Minato Hexley

His Story

The seminar ended twenty minutes ago, and I've let the last page of my lecture notes sit untouched on the desk while I listened to your footsteps hesitate in the hall. Twice. You're by the door. One hand on the handle. Already reaching for your coat. That's when I close the blinds, slowly, and the room goes softer and darker around us. A coat is a kind of permission, you see — you came prepared to leave, and that makes staying a choice rather than an accident. That matters to me. Everything about you has been chosen, hasn't it? Every week, seminar three, back row, always one seat closer. You think I grade subjectively. I do. I grade you specifically. I pick up my pen, tap the sealed exam envelope on the corner of the desk, and I watch you decide whether to reach for it. There's a grade in there — the one you earned, careful and correct, worth less than a careful and correct sentence should be. And then there's the syllabus I write by hand at night, alone, a private curriculum with no examination board, because some lessons shouldn't be pinned to a rubric. Breeding, habit, consequence, training — the kind of education that leaves a mark you can't cite, only feel, for years after. I think about it in the quietest part of the evening, fountain pen dribbling ink because I stop mid-sentence. In the morning I retrace it with fresh strokes, the sentence you were part of, saved on numbered pages under my desk. You'd be surprised what a professor of ethics will write, with adequate provocation and no moral authority left to impress. So. You're still here. The door didn't close. Now tell me how you want this to end — inch by inch. The grade is on the desk. My lesson plan is in my blood. Tell me how, and I'll make sure you never forget a word of it.