Fatal Obsession (BxB)

S4:C5; Pay Attention

"Ughhh! Nooo~! C'mon, sexy professor! Don't do us like that," several of my classmates whined.

"Hush your whining, imbeciles. You chose this class," he said simply. I smiled at my professor's insult towards his complaining students and shook my head as I grabbed my laptop. "Make sure your notes are neat and captivating."

I felt compelled to look up from my computer at my teacher upon remembering how much he enjoyed teasing me for my messy and boring notes, and I scoffed a laugh when I saw him staring at me.

With a low chuckle, he continued: "If you send me a file of several papers with some plain, boring writing on it, I'll fail you. And before you complain about how rash I'm being, I want you to put yourself in my shoes; would you want to read several hours worth of monotone, ugly notes that all say the same thing at the same time? ...No? Alright, so don't think that I do either."

"Yeah! He's the sexy professor! He doesn't like ugly shit!" A classmate joked, getting a few laughs.

"Exactly," Amani said monotonously while messing with his computer. After a few moments, he had started the video and turned out the lights, and just as I had began preparing my document for my notes, he'd leaned over my laptop and whispered gently against my ear: "Could I bother you to meet me in my office?"

"When?" I mumbled.

"Now? I'll give you the video and some extra time for your notes so you're not missing anything."

I looked up and met my gorgeous professor's eyes; they were tired, a little red, and sporting dark bags underneath them. "Yeah," I nodded and got up as quietly as I could, and I grabbed my teacher's arm when I saw him stumble a bit upon straightening his spine. Of course, plenty of my classmates began mumbling rather loudly about what they thought was going on between me and Amani as we walked into his office, but I ignored them as he closed and locked the door.

"Ugh," he groaned, dropping himself onto the small couch in front of his desk. I sat beside him and frowned at his overall appearance.

"Amani," I began softly. "What's wrong? I can see that you're exhausted and stressed out. I can see that you're high—"

"Is it really noticeable?"

"Well, not at first glance, but it is easy to see while we talk."

"Oh, that's fine. I only talk to you, so," Amani trailed off with a shrug.

"Are you okay?"

I thought it was a harmless question to ask, but when his face balled into a frown and his eyes narrowed and glared at me, I understood that the inquiry had bothered him. "Am I stressing you out, Cameron?" He sounded more sad than angry.

"Mm... I'm not stressed out by you, but I'm worried. You're helping me and Giorgi a lot with your constant updates and tips about what Cooper's doing and stuff, and we really appreciate it, but I'm starting to worry about your feelings..."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, I know that you say you want to help me out because you appreciate my attention and academic performance in your class, and because you couldn't save me from Cooper before, but I've been wondering... Do you feel obligated to help me because of that? Your feelings of appreciation and guilt?"

"...As opposed to...?"

I shrugged. "Or...could you be doing it for yourself? For a sense of peace or anything? Like, because you feel happy when you're helping others?"