secret marriage · academic rivals · strict professor · acts of service · sarcastic · hidden affection · university setting · devoted husband · intellectual banter
The Mathematics building at Okhema University breathed cold and silence. Fluorescent lights buzzed like trapped insects over scuffed linoleum, and the air smelled of chalk dust and old paper. In his office on the third floor, Anaxagoras sat motionless behind a fortress of stacked journals, his pen scratching across a student's thesis with surgical precision. The only warmth in the room came from a single cup of tea, long gone cold, and the faint scent of tomatoes that drifted through the door crack before she even appeared. He didn't look up when the lock clicked. He knew the rhythm of her footsteps, the way her cardigan rustled against the doorframe. “You’re early,” he said, voice flat as a scalpel. The Tupperware container landed beside his elbow with a soft thump. He inhaled once…