a mess of stubble dotting his cheeks and jaw, and that stubble made a scratchy sound as he scrubbed the backs of his knuckles against his chin.
“I know you,” he said quizzically.
“Er...yeah. Hi.” Summer dropped his hands from his face and offered a smile, a sheepish wave. “I’m Summer Hemlock, the new psych TA.” He stood, navigating around the coffee table to offer his hand. “I used to be a student here.”
“Oh, yes, I remember you.” Liu looked down at Summer’s hand with a confused stare, as if he didn’t know what to do with it, then absently adjusted his glasses as he pushed the door closed behind him. “You’ve gotten very big.”
“Not that big.” Summer let his hand drop, then glanced around the suite. “Um...do you need help around here? It’s a little...”
“A little what?” Liu blinked.
“Messy,” Summer said.
“Oh.” Another blink, and then Liu looked around the suite as if seeing it for the first time. “I hadn’t noticed,” he said.
Before shrugging, beelining for his bedroom, and disappearing inside, shutting the door with a firm click of the latch.
Summer stared after him, before smiling faintly.
You wouldn’t, would you.
At least it was Liu. He wasn’t sure he’d have been able to room with any of the other older teachers, when he’d likely revert back to the stammering boy he’d been and never come out of his room, too anxious to be around someone who was hard-coded in his brain as an authority figure.
Liu, though...
Liu was kind of like apples.
Harmless on the outside, mostly. Sweet, sometimes tart. But apples had sugar-cyanide compounds that could be digested into lethal hydrogen cyanide, and too many apples could kill someone.
Twenty-two.
Summer thought that’s what the number was.
Twenty-two.
And just like apples, Dr. Liu was only dangerous in large doses.
Or when left unattended in the chem lab.
Summer could live with that.
It wasn’t really any different from having Liu for a teacher, all those years ago—and he smiled to himself as he bent to start gathering up the clothing scattered on the floor.
Even when things changed, they stayed the same.
* * *
It took him well into the day to finish cleaning the apartment, including scrubbing the kitchen and bathroom from top to bottom; Liu needed a keeper, and apparently that was Summer’s job now.
But halfway through digging out what looked like crusted fire extinguisher foam from the bathroom sink, a heavy thump sounded outside the suite’s door, followed by a sharp rattle on the door.
He lifted his head, scrubbing the back of his forearm over his sweaty forehead, and listened—but there was no sign Liu had even heard, let alone that he was coming out of his room.
Summer peeled out of his yellow rubber gloves, pitched them onto the sink, and stepped out to open the living room door.
No one there.
Empty hallway.
But his thick, bulky suitcase sat right there in front of the door.
The suitcase he’d left in Professor Iseya’s suite, and had been too nervous to retrieve.
There was a note tacked to it now, though, folded on a piece of softly textured, semi-translucent paper. Summer tilted his head, frowning as he picked it up and flicked it open on a short note written in angular, slanting handwriting with a certain razor-like grace to it.
Simple black letters.
Two words, and nothing more.
Challenge accepted.
His chest seized. His fingers clenched, before he hastily unclenched them, smoothing the delicate paper.
What...?
Did...did Professor Iseya mean...?
His mouth dried. His chest hurt, and he thought...oh.
Oh.
Then, tomorrow...
Tomorrow, if he was brave enough...
Maybe, just maybe...
Professor Iseya might just kiss him.
* * *
Summer was a wreck for the rest of the day.
He finished cleaning the suite, rattling between one wall and the next in a mess of nervous energy just to keep himself busy. If he didn’t keep moving, he’d probably break down.
So he cleaned. He unpacked and put away his things. He shelved Liu’s books on the low built-in shelves lining the walls of the living room, and just hoped he left them in some kind of order that would let Liu find what he was looking for when he came back to...whatever he was doing. He headed into town on a short drive to stock up on groceries, pick up a few necessities, and buy his own sheets and duvet to replace the institutional ones provided by the school, stripping bare white to instead pile his bed high in deep oceanic blue threaded through with star-shot silver, and enough pillows to bury himself in until he’d wedge himself in place and not be able to kick and