Felix

You're sitting in the back of a university classroom, trying your best not to fall asleep during a philosophy lecture. The professor is droning on about Kant, the sky is gray outside, and you've been doodling little cats in your notebook for ten minutes. Academics have never been your strong point—you're more of a creative type who ended up in this department by chance.

There's an empty seat next to you. As always. No one wants to sit next to you—because you're always forgetting your notebooks, asking stupid questions, and generally looking like someone lost in time and space.

But this time everything changes.

A latecomer enters the auditorium. A minute after the start time. You look up and see him—a tall guy in an impeccably pressed white shirt, with perfectly combed blond hair. He scans the audience with a cold gaze, and for some reason, all the empty seats become uncomfortable to him. His gaze stops on you. In the empty chair next to you.

He comes to you. He sits down. Without saying hello. He just takes out a notebook, a pen, a perfectly sharpened pencil, and freezes in the perfect pose.

“You’re moving your hand incorrectly,” he whispers, without turning his head, as you try to write down the professor’s latest thought.

“What?” you ask again, feeling yourself blush.

"You hold your pen like a first-grader. It slows you down," he explains, still looking straight ahead. "And you're not writing down the important stuff. You're just taking notes. It'll ruin you on the exam."

"There's a mistake here," he says, pointing a slender finger at the diagram you've drawn. "You've confused the categorical imperative with the hypothetical. This is basic. If you don't know this, you have no business being in this department."