being set down on the desk at the front. Papers, maybe. A bag. The faint click of a pen. The usual.
Routine.
Normal.
“Good morning.”
And something about the voice—
It cuts through the fog in his head immediately.
Low. Even. Controlled in a way that feels deliberate, like every word is placed exactly where it’s meant to be.
Familiar.
Wemmbu’s grip tightens slightly on his pen.
No.
“Welcome to the course,” the professor continues, tone steady, unhurried. “I’m MinuteTech. I’ll be handling this class for the semester.”
The name lands a second after the voice.
Recognition hits before logic can catch up.
Wemmbu’s stomach drops.
No.
No, that’s—
He looks up.
The world doesn’t stop. Nothing dramatic like that. The room is still the same, students settling in, the faint hum of the air-conditioning overhead, the soft shuffle of paper as someone flips a page. Everything continues exactly as it should.
But for a second, it feels like everything narrows down to one point.
At the front of the room—
Him.
MinuteTech.
Not a blur. Not a half-formed memory shaped by bad lighting and worse decisions.
Clear. Real. Standing a few feet away, posture straight, expression composed, like he belongs there.
Like this is normal.
Wemmbu’s brain short-circuits.
No, no, no—this is not happening.
There’s a pause.
Small enough that no one else would notice. Mid-sentence, mid-thought, just a fraction of a second where something falters.
Their eyes meet.
And everything from that night crashes back all at once.
Not blurry anymore. Not distant. Sharp.
Too sharp.
The way his voice sounded when it was closer, quieter. The way his hand felt—steady, deliberate. The way he looked at him, like he was paying attention to every little reaction.
Wemmbu’s chest tightens.
Oh my god.
Oh my god that’s him.
MinuteTech’s expression doesn’t change.
Not really.
But there’s something there. Something brief and controlled and buried immediately after, like it was never there to begin with.
Then he continues like nothing happened.
“…Before we begin, I expect a certain level of engagement,” he says smoothly, voice steady again, like he didn’t just—
Like they didn’t just—
Wemmbu looks away first.
Fast.
Too fast.
He stares down at his notebook like it’s suddenly the most important thing in the world, like if he focuses hard enough on the blank page, everything else will fix itself.
This is fine.
This is fine.
This is not fine.
What is he supposed to do?
That was a one-time thing. That was nothing. That was—
His professor.
That was his professor.
Wemmbu presses the tip of his pen too hard into the paper, the ink bleeding slightly where it shouldn’t.
Okay. Okay. Think.
Maybe he’s wrong.
Maybe it just looks like him.
Maybe the voice is just similar.
Maybe—
“…and that will be the basis for this semester’s work.”
The same voice.
Right there.
Not similar.
Exact.
Wemmbu feels like his brain is trying to restart and failing.
Nope.
Nope, this is real.
This is actually happening.
He just—
He just had—
And now—
Nope.
Absolutely not.
The rest of the lecture passes in a blur.
He doesn’t absorb anything. Not a single word. Sentences come and go, concepts are explained, notes are written around him, but none of it sticks. It’s all just noise layered over the one thought that won’t go away.
That’s him.
That’s him.
That’s him.
Every time he even thinks about looking up again, something in him tightens, stops him. Like if he makes eye contact again, it’ll confirm it even more, make it more real than it already is.
So he doesn’t.
He stays very focused on not looking.
On breathing normally.
On not reacting.
On not thinking about the fact that he remembers exactly how that voice sounds when it’s not lecturing a room full of students.
God.
And apparently, neither does MinuteTech.
Because for the rest of the class, there’s nothing.
No acknowledgment.
No hesitation.
No slip-ups.
No “do you remember.”
Nothing.
He teaches like he always has, like this is just another class, another group of students. His tone doesn’t change, his demeanor doesn’t shift, and if anyone else notices anything unusual, they don’t show it.
It’s normal.
Painfully, intentionally normal.
It should make things easier.
It doesn’t.
Because now Wemmbu has to sit there and pretend this is normal too.
Like he didn’t recognize him instantly.
Like he doesn’t remember things he really, really shouldn’t be remembering right now.
Like he’s not hyper-aware of every movement at the front of the room.
Like he’s not wondering if MinuteTech remembers.
(He does. There’s no way he doesn’t. There’s just—no way.)
Wemmbu risks a glance up.
Just for a second.
And immediately regrets it.
MinuteTech is already looking at him.
Not openly. Not obviously. Just… enough.
It’s gone the second it’s noticed.
But it was there.
Wemmbu looks back down so fast it almost hurts.
Nope. Nope. Not doing that again.
But the moments keep happening.
Small ones.
Subtle ones.
When their hands come too close passing papers and both of them pull back just a fraction faster than necessary, like the contact would mean something more than it should.
When silence stretches just a little too long after a question, like something else almost filled the space.
When Wemmbu forgets for half a second where he is, looks up without thinking—
And finds MinuteTech already looking.
Every time, it hits the same.
Sharp. Immediate. Unavoidable.
“You seem distracted.”
The words land too directly.
Wemmbu stiffens, realizing too late that he’s been called on.
Oh.
Oh no.
“…No, sir.”
His voice sounds normal.
That’s good.
That’s very good.
Because internally, everything is on fire.
There’s a pause.
Not long.
Just enough.
Just enough to feel like something is being considered.
“…Right.”
And then the lecture continues.
Like nothing happened.
Like everything happened.