Adrian slowly stood up, brushing the street dust off his coat. His voice sounded hollow, with a hint of hoarseness:

"Did you hear anything?"

Lucas slowly turned his gaze toward him. In the dim light, his eyes seemed pitch-black, and his face was frozen into a stony mask.

"Yes," he replied curtly.

"I'll take care of everything myself," Adrian said, trying to regain the mask of an impenetrable professional, though his hands were betraying him with a tremor. "You have nothing to worry about."

Lucas took another long, deep drag, exhaling smoke into the cold air. His jaw tensed.

"What exactly?" he asked in the same icy, even tone. "Are you going to quit?"

Adrian froze. He hadn't expected Lucas to see through his intentions so quickly.

"Yes, no… no… or maybe yes?" he replied quietly, lowering his gaze.

Lucas tossed the cigarette butt onto the wet asphalt and crushed it with his heel, forcefully, almost angrily, as if he wanted to grind the whole situation into dust. Then he took a sharp step forward, closing the distance to a dangerous minimum.
Adrian didn't even have time to blink or take a breath before Lucas's strong but treacherously trembling hands clamped onto the lapels of his coat. The tug was so sudden that Adrian lost his balance. His knees, already buckling from the shock and humiliation he'd endured, finally gave out. He would have collapsed onto the dirty road if not for Lucas's firm grip, which held him aloft, pressing his back tightly against the rough wall.

"Be more confident, Professor."

And in that very instant, Lucas's lips pressed hard, demanding, even wildly, against Adrian's full lips.
It wasn't a gentle touch of lips. The kiss was hot, salty, and smelled of tobacco smoke and frosty air.

"Mmmph!"

Adrian gasped, unable to hold back the vibrating moan that escaped his chest as Lucas parted his lips, pushing his tongue deeper. Lucas explored every wet wall of the man's mouth, running his tongue over his palate and cheeks, pulling it into his own mouth, biting down on it.

In this kiss there was only primal possessiveness and a strange sense of protection. Lucas kissed him as if trying to physically burn away the foreign, nauseating mark from Adrian's skin with a red-hot iron. It was as if he were rewriting his sensations, drowning out the sticky revulsion from Noah's touch with his own, living heat.

Adrian's heart, which just a minute ago had felt like ice, clenched into a knot, suddenly began to pound somewhere in his throat, echoing as a heavy throbbing in his temples. He went limp in that embrace, his fingers instinctively digging into the fabric of Lucas's jacket, clinging to him as if he were the only anchor in a crumbling world.

After a few agonizingly long seconds, Lucas pulled away abruptly, but didn't let him go. They were breathing heavily, in short gasps. Their chests heaved in unison, and such a dark storm raged in their eyes that they couldn't look away from each other.

Slowly, with an almost reverent tenderness that stood in stark contrast to his earlier roughness, Lucas ran his thumb along the corner of Adrian's lips, smearing the moisture.

"Don't overthink it, I'm just…"

His finger was burning hot and trembled slightly. He looked straight into the teacher's dilated, darkened pupils and whispered quietly, hoarsely:

"I didn't want to leave that idiot's saliva on you."

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and strode quickly toward the exit of the alley, leaving Adrian standing alone with his heart pounding wildly and a strange, burning aftertaste on his lips.

***

The competition itself went surprisingly smoothly, without any consequences or scandals. The results were not to be announced for another six months; by then, Lucas would have long since graduated from university, and this chapter of his life would be closed for good.

Noah and Kate's schedule turned out to be easier but longer: it lasted two more days to prepare for the final stage. So when the main group went off to prepare, Lucas was left alone.

Wandering through an unfamiliar city alone was dreary. His thoughts were jumbled, reminding him of what had happened in the alley, of the kiss, of Adrian's words about getting fired. Lucas tried to push them away, but they kept coming back again and again.

That jerk Noah! I'll send that flea flying with just one toe!
Lucas stopped in front of a souvenir shop window. Among the usual magnets and keychains, his gaze was drawn to a stuffed fox. The toy was wearing a tiny knitted scarf and a pair of miniature glasses with thin frames. The expression on its face was stern and slightly displeased, which made the resemblance to Adrian frighteningly accurate. Lucas stared at it for a few seconds until his brain shut down. He walked into the store, paid in silence, and slipped his purchase into the inside pocket of his jacket.
As soon as he was back on the street, the sober realization of what he’d done hit him. 

Why the hell did I even do that?

Only one jumbled thought raced through his mind.

The toy bore an uncanny resemblance to his ex, and simply walking past it, leaving it on the shelf, seemed like some kind of unthinkable oversight. This was the first time something like this had happened to him: he was acting on a pure, uncontrollable impulse, completely shutting off his usual cynicism and defenses. A flush of heat betrayed him, and his fingers inside his pocket instinctively clenched the soft fabric, feeling for the tiny glasses on the fox's face. The strangest thing was that it didn't even occur to him to toss this nonsense into the nearest trash can, as he usually did with anything that reminded him of the past.

On his way back to the hotel, he noticed a coffee shop across the street. Through the glass, he immediately recognized a tall male figure. Adrian was sitting at a corner table, hunched over a stack of papers. A cup of coffee stood nearby, and his face was frozen in that very expression of weary concentration that Lucas knew all too well.

A month ago, when their intimacy was an unspoken part of every day, Adrian would stay late at work. But so as not to make Lucas wander the streets waiting, he invited him to wait in his office.

Lucas didn't refuse; he was actually curious to see Adrian at work. He imagined how sexy he'd look, chewing on a pencil and sighing heavily as he looked over the students' work. His expectations were met.

Adrian looked way too sexy. So much so that Lucas couldn't resist and bent him over right in the middle of him grading papers.

Because of the intense thrusts into Adrian's body, he couldn't write his corrections neatly, and half the papers contained scribbled lines instead of words and numbers.

That's how their first time having sex at work went.

Just walk past, Lucas ordered himself. You promised not to go near him. Don't ruin everything.

He forced himself to look straight ahead, but his body acted on its own. He crossed the street without looking left or right and pushed open the door to the coffee shop. The brass bell above the entrance clanged with deafening volume in the silence of the room.

Adrian flinched at the sound and looked up. His hand, still holding the pen, froze in midair. For a split second, a genuine, unmasked surprise flashed across his face before his features closed back into a neutral mask.

Lucas walked over to the table. His pulse was pounding somewhere in his throat, making it hard to breathe normally. He didn't say a word. He hadn't even thought to come up with an excuse or a greeting. He simply pulled the stuffed fox out of his pocket and silently placed it on the table, right next to Adrian's cup.

A heavy silence hung between them. The heat rushed to Lucas's face again, burning his ears and neck. Without waiting for a response, he spun around abruptly and practically ran toward the exit. 

He didn't look back; his mind was consumed by a single panicked thought about how foolish and out of control he had just looked.