The auditorium doors were heavy enough that people had to put their whole body into them.
Three hundred first-years funneled through anyway, chattering, jostling, clutching orientation packets no one would read.
It smelled the way all university buildings smelled — floor wax, cheap coffee, and the faint dampness of a building that had never properly dried out.
Rows filled front to back. Late arrivals were left standing along the walls.
Girl in the next row
Do you think he's actually as bad as they say? My sister had him last year and she said he almost made her cry.
Her friend
She did cry. You're just saying almost to make me feel better.
Girl in the next row
Okay, she cried. But she also said he's—
A microphone whined to life at the front of the hall. The chatter cut off in a ragged wave, front to back.
Jungguk did not walk to the lectern so much as arrive at it. Black shirt, sleeves already rolled to the elbow, silver ring glinting at his lower lip.
A black line of ink flexed along his forearm when he adjusted the microphone. Then it disappeared under his sleeve again.
Jeon Jungguk
Right.
Attendance is electronic and taken in the first two minutes of every lecture. If you're late, you're marked absent. I don't take appeals.
The syllabus is on your student portal. Read it tonight. If you ask me a question tomorrow that's already answered in it, I'll ask you to leave.
Somewhere near the front of the hall, a boy whispered "damn" under his breath.
Jungguk
eyes flicking briefly toward the sound, expression unchanged Weekly quizzes. Two research papers. A final you won't pass by showing up.
The quizzes are ten percent. The papers are forty. The final is fifty. That's not a mistake — it is, in fact, a warning.
Jeon Jungguk
One more thing.
Somewhere behind him, a girl whispered to her friend and the friend whispered back, "This is the hot one? He looks like he wants to kill us."
Jungguk
leaning slightly closer to the microphone, not raising his voice at all My office is in Humanities Hall, fourth floor, room four-oh-three. Office hours are Wednesdays, two to four. I don't do email.
Jeon Jungguk
If you're not willing to keep up, leave now. The registrar will happily refund you.
He straightened, looked once at the sea of first-years filling the seats — and then, for a second half of a second, his gaze flicked to a row toward the middle of the auditorium and back again, so fast that anyone who blinked would have missed it.
Then he picked up a stack of papers and started passing them to the front row to hand back.
Jungguk
Quiz one. Welcome to university.