The fifty minutes of AP English dragged like wet concrete.
Sebastian Rupert paced the front of the room the entire period, voice rising and falling in that posh, theatrical cadence, dissecting every syllable of the day's reading some dense excerpt from Virginia Woolf as though he were unveiling the secrets of the universe.
He paused every third sentence to remind the class of his own brilliance: how he'd once debated Woolf's stream-of-consciousness technique with a visiting Oxford don at nineteen, how his undergraduate essay on To the Lighthouse had been "circulated privately among fellows" (whatever that meant), how he'd rejected a full-ride PhD offer from Yale because "the faculty lacked the requisite intellectual rigor." Kota tuned out after the first ten minutes. The compression shirt clung uncomfortably to his still-sweaty back, the cargo pants felt too heavy on his sore thighs, and every time he shifted in his seat, a dull reminder of last night's eight phases throbbed through his lower body.
He rested his forehead on his folded arms, eyes closed, letting Sebastian's monologue blur into white noise. The class didn't seem to mind; half the students were already drafting their automatic 99% essays on their "favorite teacher," scribbling variations of "Mr. Rupert's unparalleled insight" and "the privilege of learning from true genius." Kota didn't write a word. He just waited for the bell.
It finally rang at 9:20. Chairs scraped, backpacks zipped, conversations erupted as everyone funneled toward the door. Kota stood slowly wincing as his hips protested grabbed his binder, and joined the flow. He was three steps from freedom when Sebastian's voice cut through the noise.
"Kota. A moment, if you please."
Kota froze mid-stride. The class kept moving around him, oblivious, until the last student slipped out and the door clicked shut. The room suddenly felt smaller, quieter, the only sounds the low hum of the projector and Sebastian's soft footsteps approaching the back row.
Kota sighed, long and bone-deep, and turned. Sebastian stood a respectful distance away, hands clasped in front of him, the confident peacock posture gone. His shoulders were hunched slightly, fingers twisting together, the posh accent faltering into something almost human.
"So, umm… genius Kota," he started, voice cracking on the first syllable. He cleared his throat, tried again. "May I call you by your first name? I mean, obviously only if you're comfortable with it. I wouldn't presume—"
Kota raised an eyebrow. "Sure. Whatever."
Sebastian exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for years.
"Thank you. Truly. I… I don't know how to say this without sounding pathetic, but I've been… insecure. Terribly so. Ever since I saw your transcript in the faculty lounge. A flawless 4.0. Not a single blemish. And you're—what, eighteen? Nineteen? Younger than me, certainly, and yet your academic record surpasses mine at your age. I graduated Oxford with a 3.9—still summa cum laude, mind you—but that one point-one percentage point has haunted me. One footnote. One examiner who didn't appreciate my interpretation of Joyce's epiphanic structure. And now here you are, younger, sharper, effortless. It's… unnerving."
He took a step closer, eyes wide and earnest behind his designer glasses. "I've spent my entire life being the youngest, the brightest, the one everyone looked up to. I entered Oxford at seventeen, published at nineteen, lectured at twenty-one. I was always the prodigy. And now… now I'm looking at someone who might actually be better. And I don't know how to process it."
Kota stared at him, waiting for the punchline. There wasn't one. Sebastian's hands fluttered nervously, the blazer sleeves riding up to show slim wrists.
"So I have to know," Sebastian continued, voice dropping to an almost reverent whisper. "What do you do? What's your regimen? Do you follow a specific reading schedule? Spaced repetition for literary theory? Do you annotate in multiple languages? Do you meditate before tutorials? I've tried everything Pomodoro, Feynman technique, even that ghastly Anki system everyone raves about—but nothing gets me to your level. Tell me. Please. I need to understand how you do it." (I fucking hate writing nerds, do you know how hard it is researching this nerdy shit for a single paragraph?)
Kota blinked. He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly uncomfortable under the intensity of Sebastian's stare. "Uhhh… I read… sometimes?"
Sebastian's eyes went wide. His mouth fell open. For a long second he didn't speak—just stared at Kota like he'd witnessed a miracle.
Then he dropped.
One knee hit the linoleum, then the other. Sebastian Rupert—twenty-three-year-old Oxford wunderkind, self-proclaimed genius, the man who'd spent the last fifty minutes bragging about his own brilliance went to his knees in front of Kota's desk, hands clasped in front of his chest like he was praying.
"Please," he breathed, voice trembling. "Teach me. Teach me how to be a genius like you. I'll do anything. Anything at all. I'll be your disciple, your shadow, your study partner—whatever you need. Just show me. Show me how you make it look so effortless. I can't—I can't bear the thought of being surpassed by someone younger. It's unbearable. Please, Kota. I'm begging you."
He stayed there, on his knees, eyes shining with desperate sincerity, waiting for Kota to answer.