“Donghae.”

“Mmh.”

Siwon reached his arm over the desk and gently flicked the other on the forehead, eliciting a soft yelp from him. “You’ve been staring at the screen for the past fifteen minutes without really doing anything. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Donghae said with a pout, taking off his glasses and rubbing at his smarting forehead. He’d decided to forgo his contacts today because he’d been feeling rather out of it, and really, his astigmatism wasn’t that bad that he had to wear them all the time. Only when he was doing computer work. Not many people even knew that he wore glasses, only a handful like Siwon, Kyuhyun, and Joy, who’d squealed so hard and called him ‘such an adorable little baby tiger’ when she found out, thinking he was out of earshot, much to his amusement.

He put his glasses away, leaned back in his seat, and let out a loud sigh. “Sorry. I know I haven’t been a very good research partner.”

“No big deal, we’ve all got our downtimes,” Siwon said reassuringly, ruffling the other professor’s hair and chuckling when he batted his hand away with a squeak. “Maybe it’s time for a tea break. It is nearly four anyway. Wanna grab some honey biscuits from the cafeteria again?”

“Do they still have honey biscuits this late in the day?” Donghae asked, eyes lighting up softly and making Siwon chuckle. “I would have thought they’d run out of those by now.” He smiled lightly when the Dean tilted his head upwards and kissed him on the nose. “Are you gonna pay for us both?” he asked, voice full of aegyo while batting his eyes bashfully at the other.

“Of course, anything for you,” the Dean replied with a smile, going back over to his desk to clear up some documents. “Go get some fresh air outside. I’ll join you in a minute.”

“Okay. Just don’t ditch me.” Donghae got up from his seat and stretched, yawning loud and hard as his joints started popping in all the places he never knew could be popped. Siwon was still gathering his papers and filing them away neatly, something Donghae never usually bothered with, so he just let the Dean know that he’d wait for him at the lobby, grabbed his wallet, and strolled out of the double doors, stifling another yawn. Damn, he really should go to bed earlier that night.

Donghae rubbed at his eyes and glanced around the lobby, noticing that Kyuhyun was still angrily cursing at the computer and banging mercilessly on the keyboards. The only times Kyuhyun could ever get so angry were if he died unexpectedly in the middle of his game (“because of the stupid, incompetent fools calling themselves his teammates”), or if he found someone stealing his food without him knowing. Donghae kind of found out the hard way when he’d eaten a couple of powdered doughnuts from an unlabeled box in the fridge, and he’d only been spared his life because he promised to buy him twice as many jelly doughnuts the next day. 

Still, on other days, Kyuhyun was an amiable person to be around, save for his constant teasing and needing to be bribed with food often to do tasks for the professor. He was the one who always made sure Donghae was at least partially functioning in the morning fueled with half a dozen cups of coffee before letting him go off to lectures and important meetings, so Donghae owed him quite a bit.

“KKKK!”

He jumped with a start and winced as Kyuhyun started rambling profanities at the screen again. Really, he should tell Kyuhyun to tone down the profanities especially since he was on front desk duty in someone else’s territory. But before Donghae could even think about walking over to the desk, he heard a soft whimper from the corner of the room, and he recognised the sound at once. Donghae turned around and his eyes landed on Hyukjae, who looked as if he’d just been woken up from a daze. He thought the boy looked kind of cute like a lost puppy trying to make sense of his surroundings. 

As soon as the wandering eyes settled on himself, Donghae could see how rapidly the student’s face and neck started turning red, eyes averted immediately but occasionally flitting back to steal glances at him, which made Hyukjae blush an even deeper shade of red. Donghae looked at the sheets of paper in the student’s hand getting crushed to death and saw the Neuro Faculty emblem on the front page. Ah, he was here to inquire about the research. Donghae decided to go and talk to him since Siwon didn’t seem like he was coming out any second yet.

He walked over and took a seat opposite the blushing student, still wearing a grin on his face. “Hey, Hyukjae. What brings you here to the Neuro building?”

“I-I… Professor L-Lee…” Hyukjae stammered, glancing down at his hands and realising he’d crumpled the papers so much that only the word ‘STIMULI’ was still legible on the front page. He let out an embarrassed squeak and hid the papers behind his back. “Um, hi, I-I was just passing by.”

The anatomy professor let out a melodious laugh and leaned back in his seat. If Hyukjae was too shy to talk about ual stimulation, Donghae could always steer the conversation in another direction. “Well, I just hope you’re not gonna bolt from me again for the— what, third time?”

“Mmh… Sorry about that, Profesor Lee. I get… I get jittery when I’m nervous and I just, um, take off…”

The professor sat up and leaned forward instead to take a closer look at him, wishing he had his contacts now so he could see the changes in the student’s pupils without having to invade his bubble like this. But hey, Hyukjae smelled nice. And grapefruity. “Do I make you feel nervous?” Donghae asked, a hint of amusement in his voice. “Why? Did I leave that bad of an impression on you the last few times we met?”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Hyukjae quickly denied, gulping a little when he finally dared to look Professor Lee in the eye for a brief second before turning away again. “,” he muttered under his breath. He couldn’t even look straight into his eyes for longer than five seconds.

The professor inched closer into Hyukjae’s personal space, a soft smirk tugging at his lips when the student visibly stiffened. “So what did you mean? Why do I make you feel so nervous? You’ve already run away from me twice. I feel kinda hurt.”

Hyukjae shifted in his seat and tried backing away from the professor because he couldn’t ing breathe, the other’s cologne smelled so wonderful on him and he knew if he let himself indulge in Professor Lee’s scent then he would never be able to pull himself away, ever. But the more he backed away, the closer the professor leaned towards him, until he eventually met the back of his chair and he had nowhere else to escape to. Prof Lee still had that half-smile, half-smirk on his gorgeous lips, obviously waiting for a reply, clearly not letting him off the hook until he was satisfied with his answer.

“P-Professor Lee…”

I like you.

“Mmh?”

But do I even stand a chance?

“I—”

“Donghae? Shall we go?” Professor Choi’s voice floated into Hyukjae’s ears, stopping him short. Prof Lee sighed and replied the other with a half-hearted ‘yeah’ before getting up. Hyukjae started cursing himself for taking so long to respond and letting other people his moment with Professor Lee. 

And by his love rival too, of all people. Hyukjae unconsciously frowned and glared at the Dean as he emerged from the double doors.

The anatomy professor’s chuckle drew Hyukjae back to reality. He then realised that the professor was staring, or rather, squinting at his lips for some reason, making him consciously them. They weren’t as chapped as before since he began using the chapstick Prof Lee gave him, so there wasn’t any dead skin to bite off or peel anymore when he got nervous. But that didn’t mean that he still wouldn’t bite on his lips whenever he got nervous.

“Glad to see you’re taking a lot better care of your lips,” Professor Lee said with a kind smile, and from the corner of Hyukjae’s eyes, he swore that he saw the professor’s hand reaching forward as if to touch them, but then thought better of it and just let it fall limp into his lap. He’d admit that he felt a tiny bit disappointed, though still elated that the professor remembered his bleeding lip incident. 

Which obviously shouldn’t have been a fond memory at all, but the professor had given him his chapstick which meant that they shared an