Page 97 of A Lab Rat's Guide to Fated Love
“No way! She’s not even in his class!” cropped-top girl exclaimed. “And? What did he say?”
“He turned her down, of course,” lanky guy replied. “Real curt, too, I’m assuming. You know how he is. I haven’t ever seen him hang out with the other teachers on campus. His lectures are cool, but I bet he’s super boring in person.”
“Whatever. Did you find the books he’d recommended last week? I checked the first two out from the library. Can’t find the third.” Cropped-top girl pulled her hair up in a bun. “We’re not late, are we?”
They headed into a classroom near the end of the corridor, and mildly intrigued, Nori followed them inside. Judging by the collective enthusiasm of the rest of the students filing in, and the way they spoke of the teacher and his extraordinary ideas, she assumed the subject would be something wildly exciting. Or at the very least, anactualsubject. But then she overheard it was a parapsychology lecture, and they were expecting to discuss the topic of past lives and their connection to the human psyche.
Regret instantly replaced her curiosity.
What a massive waste of resources and time.Nori sprung from her seat at the back of the class, eager to escape before the professor appeared. She didn’t want to have to sit through the entire lecture out of polite courtesy, since she was going to be colleagues with him soon.Unfortunately.
But before she could take a single step away from her bench, the man walked in carrying a fat stack of books with a tablet balanced on top.
With a quiet groan, she lowered herself back into her seat.
The professor proceeded to pass an attendance register to the nearest kid, before turning to connect his tablet to the projector while the students took turns signing their attendance.
He looked about Nori’s age, give or take a few years. With his tall athletic frame and the pair of round gold-rimmed glasses that sat delicately over his sharp nose, he seemed to exude a strange sense of magnetism that was hard to ignore.
Observing him objectively alone, the man had plain, forgettable features. And yet, as Nori continued to stare, she realized—knew—thatnothingwas forgettable about him. Nothing really stood out. Yeteverythingstood out—from his words and his voice, to the grace with which he moved. How he nodded inapproval with a subtle tilt of his head, when a student asked a question that he called, “Interesting.” And the way he lightly nudged his glasses back up when they slid down the bridge of his nose as he peered into the book lying open at his desk.
Everything was plain ordinary about this man. She knew that in her logical mind. But she also knew that not a single thing was.
Nori simply couldn’t take her eyes off the professor; not that she was trying to. But she sat surveying him with a mixture of wonder and mild annoyance throughout the class, unable to pinpoint just what it was about him that made it so hard for her to look away.
Was it because he was starting to seem… familiar somehow as the lecture progressed? Or maybe it was his voice. She wanted to keep listening to him talk. It didn’t matter if the concepts he was describing were from a pseudo branch of science.
They were interesting. Everything he was saying was interesting.
Or maybe Nori was experiencing the worst jet-lag of her life. Because what waswrongwith her?
She tore her gaze away from him to look around the class. The students seemed to be as enraptured by his words as she was. But then they’d chosen to be there. They’d voluntarily signed up for his class while she was there in some sort of self-inflicted hostage situation.
Alright, the professor was good at his job. She had to give him that.
The class ended, and Nori remained seated, watching him gather his things from a distance while the students shuffled out of the hall.
With the stack of books held securely in his arms, the professor stepped away from his desk. He glanced in her direction, and as his gaze met hers, it immediately turned from pensive to horror-struck, his eyes going cartoonishly round.
What struck Nori was how dark they were. So dark, they looked jet black from afar. But there were no such things as black eyes in human genetics. She bet they were a very dark shade of brown, the actual hue only noticeable up-close.
And she wanted to look up-close. For science.
She sprung to her feet and hopped down the amphitheater steps to join him at the front of the hall.
“Hello professor.” She stretched a hand towards him. “I’m Dr. Nori Arya. Have we met before?”
His eyes widened even further, turning into giant, dark orbs. That, combined with his intense, unblinking stare, reminded her of her cat, Goober, and made her forget her next words entirely. The man hadunbelievablekitten-like eyes—all shiny black pupils.
And he just wouldn’t stop staring—no,glaringat her. He looked like he was on the verge of tears.
Oh!
He knew her, didn’t he?
Ugh.
Maybe she’d been very vocal about his choice of non-science science in the past, and he hadn’t handled that well. He did seem to have a bit of a sensitive air about him.
