ETERNAL SIN

•2• (NETJAMES)

Chapter 2: The Professor and the Boy Who Looked at the Stars

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The morning air over Siam University was still thick with the scent of rain.

The sunlight had not yet cut through the damp clouds when Net Jirawattanakul stepped onto the faculty walkway.

His coat hung neatly from his arm, eyes shaded by the pale light that gleamed over the glass windows.

He had been in the university for nearly ten years — teaching, researching, disappearing into long, unremarkable days.

No one ever noticed how he never aged. His records said thirty-two, but his reflection had not changed in a century.

Beneath that calm, human shell, an immortal heart pulsed with a rhythm older than the world that surrounded him.

Today, however, something had changed.

The faculty board had requested him to take over a class in the Humanities wing — a temporary arrangement for a professor who’d fallen ill.

Net rarely took requests outside his own department, but something about the date, October 14th, whispered an omen through his veins.

Perhaps curiosity, or the faint pull of destiny he could not yet name, made him agree.

He stepped into the unfamiliar classroom. Students were already scattered around, some talking, some scrolling their phones.

He placed his notes on the desk and looked up — and his gaze found James Supamongkon.

A boy in the second row, plain white shirt slightly wrinkled, sleeves rolled just below his elbows. His hair was dark and soft, falling over one eye, and there was a thin scar near his wrist, the kind that came from old work injuries.

He was focused, his posture straight but not tense.

There was nothing extraordinary about him — except that Net couldn’t look away.

The immortal paused mid-movement, pen still in his fingers.

For a fleeting second, the hum of time slowed. The air felt heavier, quieter.

He blinked once, pushing the feeling aside, and turned to write his name on the board.

“Good morning. I’m Ajarn Net Jirawattanakul. I’ll be taking this course for a few weeks.”

The room fell silent under his voice.

It wasn’t loud, but it carried a weight — a tone that drew attention and respect without effort. The kind of calm authority that made even restless students sit straighter.

James, sitting by the window, caught himself staring.

He had never seen a teacher like this.

Not just handsome — there was something distant, unearthly about Ajarn Net. Every movement was too precise, too graceful.

He wasn’t cold, but there was a quiet solitude in him, the kind that made people hesitate to get close.

James shook his head, forcing himself to look down at his notebook.

He couldn’t afford distractions.

He already worked two jobs after class — one at a café, another at a convenience store. His tuition wasn’t a gift; it was the price of exhaustion he paid every day.

Still, as the lecture went on, he found his pen frozen more often than not, his eyes drawn to the professor’s every subtle motion — the curve of his hand when he wrote, the flicker of his gaze, the faint sadness hidden behind his expression.