Chapter 10: Chapter 10

“Bloody hell,” Denis muttered as he scrolled down the file, looking at the perfect solution. Ravi was yet to compile the code, but for some reason, Denis suspected it to be error-free. Who even finished a lab without compiling? Denis glanced at Ravi before pressing the arrow button, reading “Run” in the left corner, marveling as they got their intended output in the terminal. Not even one syntax error.

Ravi didn’t look at Denis; he seemed his aloof, quiet self. If it weren't for the nervous tapping of his foot, Denis might have thought him bored, might have suspected Ravi to hate him with as much passion as the redhead. But Ravi had never been mean; Ravi had just been quiet.

Sometimes, quiet and mean were quite interchangeable – especially where Denis was from – but Ravi didn’t give off any clear signals of being nasty. He was such a contradiction of signals and emotions; on one hand, he was a giant and imposing, and all that came with that. On the other hand, he seemed nervous most of the time, his green eyes flickering and his foot tapping in a quick rhythm more often than not.

It reminded Denis of a friend of his father, Mr. Gunn. Gunn had not quite been like Ravi; he’d been sort of looming with a smile so sharp you’d cut yourself. But he, too, had been mysterious, hard to read, harder to understand. But where Ravi seemed like a gentle giant, Mr. Gunn had seemed like a bee poised to sting. Good riddance, his father was done working with NeoTech Group; there had only been trouble being involved with them.

Denis would never forget walking in on his father and Mr Gunn, his father pale in the face and Mr Gunn staring at Senior Arnold with murder in his eyes. Being involved with that man had almost led to the crumbling of the Arnold empire. Not that that was necessary would have been all bad in Denis’s eyes, his mother, on the other hand, had been of another opinion.

“You’re quite brilliant,” Denis told Ravi. He didn’t give out compliments often, but this time he thought it was quite well deserved. The rest of the students around them were whispering furiously as they tried to work out what the syntax for a for-loop even looked like, all while he and Ravi simply sat there, done.

Ravi gave the first indication of emotion, a small smile hiding in the corner of his lips. A dimple made a flash appearance before once again hiding under bronze skin. He didn’t look at Denis, eyes still firmly directed towards the screen, but he did give the blonde a small nod.

“You think so?”

By god was he fishing for more? Denis gave the dark-haired man next to him a beam, his own straight white teeth flashing in the dimly lit room. “I do think so.”

Ravi turned to him then, his face illuminated partly by the bright screen in front of them, partly by the muted lightning above. Even in bad lightning Ravi turned out to look quite striking. Sometimes you couldn’t quite tell when a person was truly spectacular, especially when they were shy or hunched over – like Ravi. But Denis could see it now, in the way those green eyes bore into his.

“Really?”

Denis was used to pretty people, but it was more than that. Ravi was so strange, so unusual in his quiet yet brilliant ways. His silence filled up the space between them, but for once it wasn’t uncomfortable. The silence seemed charged with something Denis couldn’t name, but something he wanted indefinitely more of.

“Yes, really,” Denis said slowly, watching the rugby player in front of him react as the words washed over him. Ravi’s dark eyelashes fluttered, his green eyes seemed to shine, his face relaxed, showing off a truly breathtaking image of high cheekbones, flawless skin, square jaw, and a straight nose. Ravi’s complexion reminded Denis of the ancient statue of David, his face perfectly put together by the hands of a great artist. The only detail breaking the spell of flawlessness was a few freckles sprinkling Ravi’s nose, but for some reason, that flaw just enunciated everything else.

Denis’s eyes flickered to surprisingly full lips. Ravi even had a cupid's bow – who even had that nowadays? For the first time, Denis found himself wondering how it would feel to push his own rosy lips onto Ravi’s.

“I’m sorry,” Ravi’s eyes flickered to the side in shame. Denis felt his eyebrows climb in confusion.

“Whatever for? You did it brilliantly.”

“I knew how to solve it, I should have let you do it. Then you too would have learnt.”

Denis looked at the code in front of him; he’d already memorised the structure, the loops, and statements. Perhaps he would have learnt more if he himself had figured it out, but he wasn’t sorry; they still had plenty of time to do more.

“Walk me through it,” Denis demanded, scooting closer to Ravi. The raven-haired boy moved away slightly, his chair creaking as he maintained the space between them. Denis glanced down, once again noticing the raven-haired boy’s legs. Ravi’s thighs swelled, his pants appearing glued onto those quads. He wondered if those muscles would feel hard underneath his hand.

“Right,” Ravi talked slowly, with plenty of space between his words. Denis’s mother would have claimed dimwittedness, but Denis knew better. Ravi just thought a lot; he put consideration into the words he used and in the way he made them sound, spilling over his lips. Denis could appreciate that. Sure, Denis himself was thoughtful of the words he voiced – how could he not after being brought up in high society – but he still talked a lot. Some of it is shit (most of it), some of it is carefully put together sentences completed with an accurate tone of voice and body language. Here at Harvard, Denis felt freer; here, he could say anything, and it wouldn’t create a ripple of gossip tainting every event he went to for months to come. To speak freely truly was to be free.