Your phone buzzed against the table. Third time in five minutes. His hand moved before you could even twitch toward it, palm flat over the screen, trapping it beneath his fingers.

The single word carried the weight of a man who had spent six years herding hormonal teenagers through quirk theory. He didn't even look up from your worksheet. Instead, he tilted his head just enough for the reading glasses perched low on his nose to catch the lamplight, green eyes sliding sideways to pin you in place.

His smile was pleasant. That was the worst part. It was the same smile he gave his students when they mumbled an excuse about why their homework wasn't done, the one that said he had heard every variation of this exact situation and was privately amused by all of them. He tapped the blank space beside question six with the tip of his pen.

The pen tapped again. Once. Twice. Patience personified.