#hard decisions

Compiling important data….

The goobers sleeping nooks

Also a really good excuse to get in my interior drawing practice hehe

♟️Masterlist

☑︎ I CHAPTER: Quality Check ➢ first observation, first attention; ☑︎ II CHAPTER: Magpie Library ➢ curiosity & intellectual hunger; ☑︎ III CHAPTER: Finished Assignment ➢ recognition & temptation; ☑︎ IV CHAPTER: Independent Study ➢ justification & proximity; ☑︎ V CHAPTER: Spiderweb ➢ entanglement & danger; ◻︎ VI CHAPTER: Curriculum Vitae ➢ identity, distance, return.

☕️ V CHAPTER: SPIDERWEB ➢ entanglement & danger. ✑ [pt. 1 - pt. 2]

The evening bled into night with the patience of a held breath. The rain hadn't stopped -it had only grown more insistent, drumming against the window like an interrogation that refused to end. Sylus sat in the uncomfortable chair beside her bed, his posture rigid despite the hours that had passed, his coat draped over the back like a ghost of propriety he'd abandoned the moment he'd decided to stay.

This was madness. He knew it with the clinical precision he applied to everything else in his life. Every minute he remained here compounded the risk -to his career, his reputation, the carefully constructed walls he'd built around himself. If anyone saw him leave her dorm at this hour, there would be no explanation sufficient enough to protect either of them. And yet, when he'd turned to go earlier, something had stopped him cold.

He checked his watch: 12:47 PM.

Rei shifted beneath the sheets, murmuring something unintelligible -fragments of lecture topics and book titles that made his jaw tighten. Even in fever, her mind refused to rest. Even unconscious, she was still trying to prove something.

"Stubborn..." He reached out, adjusting the cool cloth on her forehead with a gentleness that contradicted everything he'd built himself to be. Her skin was still too warm, her cheeks painted that feverish crimson that made something twist uncomfortably in his chest. This was something else entirely -something he'd spent weeks denying, something that felt dangerously close to concern that had teeth.

Despite the medicine she had taken before falling asleep, the fever didn't break fully but spiked up once again with the passing time. She unconsciously pulled away the bedsheets from her, her movements groggy and uncoordinated, and then one of her hands reached onto the front of her pyjama shirt and gripped the fabric, holding onto it as she shivered slightly.

"Hate summer- too hot... winter's better..." she complained, her voice quiet and weak while her breaths grew deep and swallowed. With her free hand, she tried to cover her closed eyes, tears running down her cheeks as she unconsciously attempted to put some pressure there to find some relief. But her fingers touched the wet cloth on her forehead and she grimaced in her slumber, not understanding what it was.

Sylus cursed under his breath. This wasn't just elevated anymore -this was dangerously high. He could see it in the way she was sweating, in the way her body seemed to be fighting itself. Every instinct he'd honed over years of observation told him this fever had spiked past the point where ibuprofen alone would suffice.

He moved with sudden decisiveness, crossing to her small bathroom and returning with a basin of cool water and several clean towels. The chair scraped as he pulled it closer to the bed, and he sat on the edge of the mattress instead -propriety be damned. She needed this more than he needed the safety of distance.

"Easy there, sweetie… I know it's hot. I'm working on it." He murmured, his voice low and controlled even as his movements were anything but casual. He removed the cloth from her forehead and replaced it with a freshly dampened towel, cooler this time, pressing it gently against her temple.

"You're not going to like this..." he said quietly, more to himself than to her unconscious form. "But you'll thank me when you're coherent enough to argue with me again."

He dampened another towel and carefully pressed it to the back of her neck, then along her collarbone where her shirt had shifted. The intimacy of it wasn't lost on him -the way he was touching her, the proximity, the fact that he was tending to her like this- and yet he couldn't bring himself to stop.

He checked his phone again. No response from the campus health services he'd messaged earlier, which meant they were likely overwhelmed or closed for the night. His jaw tightened. He pulled up his contacts, scrolling past professional numbers until he found a colleague in the medical school who owed him a favour.

To: Doctor Li Need fever reducer. Strong. Urgent. Don’t ask.

While he waited for a response, he returned his attention to Rei, brushing the damp strands of hair from her face with a tenderness that would have horrified him if he'd been thinking clearly. But he wasn't thinking clearly. He hadn't been since the moment he'd walked into this room and seen her like this.

"Come on, sweetie…" he said softly, the endearment slipping out again -more dangerous this time because he meant it.

"Break the fever. Show me that stubborn mind of yours knows how to fight back."

She mumbled something incoherent, tears rolling from her closed eyes and drying against her heated skin, as she leaned into his touch. After a quiet sigh, she seemed to have fallen asleep once again.

The phone in Sylus's hand buzzed.

From: Doctor Li Bringing it now. You better have a good explanation later, Qin.

He didn't bother replying. Explanations required honesty, and he wasn't ready to examine the truth of why he was here. Instead, he set the phone aside and focused on what he could control: keeping her temperature from climbing any higher until help arrived.

The dampened towel needed constant refreshing. He found himself in a rhythm -cooling the cloth in the basin, wringing out the excess water, pressing it carefully to her pulse points. Her wrist, slender and burning. The inside of her elbows. The hollow of her throat where her shirt had shifted. Each touch was clinical in execution but felt like crossing invisible lines he'd spent his entire career defending.

"That's it..." he murmured in approval, his voice dropping into a low register that came naturally in darkness, in private moments, in spaces where control began to fray.

"Good. Just rest." Watching her finally settle into deeper sleep felt like a small victory -one he had no right to claim but wanted anyway.

A quiet knock at the door made him tense.

He rose smoothly, crossing the small room in three strides and opening it just enough to see Dr. Li from the medical school -a man in his forties with sharp, green eyes and discretion built into his DNA.

He handed Sylus a small pharmacy bag without comment, though his gaze flickered past him into the room, taking in the scene with clinical assessment.

"Acetaminophen and something stronger if the fever doesn't break in two hours," he said quietly. "And Qin? Whatever this is, be careful."

It wasn't a warning about medicine.

He took the bag, his expression unreadable. "Always am."

Dr. Li left without another word, and he locked the door behind, choosing to remain in this compromising position despite every rational thought.

Back at the bedside, Sylus extracted the medication and a bottle of water, then hesitated. She needed to wake enough to take them, but rousing someone from fever sleep was delicate work.

Sitting on the edge of the mattress again, closer this time, he placed one hand gently on her shoulder.

"Rei…"

He called her out with a quiet firmness meant to cut through the fog of fever without startling her. "I need you to wake up for a moment. Just long enough to take something."

His thumb moved in a small, unconscious circle against her shoulder -a gesture of comfort he wouldn't have allowed himself if he'd been fully aware of it. The rain continued its relentless percussion against the window, sealing them into this pocket of time that existed outside normal rules, outside consequences.

"Come on, sweetie... Open those eyes for me."

She frowned and twisted in discomfort as her slumber got interrupted, and Sylus noticed the way her eyelashes fluttered more frequently, as if she recognised the urgency in his tone and tried to fight her own uncooperative body.

"...can't- it burns..." she mumbled quietly and shook her head, the gesture making her dizzy and grumbling under her breath.

His hand moved from her shoulder to the small of her back in one fluid motion, helping her to rise enough. The heat radiating through her thin sleep shirt made his jaw tighten -still too high, still dangerous- but at least she was conscious enough to hear his voice. She looked wrecked, disoriented, barely present so he had very little time to give her medicine before she dozed off once again.

"That's alright, sweetie... I have something better than the ibuprofen you took before. But you need to be awake enough to swallow."

His voice was low, controlled as he shifted his position, angling himself so she could lean against his chest if she needed to, one arm still supporting her back while he reached for the water bottle and medication with the other. He could smell the fever on her skin, feel the way she trembled with exhaustion and heat.

"Open your mouth." He said, bringing two pills to her lips.

His thumb brushed the corner of her mouth -accidental contact that he didn't immediately correct.

"These will work faster. Trust me."

The irony of asking for her trust while sitting on her bed in the middle of the night wasn't lost on him. Everything about this situation was compromising: his presence, his touch, the way his body had curved protectively around hers to keep her upright.

If she were fully conscious, she'd probably have questions he couldn't answer honestly. But she wasn't fully conscious. She was feverish and vulnerable and dependent on him, and that dependency felt like both a gift and a weapon aimed directly at his carefully constructed walls.

Fortunately for him, she didn’t fight him and complied with his request, taking the pills and swallowing them down with some gulps of water.

He held the bottle close to her mouth a little longer when she showed signs of thirst, allowing her to drink as much as she needed.

“Good… you can go back to sleep now,” he reassured her as he put the bottle aside after she finished drinking. 

"I'll make sure the fever-”

Her body gave up into the exhaustion and her head lolled to the side, hitting his shoulder with a soft thud.

Sylus went utterly still.

Every muscle locked with the kind of tension that came from forcing himself not to react -she was burning against him, her slight weight pressing into his chest, and the trust implicit in that unconscious lean felt like something he had no right to possess.

“-breaks.” He finished his own sentence while he stared down at her, sleeping against him as if he had been one of her pillows.

This is dangerous.

Not the fever, not the midnight hour, but this -the way she fit against him like she belonged there, the way his body responded to her proximity with a hunger he'd never thought he had.

He should've ease her back down onto the mattress, maintain distance, remember every principle that had governed his career.

Instead, he found himself adjusting his position so she could rest more comfortably against him -one arm coming around to support her shoulders while the other remained at her back.

Just until the medicine starts working, he told himself. Just until she's stable enough to sleep on her own.

"You're going to be alright."

He said quietly, his lips closer to her temple than strictly necessary. The damp strands of her hair brushed his jaw, and he could feel her breath -too hot, too rapid- against the exposed skin at his collar where he'd unbuttoned his shirt hours ago.

"The fever will break soon."

He wasn't sure if he was reassuring her or himself.

Minutes passed in rain-soaked silence.

His hand moved without conscious decision, settling against her hair in a gesture that was pure comfort -the kind he'd never offered anyone, the kind that required vulnerability he couldn't allow himself to have.

Except apparently he did.

For her.

"Stubborn thing," he whispered against her hair, so quietly it was almost lost to the rain. "You had to make this complicated, didn't you?"

The question wasn't really about the fever. It was about every moment leading up to this one -every challenge in class, every loaded glance during office hours, every time she'd pushed back against his authority and made him feel something he'd convinced himself was impossible.

Nevertheless, Sylus held her close against him in the dim light of her dorm room, listening to the rain and feeling the heat of her fever slowly begin to ease as the medication worked through her system. His thumb traced absent patterns against her shoulder blade -small movements that betrayed more than any words could.

When her phone buzzed with a notification on the nightstand, he ignored it.

The outside world could wait.

Consequences could wait.

Right now, there was only this: her trust, his weakness, and the line between them that no longer existed.

Sylus had barely slept.

He'd meant to move her back to the pillows once the fever broke -had told himself he would the moment her temperature normalised and her breathing steadied. But somewhere between midnight and dawn, intention had dissolved into something that felt dangerously like contentment.

He'd held her through the worst of it, feeling the fever gradually release its grip, feeling her body cool from dangerous heat to something closer to normal. His back ached from the position -half-sitting against the headboard, her weight settled against his chest- but he'd ignored the discomfort the same way he ignored the voice in his head cataloging every professional boundary he had obliterated.

His shirt was rumpled beyond redemption, damp with her sweat and the condensation from the repeated cold compresses. His hair -usually perfectly controlled- fell across his forehead in silver strands that hadn't seen a mirror in hours.

He looked exactly like what he was: a man who'd spent the night holding a woman he had no business touching.

When the alarm pierced the pre-dawn quiet, his eyes -which had drifted shut somewhere around four- opened immediately. The room was gray with early light filtered through rain clouds, the storm having settled into a steady drizzle. Rei was still asleep against him, her breathing slow and even, her face finally peaceful instead of pinched with fever-pain.

This should’ve been just a fever dream, because this entire night was the kind of mistake that careers didn't survive.

But God help him, he couldn't bring himself to regret it.

His hand, which had remained against her back all night, a steady anchor, moved in a slow circle as the alarm continued its insistent buzzing.

"Rei…"

He said quietly, his voice rougher than usual from disuse and exhaustion.

"Time to wake up, sweetie."

He reached past her to silence the alarm, the movement bringing his jaw against her temple. She smelled like fever-sweat and the faint honey-almond of her shampoo, and he had to resist the urge to press his lips there... just once, just to see if he could allow himself that much before reality reasserted itself.

"Come on..." he coaxed her gently.

"Need to check that temperature. Make sure you're out of the woods."

The irony wasn't lost on him. She might be out of the woods, but he was so deep into dangerous territory there was no clear path back.

A frown appeared on her face when her alarm disturbed her sleep, and then even her bed moved and talked-

Rei immediately regained consciousness as she realised that no, she wasn't curled atop her mattress but against someone's chest -the strong, steady heartbeat thumping beneath her ear unmistakable.

She remained perfectly still for a moment, because she didn't know what to do and her mind was still too confused from lingering drowsiness.

She took notice of a touch against her back -a thumb rubbing soothing circles against her shoulder blade- and she was reminded of the gentle hands that had taken care of her in her feverish dreams.

She understood that it hadn't been her imagination then.

But if everything was real, then who is-?

Tilting her head upwards, she blinked her eyes open and her heart stuttered inside her chest.

Through her blurry vision, she recognised Professor Qin's face too close to hers to still be professional or avoid catching her germs -looking unusually dishevelled and softened by a tiredness she hadn’t ever seen before.

Heat flushed her face red from the embarrassment when she realised that she'd be sleeping in his arms and that she also looked like a mess after a night spent fighting a high fever.

Instinctively, her hands reached out to cover her face and she cursed under her breath while she struggled to understand how this could've happened.

"Don't."

He caught her wrists with gentle but unyielding pressure, drawing them away before she could fully hide. His fingers circled her pulse points -steady now, no longer racing with fever- and he studied her with the same clinical intensity he used in lectures, except there was nothing clinical about the way his thumb traced the delicate bones of her wrist.

"You've been unconscious for hours... I've seen worse than bedhead and fever-flush."

A lie.

She looked devastating like this -vulnerable and rumpled and pressed against him in the grey dawn light.

She looked nothing like the polished student who challenged him in class, and everything like the woman who'd been haunting his thoughts for weeks.

He released one wrist but kept hold of the other, reaching past her for the thermometer on the nightstand. The movement brought them even closer, his chest pressing against her shoulder, his jaw nearly brushing her temple. He could feel her trying to process the situation -the compromising position, his presence in her room, the hours that must have passed with her sleeping against him.

"Before you spiral-"

He spoke, bringing the thermometer between them.

"-your fever spiked to 104. You were delirious. I stayed to make sure you didn't die of heatstroke in a dorm room with no air conditioning." His voice was matter-of-fact, but there was an undercurrent of something darker beneath the professional explanation.

"Open."

He pressed the thermometer to her lips and watched her comply, despite her flustered state.

His arm was still wrapped around her, supporting her weight because he hadn't moved them apart yet. He hadn't restored the boundaries that should've remained intact regardless of medical emergencies...

The truth was simpler and more damning: he didn't want to let go.

Rain continued its steady percussion against the window.

The room smelled like sickness and the faint cedar of his cologne, intimate in a way that made the air feel thicker.

He looked nothing like the controlled professor who commanded lecture halls.

But a man who'd crossed every line he'd drawn and couldn't bring himself to retreat.

"After this…" he said, watching the thermometer's digital display.

"You're going to drink more water, eat something light, and tell me if anything still hurts." His eyes moved from the thermometer to her face, and for just a moment, the mask slipped completely.

"And then you're going to explain why you tried to handle a 104-degree fever alone instead of calling someone who could help."

The thermometer beeped. 99.1. Still elevated, but no longer dangerous.

He pulled it away slowly, his thumb brushing her lower lip in the process -a touch that lasted half a second too long to be accidental.

"Better," he murmured, still not moving away. "But not good enough yet."

Rei stared at him with wide eyes -her thoughts were a mess but she couldn't ask questions because it kind of ached if she tried to think too hard at the moment. She didn't even understand how high or low her temperature was because she felt hot all over being so intimately close to him.

Noticing his expectant gaze, she realised that he wanted her to tell something and she took a moment to formulate at least one sentence that made sense.

"I don't remember much... Just that I came back to my room after visiting your office." She murmured, her voice quietly carrying a hint of shyness instead of her usual calm, and her gaze lowered down.

"I'm okay now... I feel a bit weak and a light headache but nothing much." She reassured him about her condition, purposely omitting the fact that her skin felt oversensitive from the fever and the way he still held her was frying her rationality.

Sylus's eyes narrowed slightly at that, reading the tension in her body language the way he'd been trained to read lies and half-truths. She was holding something back -some discomfort she couldn't name- and the way her gaze dropped told him exactly why.

She's aware of me.

Not as Professor Qin. Not as the authority figure who'd tended to her fever.

But as a man who'd spent the night with her body pressed against his.

The realization settled low in his chest, dangerous and intoxicating.

"Weak and a headache..."

He repeated, his voice dropping half an octave as he finally began to move and shifting with deliberate slowness, he eased her back against the pillows.

"And what else?"

His hand slid from her wrist to her forehead, checking for residual heat, fingers brushing away her damp hair. The touch lingered longer than medically necessary, his palm cupping her jaw for just a moment before he withdrew.

"You're still flushed." He observed, tilting his head slightly as he studied her from his position beside her.

"Though I suspect that has less to do with fever now."

The corner of his mouth quirked -not quite a smile, but something knowing.

He was giving her an out, a chance to pretend he hadn't noticed the way her breathing changed when he touched her. 

He stood up, running a hand through his disheveled hair as he moved to the small kitchenette area of her dorm.

"When was the last time you ate?" he asked over his shoulder, already opening her mini-fridge with the same proprietary ease he'd used going through her medicine cabinet hours ago. "And don't lie. I can tell when you're lying."

He pulled out what little he could find -not nearly enough for someone recovering from what she'd been through.

"This is unacceptable..." he muttered, more to himself than to her.

He pulled out his phone, checking the time -6:47 AM- before typing something quickly. "I'm having food delivered. Real food, not whatever disaster you call a diet."

He glanced back at her, leaning against the small counter with his arms crossed, and despite his efforts, the mask slipped completely.

There was concern in his crimson eyes, but also something rawer -the kind of protectiveness that came from having spent hours keeping vigil over someone who mattered more than they should've.

Rei sensed the shift and she cursed herself from being so flustered to give the wrong impression about what she was feeling about this whole thing.

She was confused, embarrassed but mostly because for someone like her who never indulged in physical proximity, she shouldn't have felt so cozy and safe in someone's arms...

So when he had moved and had helped her lay back in bed, an inexplicable ache had squeezed her heart like something akin to panic and regret. She hadn't meant to make it awkward, even if they both knew that they couldn't get this comfortable with this-

The conflict between what she craved and what she knew was proper prevented her from saying or doing anything. She stared at him, feeling cold at the sudden distance between them -the right distance that should've be normal, her mind tried to be logical- and she tried to use this chance to calm down her racing heart without much success.

"You scared me."

Sylus said quietly, the admission pulled from somewhere deep.

"When I found you yesterday, you were barely coherent. Burning up. Alone."

His jaw tightened. "So before you thank me or apologise or whatever polite deflection you're planning... I need you to promise me something."

He pushed off the counter, closing the distance between them again until he was standing beside the bed, looking down at her with an intensity that made the air feel charged.

"Next time you're in trouble- any kind of trouble, you call me. Not after you've tried to handle it alone. Not when you're already past the point of managing. Immediately." His hand came up, fingers catching her chin and tilting her face up to meet his gaze. "Do you understand?"

The touch was gentle but unyielding, and the command in his voice was the same one he used in lectures -except this time it was wrapped around something infinitely more personal.

"Say you understand, Rei."

She could’ve said that she had texted him when she had reached her dorm, just like she had promised to contact him despite the struggles of her high fever, or she could’ve simply pulled away from his sudden touch.

She should’ve…

"I understand." She whispered, nodding slightly and before she could stop herself, her fingers wrapped loosely around his wrist to keep his hand there instead.

It was the smallest gesture, barely any pressure, but it detonated something in his chest when Sylus was desperately trying to rebuild a careful distance between them. The professional boundaries he'd been trying to restore even as he ordered her food and checked her temperature... all of it evaporated the instant she refused to let him pull away.

His thumb moved without conscious thought, tracing the curve from her chin to just below her ear, and he felt her pulse jump beneath his touch -rapid and unsteady in a way that had nothing to do with illness.

"Rei..."

Her name escaped from his mouth both like a warning and a question.

His crimson eyes searched her face, looking for doubt, for fear, for any sign that she didn't understand exactly what she was doing by keeping his hand there...

He found none of it.

What he found instead was worse -want, confusion, and the kind of trust that made his carefully constructed control feel like tissue paper.

She was looking at him like he was both the answer and the question, like she couldn't decide whether to pull him closer or push him away, and that indecision was somehow more devastating than certainty would have been.

"Do you have any idea-" he murmured, his voice dropping to something rough and dangerous. "-what you're doing right now?"

His free hand came up, fingers threading through her hair as he leaned down -slowly, giving her every opportunity to retreat, to remember who he was and who she was and all the reasons this couldn't happen.

But he didn't stop, and she didn't pull away, and suddenly the distance between them was measured in heartbeats instead of inches.

"You're still recovering..."

He continued, though his actions contradicted every word of restraint.

"You should be focusing on getting better. Not..."

He paused, his forehead nearly touching hers, his breath mingling with hers in the small space between them.

"Not looking at me like that."

But even as he said it, his thumb traced her lower lip -testing boundaries that had already been crossed the moment he'd held her through the night.

"Tell me to stop."

He asked quietly, his eyes never leaving hers.

"Tell me this is the fever talking... Give me any reason to walk away before I do something we can't take back."

He was giving her the control, the choice, the power to end this before it began -because if she didn't stop him now, if she kept holding his wrist and looking at him with those eyes that saw too much...

He wasn't sure he'd be able to stop himself.

Rain continued its steady rhythm against the window. Somewhere in the distance, the campus was waking up -early joggers, dedicated students heading to the library before class. The real world existed beyond this room, with all its rules and consequences and professional disasters waiting to happen.

But in this moment, in the grey dawn light with her fingers wrapped around his wrist and her pulse racing beneath his touch, none of that seemed to matter.

She should've felt cornered and afraid as he leaned down closer to her, though her body remained completely relaxed in bed. It was like falling back into something dangerous... but as long as there were his arms around her, then she couldn't find herself regretting falling in the first place. 

Her breath hitched when he hovered above her, the tip of their noses brushing together as the distance between them narrowed, and every kind of boundary between them seemed so insignificant at the moment.

She didn't have any voice to be rational and indulge his plea.

How could she stop him when she couldn't stop herself from wanting it too? 

Her free hand twitched as a sane thought crossed her mind and suggested she cover his mouth with her palm before they gave into the temptation of closing the small gap between them. But then he warned her about his thin resolve and understanding that he wanted to kiss her just as much as she did filled her head with thoughts about how'd it feel and...

She didn't want to back down now.

The moment stretched between them like a held breath -and then Sylus made his choice.

His hand slid from her jaw to cup the back of her neck, fingers threading through her hair as he closed the final distance between them. But he didn't rush. Even now, even with control slipping through his fingers like sand, he maintained that maddening precision that defined everything he did.

His lips brushed against hers once, testing -soft and deliberate and completely at odds with the tension coiled in his frame. It was a question asked in the language of touch rather than words, giving her one final chance to retreat.

She didn't.

The second kiss came harder, deeper, and something in his chest finally snapped.

His mouth moved against hers with the kind of intensity that came from months of restraint breaking all at once -every professional boundary, every carefully maintained distance, every moment he'd forced himself to look away when she challenged him in class.

Gone.

All of it gone in the space of a heartbeat.

His thumb traced the line of her throat, feeling her pulse race beneath his touch as he angled her head back to deepen the kiss. The hand she'd wrapped around his wrist tightened, and he made a low sound in the back of his throat -half groan, half surrender- as he shifted his weight onto the bed beside her.

"God..." he muttered against her mouth, pulling back just enough to speak.

His forehead pressed against hers, his breathing unsteady.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that."

His crimson eyes opened, and the look in them was devastating -raw and unguarded in a way she'd never seen from him before.

This wasn't Professor Qin who commanded lecture halls with cool authority.

This was Sylus, stripped of every defence he'd built, looking at her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered.

"I tried..." he said quietly, his voice rough with emotion.

"I tried so damn hard to keep my distance. To be professional. To pretend that you didn't-"

He cut himself off, jaw tightening. "But then you'd look at me with those eyes, and every word out of your mouth was a challenge, and I couldn't-"

Her free hand trembled slightly as Rei reached out to fist the front of his shirt and pulled him closer again, her lips meeting his in a slower but no less intense kiss.

But before Sylus could melt into it again, a sharp knock at the door made them both freeze.

"Food delivery!”

A cheerful voice called from the hallway.

Reality crashed back in with brutal efficiency.

They both pulled back immediately, putting several inches of distance between them even as their gazes wandered away and found each other again and again, giving away their wish to do the exact opposite.

"Shit..."

He breathed, running both hands through his hair as he stood.

He looked at her once -a look that held promise and regret.

Rei covered her lower face with a shaky hand while she slowly sat up in bed, her legs folded against her chest in an attempt to curl into herself among the bedsheets. She took deep breaths as she tried to calm down her racing heart, and she nodded in agreement when he gestured her that he would take care of this.

Forcing his features back into something approaching professional composure, Sylus smothered his shirt as best as he could and went to open the door. He positioned his body in a way that blocked the delivery person’s view of the room's interior and accepted the bag with a polite nod before closing the door.

The moment the lock clicked shut, that carefully maintained composure cracked.

He stood there for several seconds with his back to her, one hand still on the doorknob, the other holding the bag of food.

His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath -the kind of breath someone takes when they're trying to remember how to think clearly.

When he finally turned around, the look in his eyes was complicated.

Desire was still there, simmering beneath the surface, but reality had reasserted itself with brutal clarity.

He set the food on her desk with deliberate care, each movement precise and controlled -like he was rebuilding his defences one brick at a time.

"That-" he said quietly, not looking at her yet, "-was spectacularly reckless."

His hands braced against the desk, head bowed slightly.

And Rei felt her heart sink into her stomach as she couldn’t find any excuse about what had happened that could save them both.

They had crossed the line, irremediably so.

"I came here because I was worried about you..."

He remembered to himself, his knuckles going white against the desk's edge. "Because you didn't answer your phone and I needed to know you were alright. And instead of acting like your professor -like someone who's supposed to have better judgment than this- I..."

He cut himself off with something between a laugh and a groan, finally turning to face her.

The vulnerability in his expression was devastating -raw and unguarded and completely at odds with the controlled authority he projected in every other context.

"There's no going back from this, Rei."

Silence stretched between them.

"Yesterday I was your professor… this morning- I don't even know what I am anymore."

He admitted and let out a short, humourless chuckle.

"I can't unknow what your mouth tastes like. Can't forget how you felt in my arms-” He stopped, jaw tightening.

"Every time I see you in class now, every time you sit in my office, I'm going to remember this. And so will you."

She couldn’t retort his analysis of their complicated situation.

She couldn’t soothe his fears.

He left her little to no choice, because he was obviously the one who could lose more if this escaped from their control.

"I won't make you risk what you've fought so hard for your whole life, just like I won't give up on my study career."

She murmured, the words tasting bitter on her tongue and feeling like a dagger into her own chest. 

Outside, the heavy rain had calmed down in a soft pitter-patter against the windows, while the delivered food on her desk slowly turned colder.

She had remained in bed, among a mess of bedsheets and the lingering smell of fever, long after the sound of his footsteps had disappeared from the hallway.

✍️ This chapter was too long to be published in just one post. So if you'd like to know what happened before, click here → Spiderweb ➢ entanglement & danger ✑ pt. 1!!

[Taglist: @gravitationalbluberry - ...]

[If you're interested in reading more of my works, you can go check my masterlist!]

This is a turning point for me. I've been silent for too long, but I can't stay quiet anymore.

I'm going through writer's burnout, and it has hit me hard. I've been writing on Tumblr and Ao3 for nearly eight years now (with about 1.5 years on my private blog, doumadono). Over that time, I've written more than 400 stories across various fandoms, created the Sinful Sunday event and a series that many people like, helped many with numerous emergency requests — so many that one masterlist wasn't enough to cover them all.

But all of this has brought me to a place where writing no longer feels like a joy, but rather a duty. In my effort to make everyone happy, I lost myself and took on too much, accepting even the most twisted and difficult requests. It made me anxious and unwell whenever I thought about writing. This is why I haven't been posting much these past few weeks. I missed the breaking point and let myself reach a place where I was seriously considering quitting writing altogether and closing both my Tumblr and Ao3 accounts.

There's something else I need to address. I feel completely detached from Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer. I no longer feel comfortable writing for those fandoms. From now on, I'll be focusing mostly on My Hero Academia. Even though the manga recently ended, both the manga and the anime hold a special place in my heart. I’ve fallen in love with the story and its amazing characters. This is what feels right to me at this moment. That doesn't mean I'll never write for Demon Slayer or other fandoms again, but not now, not at this time. Maybe in the future — who knows?

Some of you might know that I've been dealing with a flood of hateful anonymous messages. Even though I’ve grown stronger and no longer consider them relevant, it still hurts to read such nasty words. This is another factor why I need to take a break.

So, what's going to change?

Sinful Sunday will no longer cover requests, and the event won't be as regular as it used to be. From now on, I'll post some sinful pieces specifically written for this event whenever I feel it's right. I'll write only for the characters I feel attached too.

Emergency requests will be limited to two slots and will no longer have a 48-hour window to be fulfilled. Once both slots are taken, emergency requests will be closed until I manage to clear the current asks in my inbox.

As of today, my ask box has been completely cleared. I won't be replying to any past asks, regardless of their origin or topic.

Commissions will remain open, as nearly all the requests have been fulfilled.

Regarding the following projects:

The Kvitravn series will be completed this year, but I can't provide a specific date just yet as I'm still working hard to bring everything together.

There's also a new series on the horizon featuring Dabi in the lead role, with a psychiatrist!Reader as the other main character.

As for Kinktober, I made a hard decision it will not be held as an event on my blog this year at all.

As of now, I want to focus on my own little My Hero Academia based AU that I created with my best friend @crystalwolfblog , and this is something that brings me a lot of comfort nowadays, and it's what I want to focus on. I’ll likely create another blog to post everything related to this AU, to keep things organized (the blog will be linked to my pinned post). This little AU was and is my safe haven for the past year and half, and since it contains all of my favourite characters, I want to focus on it fully.

The time for purification has come. I need to rediscover my purpose and find joy in writing again. To those who understand and have stuck with me since the ThePaperPanda days — you’re amazing and adorable, and I can never express how much I appreciate you, guys 💞

I want to share one last thought. This isn’t a statement, but rather a plea to readers: please respect writers, no matter the content they choose to explore. Writing is not as easy as it may seem; it requires a significant amount of time and effort, often taking up our personal time to craft a story. Don't send anon hate. Spread love instead! The least you can do to show your appreciation is to leave a comment, even if it’s just a word or two. For you, it’s a small gesture that takes less than a minute, but for the writer on the other side, it may be a much-needed sign that their work is meaningful. So if you enjoy an author’s work, don’t hesitate to leave a comment. It truly makes us writers feel like we’re on cloud nine.