My Darling Professor

Clara's Pov

Five thirty in the afternoon.

I sat cross-legged in a blanket I'd dragged off the sofa, laptop perched on the edge of the coffee table, a variety show blasting at full volume—loud enough to produce echoes in this absurdly high-ceilinged Gothic living room.

The kitchen island, meanwhile, had been thoroughly conquered.

Three open bags of chips, a cup of hot cocoa that had long gone cold—double sugar, naturally—two paintbrushes still smudged with pigment, and a stack of colorful sticky notes I'd haphazardly piled up.

The stack was leaning so far it was about to collapse.

But I didn't bother fixing it.

Because today was Wednesday.

And Wednesday was the safest day of my week.

Julian had his graduate seminar in the afternoon and usually didn't come home until after eight—sometimes even later.

So after I'd shown my face on campus at noon and confirmed I had nothing else going on, I'd returned here with a clear conscience and, in under two hours, reverted to my most primal, most comfortable, and also least appropriate-for-this-house state of being.

Strictly speaking—

A mouse who had occupied the museum.

Julian's house was, on a normal day, impeccably tidy.

Not ordinary clean.

The kind of tidy that made you suspect every object had a positioning line drawn beneath it.

Books on the shelves were arranged according to some logic I couldn't decipher. Decorative pieces maintained the exact same angle at all times. The air perpetually carried a cool, expensive woody fragrance. The central climate system held steady at the low temperature he preferred. I'd been living here for two weeks and still hadn't dared touch a single ornament in the living room.

There weren't even any vases.

To be precise, I suspected this house didn't permit the very concept of "just setting something down for a second."

So for these two weeks, the only evidence that another living person existed in this house was probably the candy wrappers I secretly slipped into the refrigerator every night—and destroyed before he got home.

On the TV, a panel of guests was earnestly debating—

"When you're living with a roommate, what boundaries should you absolutely never cross?"

I dangled a chip between my teeth and watched for a few seconds.

Roommate.

That word seemed oddly fitting.

What were Julian and I, exactly?

Roommates?

Landlord and tenant?

Or…

Husband and wife?

The moment those last four words surfaced in my mind, a shudder ran through my entire body, and I nearly dropped the chip into my cocoa.

No.

Stop.

Stop right now.

I shoved that absurd thought back down immediately.

This was just a contract.

He needed a human spouse who met the conditions of his family trust.

And I needed an escape from the life plan my family had mapped out for me.

A mutually beneficial arrangement.

Legally binding.

Terms clearly defined.

A courteous partnership.

Perfect.

At least on paper, it was perfect.

And strictly speaking, I couldn't even say I had chosen him.

So the only thing I needed to do now was stay quiet, stay sensible, and stay far away from his boundaries.

Don't disrupt his order.

Don't cause him trouble.

And above all, don't let him wake up one day and realize—

That in this marriage, he'd drawn the short straw.

"The worst thing about sharing a place is bad soundproofing."

A guest on the show complained.

I repeated the line under my breath and instinctively glanced around.

An entire wall of antique books.

An absurdly high vaulted ceiling.

Beneath my feet, a handwoven Persian rug I felt I'd owe money for if I stepped on it too hard.

I was silent for two seconds.

Fine.

Soundproofing probably wasn't the most pressing concern in our marriage.

After all, even if I screamed in the third-floor studio, the basement study probably wouldn't pick up a thing.

Of course.

That assumed Julian didn't have that kind of preternaturally sharp vampiric hearing.

At that thought, I paused mid-bite.

Then decided to pretend I'd never thought it.

I grabbed a fistful of chips and stuffed them into my mouth.

Crumbs scattered across the black marble island like tiny firecrackers.

And that was when—

A sound came from the foyer.

Very faint.

A key turning.

The lock clicking open.

Unfortunately, the host on TV was laughing so hard he sounded like he was about to pass out, and I was draped over the armrest of the sofa laughing along with him, so I heard nothing.

Not until the commercials cut in.

The music dropped.

And only then, in the sudden silence of the living room, did I hear behind me—

Tap.

The sound of a leather shoe meeting stone floor.

Just once.

I froze.

The chip in my mouth—I forgot to chew.

My hand hung suspended in midair, clutching half a bag of snacks.

My head turned toward the foyer, inch by inch.

And there was Julian Mason.

He stood in the doorway.

One hand holding his briefcase, the other still resting on the door handle.

His dark overcoat without a single crease.

His tie so perfectly knotted it looked like it had just been lifted from a display window.

That excessively composed face betrayed no expression whatsoever.

His gaze drifted past me, slowly.

The blanket on the floor.

The laptop on the coffee table.

Three bags of snacks on the island.

Chip crumbs scattered everywhere.

The paintbrushes.

The toppling tower of sticky notes.

And finally—

It landed on my face.

Only one thought remained in my head.

I'm dead.

The next ten seconds proved conclusively that when a person is in a state of extreme panic, they should under no circumstances attempt to do anything.

My first instinct was to destroy the evidence.

So I flung the chip bag behind the sofa.

A shower of crumbs flew out with it.

"…"

I immediately lunged to pick them up.

But my foot caught on the blanket.

I stumbled forward a step.

In a frenzy, I scooped up all the wrappers from the counter and clutched them to my chest, trying to stuff them into my hoodie pocket.

My pocket, evidently, had not pre-allocated sufficient space for criminal evidence.

A chocolate wrapper fell to the floor right in front of Julian.

Me: "…"

Great.

Just great.

Caught red-handed. Might as well turn myself in.

I dashed toward the laptop to mute it.

Hit the wrong key.

The next second, the variety show guest's glass-shattering cackle exploded through the entire living room at maximum volume.

I closed my eyes.

In that moment, I genuinely wished I could vanish on the spot.

If this house were a museum—

Then I was probably the child who'd waited for the guard to look away, charged into the main exhibition hall with a bucket of paint, and successfully splashed three artifacts.

But Julian said nothing.

Not a word.

He simply looked away and bent to change his shoes.

And it was precisely this silence that frightened me more.

Then I saw it.

A very slight furrow between his brows.

Truly just a flicker.

Less than a second.

Then his expression smoothed back to calm.

But I saw it.

He'd frowned.

I immediately recalled a moment from last semester when I'd sat in on one of his open lectures. A student had asked a question so logically muddled that even I couldn't follow it.

Julian had worn this exact expression.

A very faint frown.

That student didn't dare raise his head again for a full ten minutes.

And now—

I glanced at the chips behind the sofa.

Then at the crumbs on the island.

And suddenly felt I might rank below that student.

I started cleaning up immediately.

Stacked the sticky notes.

First attempt—crooked.

Pulled them apart.

Second attempt—still crooked.

My hands were shaking worse now.

Third attempt…

Forget it.

I just grabbed the whole pile and shoved them aside.

Then I picked up the cocoa cup and headed for the kitchen.

Too fast—the cup wobbled.

A few drops of brown liquid landed on the black marble.

My pupils contracted.

Almost by reflex, I wiped it with my sleeve.

It wasn't until after I'd finished that I realized.

This was Julian's marble.

And I'd just wiped it with my hoodie sleeve.

I felt like I should probably start drafting my will.

In the end, I didn't dare touch anything else.

I just stood obediently in front of the sofa, hands folded in front of me, head bowed.

My posture was textbook—like a student waiting for a professor to announce a failing grade.

Julian finished changing his shoes and walked toward me.

He didn't look at the island.

He didn't inspect the rug.

He didn't even glance at the chocolate wrapper that had rolled against the table leg.

He walked straight up to me.

And stopped.

About five feet away.

It wasn't that close, really, but I still held my breath instinctively.

I stared at the tips of my socks.

I could feel his gaze resting on me.

Not a passing glance.

He was looking.

Quietly looking.

The back of my neck tightened, inch by inch.

The silence was terrifying.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

I started counting.

By the sixth second, I was already rehearsing an apology in my head.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't have turned the living room into this.

No—that sounded like I was admitting I'd do it again.

I'm sorry, I'll put everything back the way it was.

Also no. That sounded like crime scene cleanup.

I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to—

The tenth second.

Julian finally spoke.

"Go easy on the junk food."

I blinked.

He was looking at the chip bag poking out from behind the sofa.

His voice remained level.

There was even a trace of something that might have been… resignation.

I lifted my head, then quickly lowered it again.

That didn't sound like a husband speaking to his wife.

Nor a professor scolding a student.

More like a parent who had lost count of how many times they'd caught their kid sneaking junk food.

And what made it worse—

He was right.

I had, in fact, already consumed three bags of chips today, plus half a bag of chocolate buttons.

As for the detail that yesterday's count had actually been four bags—I decided that was information he never needed to have in this lifetime.

"Mm."

I answered in a very small voice.

Julian didn't walk away.

I waited two seconds.

He was still standing there.

This made me more nervous than before.

I opened my mouth, intending to apologize, but suddenly couldn't decide which offense to apologize for first.

The chips?

The rug?

The cocoa?

Or the entire living room I had single-handedly contaminated?

In the end, nothing came out.

But then Julian asked:

"You didn't go to class today?"

My heart skipped—hard.

I looked up slowly.

He was watching me.

Those eyes so calm they were nearly unreadable.

But it hit me all at once—

I'd had a class this afternoon.

And the instructor's last name, if I recalled correctly…

Was also Mason.