Aryan Carter woke to the sound of sunlight. It slanted through the blinds like stripes across the mess of notebooks, coffee cups, and a half-open math text. He groaned, dragged a hand through his hair, and blinked at the page still open in front of him.
"Cowel's Challenge #2."
The handwriting was almost neat. He didn't remember it getting that far.
He smirked. "Guess sleep is for amateurs."
The dorm was quiet; his roommate had left hours ago. Aryan swung his legs off the bed and winced at the cold floor. The clock read 11:43 a.m.—too late for breakfast, too early to pretend productivity. He shuffled to the window, looked out over campus, and felt something rare: calm.
Yesterday had ended without disaster. That alone was a miracle. He'd wrecked Cowel's files, fixed them, and somehow impressed the man instead of being expelled. Progress, if measured creatively.
He dropped back into the chair and stared at the scribbles again. Somewhere between the numbers, a memory surfaced—the first time he'd seen Professor Cowel smile.
It had been months ago, in the cavernous lecture hall where half the first-years came to nap. Cowel had been drawing something on the board—an intricate proof that looped and folded like a piece of origami.
Aryan, seated near the back, had spent most of the hour doodling dragons in his notebook. He wasn't really listening until Cowel turned and asked, "Can anyone tell me why this step doesn't hold for x = 0?"
Silence.
Aryan, on instinct, called out, "Because x ran away after seeing the equation, sir!"
A few students snorted. Cowel's chalk paused mid-air. He turned slowly toward the back row. Aryan braced for impact.
Instead, the corner of the professor's mouth lifted—barely, but undeniably. "Creative," he said dryly. "Incorrect, but creative."
The class laughed. Cowel went back to the board.
Aryan stared at that small, reluctant smile like it was proof of some secret theorem. The man could smile. And not the sarcastic kind—real, human amusement.
He hadn't known then why it stuck in his head. He only remembered the warmth that came with it, an odd sort of pride that someone he respected had acknowledged his existence, even for a joke.
**
His phone buzzed, dragging him back to the present. A message from his father:
How are grades? Your cousin just got a scholarship. Try to keep up.
No greeting, no sign-off. Just the usual punctuation mark of pressure.
Aryan stared at the screen, thumbs hovering. He typed Doing fine, deleted it, tried Working on it, deleted that too, and finally settled on nothing. He locked the phone and tossed it onto the bed.
He'd grown used to those messages—the clipped words, the polite disappointment disguised as advice. They'd started back in high school after every mediocre report card. Work harder. Be serious. Stop wasting potential.
Same sentences. Different day.
The funny thing was, they sounded eerily like Cowel. Only, when Cowel said it, it didn't feel like a condemnation—it felt like a challenge.
He sighed, rubbing his temple. "You're projecting, Carter," he muttered. "Next thing you know, you'll start quoting the man in your sleep."
Still, the thought lingered. That one rare smile months ago had turned into a kind of benchmark. He'd seen the professor smirk since then, sure—but not that unguarded, genuine one. The first one had felt… earned.
And Aryan had always been addicted to earning things that people thought he couldn't.
***
The afternoon passed in lazy loops. He drifted through the cafeteria, trading jokes with friends, pretending not to notice his own restlessness.
When he spotted Cowel across the courtyard, talking with another lecturer, he slowed instinctively.
The professor was animated for once, explaining something with his hands. Then—there it was. A small, honest smile. Brief, but unmistakable.
It hit Aryan harder than expected. That same flicker of recognition, like déjà vu. He looked away before anyone noticed.
"Carter!" his friend Jules called. "You coming to the game later?"
"Yeah, maybe," he said, but his eyes went back to where Cowel had been. The professor had already turned, the moment gone.
He shoved his hands into his pockets. "Weird day," he muttered.
"Every day's weird with you," Jules said, laughing.
"Fair."
***
That evening, the campus quieted under a pink-orange sky. Aryan sat on the dorm floor surrounded by papers, music playing low. He'd promised himself he wouldn't think about Cowel anymore, but the brain ignored orders about as well as he did.
He pulled a notebook closer, flipped to a blank page, and wrote at the top: Challenge #3. He didn't know what it was yet, but starting a new one felt right.
As he worked, fragments of the past drifted through him—not the worst memories, just the small ones that built the walls he hid behind.
He was twelve, sitting at the dinner table while his father read through bills, not speaking. The clock had been louder than either of them.
He was sixteen, cracking jokes to friends because silence at home was heavier than laughter could ever be.
He was eighteen, arriving at university with a grin ready-made to hide behind.
No single moment hurt. Together, they shaped him: the boy who learned that if you can make people laugh, they won't ask what's wrong.
And maybe that was why Cowel's first smile had mattered. It wasn't a mockery. It wasn't a pity. It was recognition.
***
His pencil slowed. Outside, a light rain began, soft against the glass. He glanced at the half-finished equations and laughed quietly to himself. "You're ridiculous, Carter," he said. "Chasing smiles like grades."
But he kept writing.
Somewhere between the formulas, a new pattern emerged—a way of seeing numbers not as obstacles but as puzzles to solve. He corrected a sign, drew an arrow, and felt the strange satisfaction of getting something right.
For once, there was no need to joke or show off. The quiet was enough.
Hours passed. When he finally looked up, the clock read 2:07 a.m. His eyes ached, but the page was full, neatly lined and logical. He leaned back, smiling faintly.
It wasn't perfect, but it was his.
***
On the desk beside him sat the page from the night before: Cowel's Challenge #2, the one he'd solved. He glanced between the two pages and laughed softly. "Guess I'm doing sequels now."
He closed the notebook and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The rain had stopped; the room smelled like paper and coffee. He felt tired, but not empty.
He thought again of that moment in the lecture hall—the chalk squeak, the awkward joke, the professor's small, reluctant smile.
It had been nothing then. A flicker. A breath.
But to Aryan, it had become proof that maybe effort could be rewarded—not with grades or approval, but with acknowledgment.
He turned on his side, pulling the blanket over his head. Sleep crept in slowly and quietly.
The last thought before he drifted off wasn't about the next prank, or the next test, or even the next lecture.
It was simple: I want to see him smile again.