Chapter Text
“And of course, the solution to this is…? Andrew.”
“Forty-six point three six nine?”
“Wrong. Elena.”
“Four hundred forty-six?”
“Wrong. Alexander.”
“Four- four thousand point three… six nine five six…?”
“Wrong. Remember your decimal places, people! And some of you are mixing up your variables. Try the question again. You have until nine fifteen.” Veritas placed the chalk onto the blackboard ledge, folding his arms over his chest as he stared at his students (or stared down, depending on how one felt about the situation). This was the highest-level engineering course at the university, with only the most passionate students. The classes prior had weeded out any deemed insufficient, only moving forward those that ate, slept, and breathed physics. Dramatic, some may say, but in a stream as challenging as this one, only the exceptional in work ethic and intelligence ever got higher than a thirty percent, let alone passed. This was the type of tight ship Veritas ran.
By such a description, it was clear that each one of Veritas’s eleven students that had reached this milestone was extraordinary in their own right, and most likely more than fit to teach a class of their own. Veritas was aware of this, of course, why else would he be so cutthroat with errors?
“A baby question,” Herta would mutter, wrinkling her nose, if she herself got to look at the example query on the board. The girl most likely wouldn’t have even bothered to do so much as pick up a pencil, simply rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “I’m not putting a cramp in my hand for that. Do it yourself.”
‘A baby question indeed,’ Veritas agreed with his own personal mind-Herta. They were usually better than this. Or, at least, one of them would have gotten it right and explained it to the others by now. Yet so far, all eleven were radio silent, the only sounds being the scratching of lead on paper and the ticking of calculator buttons.
They were all terribly distracted. Merely by walking to his classroom and not engaging in any conversation whatsoever, he had heard at least seven rumours about his students in a way that made it easy to piece together what was taking up the minds of each of them. Those psychology degrees weren’t for nothing, after all. And as authoritarian as Veritas may have been described, he wasn’t cruel. He understood that these young, somewhat impressionable adults had lives outside of thermodynamics and molecular structures, as much as some of his other colleagues were reluctant to admit (the individual of first thought starting with an ‘H’ and ending with ‘erta’).
One had an argument with their girlfriend the day prior, which resulted in said girlfriend staying the night with a friend. Another had a family member fall ill, and they had to take care of them, and a similar case was present for a different one, in which their family member was moving in with them over the next while. Then there was the student who was going to audition for a role in a movie produced by an upcoming studio, and their friend that was similarly trying out for a musical…
The list went on, and Veritas, throughout his boredom, found himself thinking about each of his pupils. The group was small, though he found that only made each lesson more personal. In his lower-level courses of seventy freshmen or so, he found that their whispers intermingled and grew into a cacophony of noise, penetrating and echoing through the room, yet impenetrable itself, and he had no choice but to loudly slam his book on the front desk until they all shut up and he could continue his lecture on algebra, a lecture that he knew half of the listeners would forget as soon as it was taught.
With this small collective however, he felt much more lax. If in a good mood, he’d wait a few moments for the gossiper to finish their sentence before putting a finger to his lips and turning back to the board to resume his explanation.
Thank goodness freshmen were only freshmen for one year. Though they often complained about high school freshmen, they too were just as bad when entering university come the new semester.
Perhaps Veritas just disliked the volume of it all. If only some of them had a mute button… he wished not to hear about his students’ more personal habits.
A few of his acquaintances remarked that if Veritas went out more often, he’d find an appreciation for the enthusiasm showcased by the youth. And, as acquaintances did, they did not understand him much, if at any. Passion can be silent, enthusiasm through actions, not words. Isn’t it more satisfying to spend hours researching a topic of interest and digging deep into the boundless ideas presented in it, rather than just stating that one ‘liked it’?
Whenever he expressed this though, the people around him would only reply with an awkward: “we meant you should socialize more, and you’d see why others enjoy it so much.”
So, totally, completely, and utterly pointless. If anything, their inability to think of conversations as anything deeper than filler space while getting drinks discouraged him further. He despised small talk.
“I’ve given you all ample time. Now, let’s check over our answers again, shall we? Hopefully at least one of you is on the right track.”
-/-/-
“They’re all idiots, I’m never substituting for Screwllum ever again! I swear, Ruan Mei, you should let me borrow your lab for a moment and scan them. Their brains turned to mush as soon as I asked them anything outside of the textbook! I mean, that thing’s not a bible! If they can’t solve new problems with the knowledge they already have, they’re toast!”
Veritas and Ruan Mei listened to Herta complain about her duties, Ruan Mei plucking one of the flower petals of a potted plant positioned nicely next to the couch. When the three of them were in the lounge together, it was more or less empty (mainly because no one could stand to be around them; the novelty of being coworkers with Geniuses soon wore off once they realized how capricious they tended to be), and Herta could gripe and groan as much as she’d like without worry of one of the ‘Non-Genius’ professors bravely piping in to give her a lecture on being more patient.
“Surely you were once just like that, Madam! Young and easily distracted?”
“Never. I’m a member of the Genius Society, do I look like any of those mouth breathing imbeciles? Finish your coffee, Dorothy.”
(No one ever tried to ask Herta to put herself in anyone’s shoes after that.)
Technically, Veritas was not of the same ranking of the other two. As he wasn’t a member of the Genius Society: a high standing, global organization of those whose intelligence had great influential power on the world, he was under them in regards of credentials. His eight PhDs be damned, regardless of what he did they never let him in. Even so, the university sported not one, not two, but three Genius Society members in their arsenal of professors. In fact, that was exactly why the university was so highly revered – even if said members were quite infuriating. Infuriating to others; Veritas got along just fine with them, and they treated him as their own (to some degree).
“A shame,” Ruan Mei hummed in agreement.
“Screwllum is too kind with them, in my opinion,” Veritas nodded, scanning over his students’ latest assignments, occasionally marking them with a check, cross, or note.
“Duh. Once he gets back, I’m giving him a piece of my mind. Ruan Mei, hand me another slice of your cake.”
“Mmphm, here.”
“So,” Herta said through a mouthful of cake, sucking on the fork, “I thought that I’d teach them a lesson. I told them that the due date for the coding script Screwllum assigned had been moved up to next week. That got them a whole lot more serious.”
“The coding script that they were supposed to work on for the next month and a half?” asked Ruan Mei.
“Yeah, why would they need that long? This is an advanced course, not some Skillshare 101.” She brushed the hair out of her face, letting out a sophisticated but frustrated ‘humph.’ “Maybe I can convince him to let me substitute for the rest of the week, and then I can grade those projects myself!”
Ruan Mei and Veritas didn’t have to look at each other to know that they were both thinking the same thing: ‘she’ll end up failing all of them…’
Bored of the current conversation, Herta turned her attention to Veritas’s papers. “What’re you grading?”
“Critical reviews,” he answered, amber eyes not once looking up from the page. None of them felt it was necessary to look at each other while conversing. The subject could not be made more interesting by the colour of one’s iris, after all… “At the beginning of the semester I assigned them with the job to simulate the construction of a bridge. Two weeks ago, I gave them the job of looking back on these with an objective lens, to see what could use more work.”
“Ah, I see, so you’re doing the lazy way of teaching and making them mark it themselves.”
“They’ve already been marked. Otherwise, I’m sure at least a third would just give themselves a high score because of the opportunity…”
“Well, duh, I meant, you’re making them write it out themselves. I do that all the time. If I told each one of my students what parts of their work sucked, I’d be there all day, and half of them would end up crying. And forget writing it. I wouldn’t know where to begin! My arm hurts just thinking about it.” She rubbed her wrist for good measure.
“That way, you can just add onto whatever they were saying,” Ruan Mei agreed, finally finished with her cake. She swiped her thumb over the edge of her lips, wiping off the crumbs that didn’t make it into her mouth. “In the end, you save a lot of time.”
“Ah, great minds think alike… I guess we’re all equally efficient. Ruan Mei, pass me my coffee cup?”
Despite it being equally far away from all three of them – that being a whopping foot from the couch, situated on the coffee table, Ruan Mei obeyed without so much as a bat of an eye.
“When will Screwllum be back?” Veritas asked, flipping to the next report.
“I dunno. Whenever he’s back, he’s back.”
Ah, the privileges of being a Genius Society member… Being able to do whatever one would like with little to no repercussions whatsoever. Eight billion people in the world, and eighty-four members. If a Genius accepted one’s invitation to work somewhere, it was more so up to the employer to keep them happy, rather than the other way around. Herta, Veritas knew, was one of those fickle types, giving long and detailed lectures one moment, and handing them a major project to keep them busy the next.
Older students warned the newcomers to her classes that the reason she didn’t give out syllabuses was because her plans for assignments, projects, and tests were mainly based on whims. Either one grew used to hearing “I changed my mind, the test’s on Thursday of this week, I don’t feel like marking anything next week,” or one dropped out for fear of going insane.
In fact, forget syllabuses; half the time she didn’t even teach the same curriculum she had last year, or even last semester. Which would understandably make anyone who attended her lectures basically worthless to possible employers, for a lack of knowledge on the main topic she was supposed to be explaining. Yet, they flocked to her graduates, mainly because graduating from her teachings was considered impressive beyond words.
“Something wrong, Ratio? You’ve been staring at that page for some time.” Herta, laying across the couch, cheek resting in her hand, glanced at the booklet in his hand. “Got stuck? Give it to the Genius.”
Brow furrowed, Veritas shook his head. “No,” he muttered simply, eyes scanning over the entire report, then again. “It’s much longer than the others.” He cleared his throat. “But it’s well written.”
“Whoopee. So let me see.”
Before Veritas could have another word, Herta plucked it from his hands, falling back onto the couch. Then, Ruan Mei was standing behind her, leaning over her shoulder.
“This equation could use some work. They could’ve used the other formula given to them and an entire page would have been able to be cut out,” Ruan Mei pointed out.
“I just find their handwriting messy,” Herta hummed, flipping the page.
“I’m supposed to be the one marking that, you know.”
“Well, you didn’t exactly fight for it, now did you?”
The lounge was silent, and Veritas looked away, choosing instead to stare at the ashtray on one of the side tables placed there for nothing more than aesthetic purposes.
“This is very detailed. Impressive.”
“Ehhh. I guess so.”
Ruan Mei smiled. That was Herta-language for ‘exceptional.’ “Who is this student of yours?” She glanced through a different report to compare, eyes flitting back and forth, keeping up with the equations and explanations on both, even as Herta turned the pages unpredictably.
“A younger boy. I think they moved him up a few grades in primary school.”
“Oh? Well, tell him his writing is admirable. From Ruan Mei and Herta.”
To that, Herta scoffed. “Well, it’s nothing life changing. He won’t be getting into the Genius Society any time soon.”
“Of course not,” Veritas sighed. “I don’t think he’s aiming for that either. He wants to become an actor.”
“Oh, so he’s one of those people.”
Veritas bit his tongue, refusing to lower himself enough to roll his eyes at a coworker the way Herta adores doing oh so much. Contrary to (extremely) popular belief, he did care for his students. He too had many passions, as did everyone in this room. Why would anyone else be different? “He does not act like it,” he settled with saying in defense. “Polite. For someone who should be in high school, he excels beyond any original expectations.”
“That’s good.” As the booklet ended, so did Ruan Mei’s attention, and she turned it back to her laptop poised perfectly on her left thigh, her plate on her right. “He should keep that passion with him.”
Sensing that she wouldn’t be offering much else on the subject, Veritas nodded in agreement, watching as Herta predictably rolled her eyes.
“It’s all marvelous until you get past thirty.”
“I assure you; some others choose acting for reasons outside of fame.”
“Yeah, money.” Herta pushed the booklet back into Veritas’s hands. “It gets a sixty percent from me.”
“Grand. I’ll make sure to relay that back to him.”
And relay that information Veritas would have, if the boy was present the next day, or the next. On the third day he was gone, he was understandably aggravated. One missed a lot in three classes, especially when it was in such a hard course.
“Does anyone know where Misha’s gone? I have a stack of notes on my desk with his name on it, and I’m not keen on waiting much longer.” Veritas had already asked this question twice before, though only now did someone raise their hand to speak.
“He said he sent you an email. The date for those movie audition thingies moved up.”
“Precision of language, Stelle,” he reminded (and not for the first time that day), “and I checked my emails. I have received nothing from him.”
“Huh? Oh. …You think he’s dead?”
Veritas didn’t even bother entertaining that question. “Well, do you know where it is taking place? I’ve sent him at least four emails now, and he has yet to respond.”
“Yeah, the exhibition downtown. You know, by that one cat café? Oh, that’s right, I was supposed to go there later… Shoot, did I set a reminder? But anyways- it’s like, really cute and popular! You should go there sometime; I remember this one time-”
“I am aware of the café, yes,” Veritas interrupted. In fact, Ruan Mei had supervised much of the planning for it, after one of her experiments about cat fertility rates was a bit… too successful. At first, he contemplated sending Stelle to deliver his papers, she and the recipient were quite close with one another after all, though he turned it down immediately. With the girl’s proneness to distraction, it would be a miracle if it actually made it to Misha in the first place, let alone on time. And he couldn’t exactly ask one of his students that wasn’t close to the boy, and regardless, it didn’t feel right getting a classmate to return his papers for him. Academic integrity, and all. “Never mind that. Is he still there?”
“Yup. They had this whole contest thingy, and he made it to the third round! That’s why he’s been gone.”
‘Precision of language. And if you knew, why didn’t you tell me the first time I asked?!’
Veritas only shook his head. “Thank you. Class dismissed.”
-/-/-
Was this a bit too personal? Veritas could not recall the last time any teacher ever delivered his work in person if he hadn’t attended; though at the same time, he rarely missed school in his childhood, and was so far ahead of the curve that the teachers didn’t care too much if he had finished the day’s busywork anyways.
No use worrying about it now, he was already outside the exhibition center. He pushed open the door, stepping inside. Quickly, he scanned the room, then followed the applicable signs to a different wing.
“P-professor? What are you doing here?”
“You’ve been absent for the past three days. You missed a lot of notes during that time. I’ve come to drop them off for you.”
“Here?”
After twenty minutes, and far too many people with loud voices, wild hand gestures, and a few who simply told him: “no autographs,” he finally found Misha sitting by a few other young individuals with a soda in hand.
“Yes, here. Where else was I expected to locate you?”
“I thought I sent you an email…”
“I received none of the sort.”
Immediately Misha pulled his phone out, brushing the hair out of his eyes as he quickly swiped through his inbox. His eyes quickly scanned over a multitude of various messages: subscriptions, work emails, news reports… Veritas remarked to himself that he himself couldn’t possibly stand to have such an unorganized mailbox.
“…Ah… I forgot to send it…” Misha looked up, eyes filled with embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, professor! I thought I did, really!”
And perhaps it was a bit biased to be so forgiving when he was sure to receive a light scolding had it been anybody else, but the boy had never caused him trouble, turned in his assignments before the due date, and was always willing to hear feedback (managing to be one of the few not in tears by the end of the conversation, at that). And he applied said feedback, too.
This was the only time Misha had been even slightly inconvenient, he could let the boy off the hook…
“Don’t do it again.” Veritas held the envelope out to the boy. “Put it out of your mind now. I only wanted to make sure you received the material you needed.”
Misha slowly nodded, reaching out and taking it from his hand.
“You did well on your project.”
“Huh? The bridge one?”
Veritas nodded. “Very detailed. Miss Ruan Mei and Madam Herta took a look at it and told me to relay their praise to you.”
Veritas had seen many an expression on his student’s face before. Amusement, anxiety, confusion, disappointment, elation (he truly would make a stellar actor), but none compared to the expression he wore now, eyes as wide as saucers and his jaw agape.
“You’re… serious? W-wait- how did they see it?”
“I was grading the papers and showed them.” The corner of his mouth quirked up, amused at Misha’s shock. The novelty of being around the two wore off quite fast for him...
“Really?! Oh, wow… Tell them- tell them I say thank you! Thank you very much!”
“I’ll make sure to.” Veritas straightened up, glancing around the area. “I should get going now. Good luck on your audition.”
“Thank you, professor. And thank you again! So much!”
‘A bit redundant…’
“Of course.”
Veritas squinted his eyes as he walked back into the sunlight, glancing down at his watch. Almost five already… He mapped out the next few hours in his head as he walked back to his car. Get home, take a bath, work on grading the other papers, have dinner, read for a bit…
-/-/-
“Smart and a good actor. Must be pretty impressive to catch the eyes of two geniuses.”
Misha pulled his eyes away from the notes Veritas left, still joyfully clutching the booklet in his grasp as he turned his head. “Thank you, I tried to incorporate function with appearance in a way that would make the most…” he trailed off, both because he wasn’t sure how much the other had heard, or if they even cared about things like physics and bridges and architecture and oscillation – and because he finally registered who he was speaking to.
“A-are you-?!”
“Ah, and there’s that face again! You pull off that stunned look so well.”
Misha didn’t answer, standing stock still. When he finally came to his senses, the man before him had finally stopped laughing.
“You’re interesting. Though you seem to lack confidence. I hope you aren’t embarrassed by what I said, friend. I meant it as a compliment. I was watching your little interaction with that professor.”
“Huh? Oh, I… Sorry, I… He’s my teacher, and he’s usually so stern, and…” Pausing before he could say anything that would sound like a complaint, Misha shook his head. “Stern is the right word. Not like that’s a bad thing!”
“He looked the part, certainly,” hummed the man in response, “but you shouldn’t let that frighten you.” He followed Misha’s eyes for a moment more. “Is… there something on my face?”
“You’re… a lot prettier in person…” Misha cleared his throat. “I’m sorry if that sounded weird, I’m just so used to seeing you screens and posters! I uh- could I- get an autograph, please? I mean, only if you want to, it’s completely okay if not and I’d understand, but-”
The man did a favour and cut off Misha’s rambling early, another snicker escaping. “I’m flattered. But an autograph? Why? All you have to do is get into the final selection and you’ll get to spend more time with me than any autograph would ever be worth.”
Perhaps he was being humble, though Misha wasn’t sure why. But stumbling over his tongue, he agreed, and less than a minute later, was pushed into the audition room for the final round.
Misha only realized what that man’s words meant the next morning when he was staring at his phone screen at the bright email, short and sweet, stating that he had been chosen as one of the few main characters for the producer’s upcoming film.