Just Life - Part 1 by Agent Midnight
Standard disclaimers apply


The Department of Epidemiology and International Health and the Department of Environmental Sciences are only separated by a small road and grass on both sides. The buildings face each other, block each other from the harsh glare of sunlight when it rises and sets, and each hold one of two top professors in the entire University. Not to brag or anything, but I am one of those two young men.

The name's Professor Maxwell, Duo to my friends and family, of course. I am the leading professor in the Environmental Sciences building. I'm not entirely sure how I came to be called one of the best in the school, but it eventually happened, and the success rate of my students is about 93% at the current moment. Nothing is quite so fulfilling as having a past student return at some odd moment in time and tell me that they got a job. Heck, if I got the jobs some of my students have, I'd be a lot richer than I am right now.

I have heard my fair share of harsh rumors for reasons I know as clearly as crystal. When I was sixteen, I had finished my scheduled credits and I had moved on to college around eighteen, about two years of down-time before they would let me enter my school of choice. They claimed, at the time, that is would be awkward for me to show up bright and early at the beginning of the semester when I had basically just left high school. In other words, I was too young and they didn't want me at the time. Too many students, they claimed.

Well, my school of choice then became the one I least wanted to go to, so I chose again. They were more than happy to accept me, but by then, I was around high school graduation age. No problems, whatsoever. In college, I was a very quiet person. Nobody really wanted to be around me, I guess. In college, I met my best friend, and my Academic challenger. I can still remember how much I had laughed when I would see him in the hallways and we would try to calmly conceal our excitement as the grades were posted and we would get to see who was at a higher rank.

It danced around from month to month. One week it was him by about .24%, then it was me by about .15%. Whoever the respectable winner was at the moment, the loser would get a friendly kiss on the cheek, a wink, and a rather immature slap on the ass. The loser would then stand in the hallway and laugh until the bell would ring, the winner sauntering away like he was the god of the school. And at the time, we really thought that.

We were the top students of the whole school, and we both knew that. We knew it like we know the sky is freakin' blue in the mornings. And like many people in their twenties, we each had a cocky sort of immaturity about ourselves that I'm sure we both had back in high school. While I dreamed to be a rock star back in high school, he dreamed of being a Biochemist. I'm not entirely sure what the hell happened, but obviously I'm not a sexy rocker, and he's not a genuis Biochemist working in labs.

If you haven't guessed already, my best friend is the leading professor of the department across from mine. Fancy that, eh? His title refers to him by the name of Professor- "Nonsense... just Heero" -Yuy. I take it one reason why his students see him as more of a friendly advisor than a teacher is because they all go around calling him by his first name, via his request. At the young age of thirty-two, he's a fucking genuis in his own right, he just didn't become what he wanted to become. Like myself. Do I see a guitar cradled in my hands? Hell no.

Heero is four years older than me, and if you're not a wiz in math class, that would make me twenty-eight. His appearance, though, makes him look like he's eighteen, give or take a few months. Probably another reason why he's so popular, especially with the lady students, is because he's so "fashionable", maybe? He's drop dead gorgeous, and I continue telling him this whether or not he'd specifically enjoy hearing it, but he doesn't do it on purpose. He doesn't strive for his students' attention by dressing younger than he is, or by his piercings, or his constantly-changing hair. In the time between college and the point where we are at now, he's probably changed his hair style about five hundred times, and changed the color about twice that much. At the moment, I believe it's silver-ish blue, but I could be wrong. I didn't see him at our normal breakfast; maybe he dyed his hair in the bathroom or something.

His hair reaches down to his shoulders, but it's always pulled back in a small pony-tail, everything but his bangs. He leaves those loose to hang over his small, silver-framed glasses. He greases down the rest of his hair to make his bangs spiky and pretty much rock solid. You can tap his hair and hear echoes. Strange character.

Always showing up in a long, black coat more likely to be seen in the fancy mob movies, he's anything but an normal debonaire-looking gentleman. Intimidation is always present whenever strangers go up to him, but he's about as friendly as a puppy. No need to worry about him at all. He can sense fear, though, so watch out. It's really funny, because he's looks like I would want to look if my rocker dream had come true. Very sexy.

Sometimes during my break periods, I'll walk across to his building and slink quietly down the hallways until I reach his classroom. Every time I've ever peeked in through the small glass on the door, he always catches me and next thing I know, I'm sitting at his desk while he continues on with his lecture. I'll be staring at the transparency reflected on the whiteboard and his lack of sound will alert me back in his general direction.

"Did you come over here just to eat my lunch?"

His students, some of mine mixed into the fray, always giggle at that because it happens everytime I come over. I find myself with my feet propped up, having unknowingly opened his drawer and started to munch on his crackers. After about the third time of my appearance, the students had pretty much grown accustomed to having another professor sit in on the class. They don't mind me sitting in with my friend, in the least.

When his class ends, he says his good-byes to his students and sits on the edge of the desk until they all filter out of the room, laughing and chatting quietly to each other because of another fun class with the Japanese professor. And only when all the students are long gone does he lean across his desk and kiss me softly, his tongue sliding across my bottom lip. By this time, another class is probably already filtering into my own classroom across the road.

The rumors had started quickly from the lips of some of our mutual students and were fueled more when I continued showing up late to class after having been in Heero's classroom. As the weeks pressed on around us and the end of the semester neared, they were all across the school grounds, and I was absolutely mortified.

"I hear those two professors are an item."

"They meet before classes!"

Heero was nothing but normal even with the rumors flying quickly in the open. If anyone was to give away our relationship, it would probabaly be me because I think I blush whenever I hear one of those sleazy accusations coming from the mouths of mere babes. But, Heero told me once, they're not accusations. It's all truth, Professor Maxwell. It's not like they're running around lying...

And no matter how much I wanted to put a stop to those rumors by refusing to go see him during his classes, which would in turn lead to the stopping of searching hands and questing tongues, I just couldn't make myself go that long without watching him move about his classroom, talking to his students like they were equal in age to him, or more like him equal in age to them. Making the girls swoon when he passed them, tapping their shoulders with his pen to get them to focus at the front of the class, no doubt where they would see me watching him myself with my head resting in my hands. Then he would turn on the steps that were leading him towards the back desks, face front, and grace me with a small smile without a glitch appearing in his spoken lectures.

I couldn't give that up.

His attitute towards the whole thing was a definite blow in my pride, though, simply because it hadn't bothered him at all. Not an ounce of worry came to his gorgeous eyes when I first told him of what I had heard in the hallways, no worry at all, but a flourish of amusement. He had laughed and gave me a kiss right in the hallway that lead to his room, and I had felt a flush of worry as I glanced around to see if anyone had seen. I knew I had disappointed him at that moment as I got scared of someone seeing truth to the rumor, but he walked off before I could stop him and told me to leave him alone for a while so he could grade some tests. Wouldn't want to get distracted, he winked and shut his door on me. The lock had sounded through the hallway, and I had gone back to my own building... to my own classroom.

That little non-argument had settled when I had apologized to him and told him he could kiss me anytime he wanted. His response was that he wouldn't do that again because it made me uncomfortable, and I had kissed him instead. And when I heard the quiet gasp and giggle come from down the hallway, I hadn't looked down to see who could have possibly seen; instead, I buried my face in his jacket and waited for the heat to stop strangling me.

The rumble of his deep voice soothed me as he talked to the students, asking them if they had never seen a couple spend some alone time together, and that was the end to a rumor and the start of fact.

Now, we weren't just the top professors in the school who each had their own unique way of teaching, we were the hottest gay pair of teachers our students had ever seen. When other teachers asked us about those silly rumors, we laughed it off and told them that being best friends from college, we understood how kids could see through that and put false lies into it to spice it up. The students, however, believed those two girls more than our own words, so... we had an audience now.

Being watched, you get seen more.

Being seen, you get exposed.

Being exposed is my worst fear.

*******

TBC

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