I felt a strange discomfort on the way from the cafeteria to the Minerva Institute. Why had I lied to them there? When Gaius asked, "Were you hoping to meet her friends?" I had made absurd claims like "I'm an expert on women" just to avoid looking pathetic.
Even that "just act as your heart tells you" line was a cliché I'd heard from some social media influencer and written down. All these lies weighed on me like a burden.
Just then, a hand on my shoulder jolted me from my thoughts. Cassius's voice was stronger than my wandering mind.
"What's wrong, Octavian? We've been calling you, but you were lost in thought."
I quickly pulled myself together. "Well... I was wondering if we'd have to introduce ourselves again in the next class, and if I'd have to clean the blackboard. I guess that's become my trauma," I said with a fake smile.
How many lies was this to them? Why couldn't I just be myself? Why did I constantly feel the need to hide behind a mask?
While questioning all this, we had reached the building entrance. A whispering wind blew between Minerva's massive columns. I had stood out from the first day, but this was also an opportunity. People were more inclined to connect with visible characters rather than invisible ones.
Or so I believed. I was now an actor and had to play my role on stage as best I could.
When we entered the classroom, silence fell when we opened the door. Greeting us was a stern-eyed, disciplined woman standing imposingly at the podium. She looked nothing like Professor Livia. Most students had taken their seats, and only a few people stood near the door.
The woman raised her head from the file in her hand and turned toward the students.
"Late students," she said, her voice ice-cold. "You cannot enter the class."
Everyone in the classroom looked at each other in shock. One of the latecomers managed to mumble, "Professor, but it's still the first day..."
The woman cut him off. "First day, first lesson, first impression," she said. "Close the door from outside."
While the students didn't know what to do, my hand instinctively rose to scratch my face. At that moment, the woman's sharp gaze fixed on me.
"Hey, you!" she roared. "Do you want to close the door from outside too?"
Panicking, I lowered my hand and quickly apologized. "I'm sorry, professor! Did I make a mistake?"
She walked toward me. "Casually scratching your face while looking at a woman is the same rudeness as scratching your private parts. Pull yourself together," she scolded.
My face turned red. I swallowed. This was far from Professor Livia's playful jokes. The classroom was dead silent.
This reprimand awakened the old, angry child inside me, but I forcibly restrained myself. I just thought, "I guess I have something to do. I'll wake up early next week and go to the dean's office to change sections for this course."
Fearing I might be the only one who couldn't get along with this woman, I looked at my friends. They were all tense. Even Gaius's cheerful face had fallen, and Cassius's athletic posture had tensed up.
But Marcus seemed unshaken. I couldn't read any emotion in his vacant stares. "Is this kid a robot?" I wondered. "He just smiles, gets surprised... Understanding him is sometimes very difficult."
Then my eyes drifted to Myria. She also stood unchanged. Maybe she was pleased. After all, she had eaten and met with her boyfriend. Didn't love make people unshakeable?
"Why am I questioning these things?" I thought to myself. Myria, as a kind person, had only given me a tissue. She hadn't given me any hope. Why was I so jealous of her? Why did her closeness with her boyfriend bother me? Was this a sign of how much I needed to improve myself? Or was I just jealous?
While struggling with all these thoughts, I startled at the professor's voice.
"Hey, you! The kid is scratching his face! Come here."
My heart felt like it would jump out of my chest. Just like in Professor Livia's class, my humiliation continued in this class too. But unlike Livia, I felt angry. Being teased was acceptable, but this felt like direct humiliation.
I went to the blackboard. Professor Flavia had asked me a simple graph question that anyone who had listened to some math lessons in high school could solve. However, her choosing me didn't prevent me from questioning, "Is this a trick?"
Meanwhile, I glanced back briefly to see if they were laughing at me. But thanks to Flavia's strictness, no one even moved their face.
"Well, how many more hours are you going to wait?" Flavia said, her voice needling. "Start solving it. Or did they gather idiots too stupid to solve this into this department?"
These words angered me more than they scared me. When I felt my fingers gripping the pen painfully, I focused and wrote the solution. When I finished, Flavia mocked me with the air of a victorious commander.
"Yes. You're proof of how pathetically you, students raised by the test system, write your solutions, proof that the education system is stupid. Congratulations."
This was the last straw. I turned to the professor and growled, "If you had given instructions specifying how I should solve it, I could have tried to solve it in a way that would satisfy you."
At that moment, I wanted to sink into the ground from shame. I felt the class's gazes. Even Marcus looked at me as if to say, "What the hell did you do?" The tension on Gaius and Cassius's faces had turned to astonishment.
I panicked momentarily, but something unexpected happened. Flavia put her hand on my shoulder. Her voice had suddenly changed.
"Well, there's a cat here that shows its claws when cornered," she said, and the class giggled.
I had succeeded. I really had succeeded... How many times had I embarrassed myself since the first day?
The reaction I expected should have been "Get out!" But I was wrong. Professor Flavia's expression wasn't anger or humiliation, but the shadow of a strange curiosity.
At that moment, the angry child inside me fell silent, replaced by cautious logic. Confronting a professor, especially on the first day, wouldn't be wise. Stories I'd heard from my mother came to mind: even Uncle Alaric had never opposed any of his teachers until he was strong enough. My educational life shouldn't be ruined because of a professor's ego.
I swallowed. "I'm sorry, professor. I got agitated and made an inappropriate statement," I said, my voice trembling more than I expected.
Flavia looked at my face without removing her hand from my shoulder. "No, you're wrong. I'm not angry at you despite your insolence," she said. "On the contrary, you gave a different reaction from the others. But you need time to learn where and how you should behave. What's your name?"
This was the question that scared me most, frankly. Her learning my name could finish me. With my connection to my uncle so exposed, telling a false name would be meaningless.
Stepping back, I said, "Octavian."
When Flavia heard my name, a faint expression appeared on her face. Her eyes lingered on a spot on my forehead, then she nodded. "I understand. Now you can sit down."
As I turned and walked away, I felt the class's gazes. Gaius's astonishment hadn't faded. Cassius was muttering something. Marcus's eyes were still vacant. I needed to stop caring what they thought.
Flavia's voice filled the hall just as I was about to sit down.
"Octavian! If you want to know where your mistake was, come here again."
This angered me again. Was I a dog a professor could order around with "come" and "go"? But I got up, saying, "Of course." When I faced Flavia, she spoke calmly, contrary to my expectations.
"Here you gave the symbols and variables in the most abstract way you could think of," she said. "But the people who would understand your solution when they looked at it were only those who knew your test technique. How would you do this so everyone could understand?"
There was no humiliation in her voice this time, but a test. I had been embarrassed enough today. I had to use all the knowledge in my brain.
"If you'll allow me," I said, taking the pen from her hand.
I rewrote the solution on the blackboard, adding notes explaining the variables and even the graph's orientations. It looked like a long paragraph, but anyone who couldn't understand it after reading must have been mentally disabled. When I finished my work, I saw a smile on Flavia's face.
"That's it," she said. "Proof of why I need to discipline and bring you into line."
She turned to the class, and her voice suddenly roared like a commander's, echoing across the hall.
"If I give you little opportunity to relax, you'll graduate from here as helpless individuals who can't even explain your solutions. That is the failure of the education system."
The room froze. A chair creaked somewhere in the back and then fell silent again.
"My father was a soldier," she continued, her gaze sweeping over us like a drill sergeant inspecting recruits. "He raised us from childhood to value order, discipline, and clear statements. I am not a soldier. As a woman, I could never reach the rank my father achieved in his military career."
The way she said it as a woman carried a weight that pressed against the walls.
"However," Flavia said, straightening to her full height, "I draw on the same discipline at this podium to push your academic potential to its highest level. If you are not suited to this or are helpless or weak, contact the dean's office and take this course from Professor Lucius instead."
Her words hit the room like cold steel. Even the air seemed sharper.
"I am here," she finished, "to teach you not only this subject but also how you should be."
The silence that followed was more profound than before, heavy enough to feel on my skin. I heard my own heartbeat over the quiet shuffle of papers.
A voice whispered, I can't do this with this woman.
Another voice, steadier and more stubborn, rose to meet it: No. I have to prove myself. I will not let her call me helpless or weak, whatever it takes.
I straightened in my seat. This was no longer just a class. It was a challenge, and I wouldn't run from it.
Although the class fell silent after Flavia's words, this silence didn't last long. Flavia's authoritarian presence had made the room so heavy that no one dared give the slightest reaction. Flavia went behind the podium and opened the file in her hand.
"No break," she said, echoing throughout the hall. "Our lessons will be in blocks. This is necessary for you to learn to stay in your seats."
A collective sigh from the class clearly showed the shock this order caused. A wave of rebellion rose inside me, too. "Learn to stay in your seats? We're not children!" I wanted to shout, but these thoughts remained like a knot tightening in my throat.
When Flavia's gaze wandered around the classroom and briefly met mine, my rebellion gave way to deep tension. She had seen me, and I was aware of it. But this time, I didn't dare challenge her.
Flavia leaned against the back of the podium and continued the lesson. Unlike the chaotic atmosphere of the first class, this lesson proceeded in an ice-cold, mechanical order. Everything was like a computer algorithm: questions, answers, explanations...
Flavia asked students questions individually, explaining the reason to those who couldn't answer with harsh, short sentences. The tension in the classroom increased with each passing minute. Everyone was like soldiers waiting on alert, afraid their turn would come.
I focused on every moment of the lesson. I kept thinking about the possible questions Flavia might ask and the possible answers she might give. I aimed to master this discipline immediately and convince myself that the lesson would gradually become easier.
But time seemed endless. Every minute felt like an hour. That moment when the bell should have rung was like the extension of a nightmare.
Marcus, next to me, listened to the lesson with vacant stares. I couldn't understand how he remained so indifferent to this situation.
The girl sitting next to Marcus also caught my attention. She resembled Myria but had blonde hair and green eyes, and her facial features were even more beautiful. She was constantly taking notes like me, but she couldn't hide the tension mask on her face. Those who shared the same feelings as me in this class weren't just men.
The tension in the classroom was also slowly feeding my anger. I couldn't stand this state of the class. Flavia saw us only as data, ignoring our emotions and feelings. I understood how valuable Professor Livia's sincere jokes were compared to this harsh attitude.
Fortunately, we had reached the end of the lesson. Flavia looked at her watch and said, "That's all for this week." Her voice was like a breath that suddenly lifted all the pressure from us.
"How relieving that was!" I thought. "Still, her jokes seemed strange to me."
The students in the classroom began to gather quickly. As we moved toward the door, I heard Flavia's voice.
"Octavian."
My whole body had stiffened. Everyone's gaze was following me at that moment. Panicking, I muttered, "Me?" Flavia pointed at me with her head.
That question echoed when I reached the podium: "What does this woman want from me?" When I stood right in front of her, I tried to make sense of the expression on her face. She was neither angry nor mocking. Her gaze was only curious, like a sculptor examining their work.
"Octavian," she said, her voice soft but authoritative. "You're the boy Professor Livia mentioned, aren't you?" She paused for a moment, not taking her eyes off mine. "Your uncle Alaric Hektor Abel... You came here wanting to be like him."
With this sentence being heard, a slight wave of whispers passed through the classroom. Everyone's ears were on Flavia. I felt like a lab rat in a cage; every movement of mine was being observed.
Flavia continued. "My expectations are high. You're still very immature. But I'm thinking of pushing you to train you. You're standing up to me today, and rewriting that solution makes me feel that my effort won't be wasted."
Stepping back, I said, "Thank you, professor." This was all I could say. My face was burning with a complex mixture of shame and pride.
Flavia took the file from the edge of the podium. "One more thing," she said, approaching me. "Be more cool-headed."
This advice was more like a prophet's words than an order. After Flavia said this last sentence, she turned her back and left through the door. The pressure on the classroom lifted as soon as she left, giving way to a comfortable murmur.
At that moment, Cassius and Gaius quickly came to my side. There was a playful smile on Gaius's face.
"What did you talk about? What did she tell you?" he asked excitedly.
While under the influence of the tension I had experienced, I brushed it off, saying, "Nothing... she warned me about a few things, that's all."
Cassius winked at me. "You did well, though. You caught the professor's attention. I think you're her assistant in class now."
Gaius agreed with him. "You really shone in every class today. At least in Livia's class. She scolded you in this class, but it was still interesting."
They seemed to be teasing. Even though I felt comfortable around them, I also thought about Myria's closeness with her new friend, that tall boy. It was as if I were very different from them. This situation rekindled the anger inside me.
Just as we reached the door, a voice stopped us.
"Excuse me," a girl called from behind us.
When I turned around, a beautiful girl with white skin, long eyelashes, pleasant brown-toned eyes, and black hair stood. I had seen her in the first class. Had she called out to me?
"Were you calling me?" I asked, trying to hide the trembling in my voice.
"Yes, Octavian," she said, her voice soft but confident. "I'm Felissia. I had a question stuck in my head from class today. I was hesitant to ask Professor Flavia. I thought you might be able to explain the solution, but if you have business with your friends, I don't want to interrupt you."
While I didn't know what to say, Cassius and Gaius's eyes lit up. Gaius grabbed Cassius's arm and began dragging him toward the door.
"No, no!" he chirped. "We were about to leave anyway."
Cassius winked at me. Leaning to my ear, he whispered: "Go on, charm her."
Gaius dragged Cassius away from beside me. I was left alone. I was face-to-face with Felissia and had a question: "How should I behave?"
Felissia smiled as if she had noticed my nervousness. "Can we sit somewhere so you can help me solve the question?"
"Could you explain it at that bench in the back garden?" she said.
"Of course," I said. But something inside me was tensing up. Hesitating, I walked with her toward the back garden.
The first real test of my "expert" identity began, and I had no idea how badly I was about to fail.