Toji stared at himself in the mirror as the early light cut across his room in thin blades. His reflection looked… the same. Which was ridiculous, because he didn't feel the same. Not after last night. Not after Enid's warmth tangled around him until the sun nearly beat them awake.
He shut his eyes briefly.
Yeah. They'd been "happy." Very.
He pulled on his shirt with that distant calm he wore like armor, settling the fabric over skin that still remembered too much softness. Whatever. He could deal with that later.
A sharp knock jolted through the room.
"Toji? Are you awake?" Thornhill's voice. Thin. Strained. Someone who definitely didn't sleep.
He opened the door.
She stood there looking like she'd sprinted through three emergencies before breakfast. Her hair was frizzed, her eyes bloodshot, and she was clutching her clipboard like it was the only thing keeping her upright.
"Good morning," she said, though her tone sounded more like a question than a greeting. "We… need to discuss your whereabouts last night."
Toji leaned against the doorframe with deliberate ease. "I was nowhere of importance to you."
Thornhill blinked, thrown by the bluntness. "I—I still need to know where you were. There was an incident in the dorm halls. A disturbance."
He closed the distance.
Not touching — just enough that their breaths crossed, warm and immediate. A test. A prod at the edges of the story he thought he understood about this place.
Thornhill froze.
Her spine went rigid, but her eyes flicked down then up again with a sharp awareness she couldn't fully hide. For a moment she looked at him not like a teacher evaluating a student — but like a woman remembering he was built like a problem she didn't want to deal with before her coffee.
Then she snapped herself back together, jaw tightening.
"Toji," she said, tone strained but reaching for professional, "you are in violation of curfew, and I need you to answer the question."
He didn't move away. "Why? Planning to write me a note?"
Her breath caught in her throat.
Only a second. Barely noticeable. But he saw it.
Her fingers tightened on the clipboard. "Your attitude isn't helping your case."
"Neither is your acting," he replied in a way that only she could understand,stepping back just enough to stop her from combusting on the spot.
"If you're tired, say that."
She blinked at him again, thrown off-balance all over.
"Fine," she hissed under her breath.
"I'm tired. Very tired. Everyone is tired. Now tell me where you were."
His expression didn't shift.
"I slept."
"Where?"
"In a room."
"TOJIII". Thornhill said calmly
He gave her the kind of look that suggested she could try asking a third time, but it'd go the same way.
"Like I said," he murmured, brushing lightly past her toward his desk, "nowhere that concerns you."
Thornhill wiped a hand across her forehead, muttering something about stress-induced early retirement.
But her eyes lingered on him a second longer than they should've before she turned away.
And Toji watched her back, already knowing this was going to spiral into complications he didn't have the patience for.
Not when he still had Enid's laughter buried somewhere warm in his chest....
Thornhill really have a fine Ass ngl
---
Thornhill made it two steps down the hall before her composure cracked like thin ice.
She stopped.
Shoulders tightening. Breath stuttering. Clipboard dropping just enough that her knuckles turned white from catching it.
Then she turned back toward Toji's open doorway, face half-lit by the morning sun.
Her expression wasn't scandalized.
It was… rattled.
Not because of anything that happened — but because of how he'd stood there. Calm. Cold. Close enough that she felt the heat of him like a boundary she'd forgotten she shouldn't cross.
She wasn't supposed to react to students. She wasn't supposed to feel her pulse in her throat. She wasn't supposed to—
"Don't do that again," she blurted.
Toji raised a brow. "Do what?"
"That." She gestured vaguely toward him, her voice cracking at the edges. "The… proximity. The… breathing-near-my-face thing."
"The what."
"You know exactly what," she snapped softly, cheeks threatening color. "I'm already running on fumes, I don't need you playing… intimidation games."
He didn't deny the accusation. He didn't confirm it either.
He simply watched her with that unreadable, heavy-lidded gaze that made people confess things they had no business saying.
Thornhill exhaled sharply, trying to tame the frazzled strands of her own dignity.
"It's inappropriate," she added, but even she didn't sound convinced. "And unprofessional. And—"
"Then don't lean in next time," Toji murmured.
She froze again.
Her lips parted like she had a rebuttal ready, but nothing came out. The hallway swallowed the silence between them, thick with things neither of them should acknowledge.
Finally, Thornhill tore her stare away, muttered something that could've been "ridiculous boy," and marched off with stiff, rapid footsteps.
Toji shut the door behind him.
Calm as ever.
And mildly amused that one night with Enid had already tilted the whole building off its axis
Thornhill didn't stop walking until she reached the end of the hallway, turned the corner, and finally pressed her back against the cold stone wall.
Only then did her breath leave her in one single, shaky exhale.
Her pulse was still misbehaving, tapping at her throat like a moth trapped behind glass.
Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. She was a grown woman, an educator, a professional, and yet—
Her fingers touched her temples, trying to cool the heat rising under her skin.
What is wrong with me?
He's a student. A terrifyingly composed, too-handsome-for-his-own-good, dead-eyed menace of a student—but still a student.
Yet the second he leaned in…
That close…
Just a breath away…
Her brain had short-circuited like a knocked-over lamp.
She had felt it happen.
Something in her chest startled awake, startled dumb, startled stupid.
The worst part?
He hadn't even done anything seductive. He'd simply existed in her space with that calm, quiet kind of danger he carried like perfume.
She dropped her clipboard again. Fumbled it. Tried not to swear.
"Get it together, Laurel," she muttered under her breath. "He's just testing you. That's all. Just a power move. Just—"
Her cheeks flared hotter.
Just breathing near your face like the universe hates your self-control.
She dragged a hand down her own expression, trying to wipe away the fluster she'd never let anyone else see.
This wasn't supposed to happen.
She was supposed to be the one manipulating pieces, not turning into one.
Her thoughts kept looping back to that exact moment:
His eyes, steady.
His breath, warm.
His voice, low and close enough to bruise the air between them.
Then don't lean in next time.
A tiny, traitorous jolt went through her stomach.
She wanted to scream.
Or sleep.
Or possibly bite a pillow.
Instead, she straightened her shirt, perfected her mask, and resumed her walk down the hallway with her best impression of a composed adult.
But the truth followed her like perfume:
For one stupid second…
A single stupid heartbeat…
She had forgotten which one of them was supposed to be in control.
---
Wild you be interested in a Dragon Ball fanfic.
Where mc transmigrated into Frieza