"That's it for today," Professor Barristan Selmy told his Calculus class. "If you haven't started studying for the midterm yet, do it now. The last quiz had some horrifying grades and I hope I don't have to write numbers as low as those again."
Daenerys Targaryen had already started studying. She always preferred to start early to make her midterms week less stressful. She stretched her neck to copy the last equation from the blackboard, trying to focus on it despite the people walking before her, but was unable to ignore a curly-haired guy talking to Professor Selmy next to the blackboard. He had his back turned to her and was pointing anxiously at a paper in his hand while the professor shook his head. He rubbed the nape of his neck and looked at the floor as the professor talked to him with a furrowed brow.
She finished writing down the equation, and when she glanced back at them, Professor Selmy was pointing at her while he continued to talk to the boy. He turned to look at her. Dany blinked and averted her eyes from them, thinking that the professor must have been pointing at someone else, and started to put her things away. The boy had a comely face, though, so such a brief meeting of gazes had not been entirely unpleasant.
Before leaving the classroom, she glanced back to Selmy and noticed the boy was no longer with him. And so, she left.
The corridor's tall ceilings and large windows evidenced how Westeros University was one of the oldest schools in the country. Its majestic architecture was one of the many reminders of the responsibility that carried attending such an important school. She was heading towards the staircase when she heard a husky voice say, "Sorry, um…hi."
Dany turned. It was the boy from class.
"Hi," she replied.
He was cuter from up close. He had full lips, a short beard, and the upper part of his forehead was covered by small black curls.
"P-Professor Selmy was just talking to me about you. Daenerys, right?"
"Yes," she blinked. "What was he saying about me?"
"See, I'm kind of…failing Calculus," he started, looking down. "I'm really worried about my midterms, and Professor Selmy said you're the top of his class...and, I don't wanna bother you but, I don't know, maybe you have good summaries or a study guide." He stuttered as he scratched his arm. "Of-of course I could pay you for them…" She let out a small laugh at his proposal. "I just need to pass this midterm."
She gave him a sad smile. She was the top of her class on almost every subject. She could not imagine how it must feel to fail one.
"Sure," she said. "I'll give you my notes, maybe you'd like to take pictures of them? Free of charge, of course."
"Really?"
She nodded.
"I have another class now. But let's exchange numbers and later today you can take the pictures."
"Sure, perfect." He took his phone out of his pocket after she did. "Tha-thank you. I'll cram those notes all week, I'm truly failing this class."
"Which topics are the hardest for you?"
"Well, a couple of them." He paused and let out a nervous laugh. "Most of them, actually."
"Solving exercises? With demonstrations? With theorems?" she asked as she saved her number on his phone.
"With…the three of them, yes," he chuckled. "Solving exercises, mostly…I think."
"I could help you out," she said, and her cheeks warmed up. She didn't even know him. "I could teach you how to solve some exercises if you want."
"You could?" his eyes widened. "Are you sure? Midterms are next week, I don't want to take much time from you."
"No problem. I finish class today at five. Maybe we could meet at nine?"
"Okay, sure. Thanks a lot, really," he replied, and his lips curved into a smile. His expression so far had been anything but cheerful. It was a nice change. "I'm Jon, by the way."
"I'm Daenerys."
"I know," he nodded. "Professor Selmy told me."
"Right," she smiled and looked down.
They agreed to meet in a study room at nine. Daenerys arrived early to go through her material and highlight the most important topics. A light tingling invaded her stomach. What was it that had her so nervous? Spending the next couple of hours alone with a stranger? His pretty face? She was marking some derivative exercises when she saw Jon through the glass wall approaching the room and waving at her. He opened the glass door and entered the room.
"Hello," he said, and hesitated over which seat to take. His hand held the back of the chair next to her but quickly let go of it.
"Hey. Just sit wherever you want," she invited. He ended up pulling back the chair next to her, which gave rise to a smile on her lips. "How are you?" she asked. "Have you had any classes before this?"
Jon shook his head. "Just Calculus today. And you?"
"Consumer Theory, it's driving me nuts," she cackled. "Have you already taken it?"
"Oh, no, um..." He scratched his jaw. "I-I don't really have to take that one, I..."
Maybe she wanted to get to know him before she only talked about calculus for a while, or maybe something about his face was drawing her to him. She liked meeting new people, and was certainly interested in getting a peek behind that nervous outer layer of Jon.
"I don't know why I assumed you also study economics. So, finance, then?"
"No," he shook his head as he pulled his notebook out of his backpack. "You're gonna laugh when I tell you."
"Laugh?!" she grinned. "Why?"
"'Cause..." he chuckled, looking at his notebook as he opened it, "'cause Calculus for Economics has nothing to do with my major. I'm-I'm...a...I study Philosophy."
"Really?! That's so interesting. You're the first philosophy major I've met." He smiled, met her gaze and looked down at his notebook right away. Maybe getting to know him wouldn't be as easy as she had hoped. "It's great that you're taking this as an elective, then! Math is necessary for every major. But... why Calculus for Economics, specifically?"
"Oh, man," he said, still looking down. "I…I was supposed to take a basic calculus course but accidentally got registered in this one."
Dany's eyes widened. Basic Calculus was an extremely easy class, no wonder why he was having such a hard time. He finally looked up at her and smiled, maybe waiting for her to reply. But the softness that his smile beamed clouded her mind, making her stumble with her reply.
"Wo-wow," she said after a moment, and felt quite stupid. She didn't know if she was more surprised by the mistake in his enrollment or how he had left her speechless. "Ho-how did that happen?"
"Well, I'd heard that Selmy was a good professor for Basic Calculus. When I was enrolling in my classes, I was looking at his class schedules and saw he had a class at eleven a.m.. I registered right away. I didn't realize it wasn't the same course." Jon covered his grin of embarrassment with his hand, shutting his eyes. "I know...That wasn't smart."
She chuckled and shook her head. "Nah, come on. We all make mistakes. We'll work hard tonight, then. I'm gonna make you pass this exam."
"Thank you, really. I...I guess you study economics, then?"
"I do."
"Well, it makes sense that you're taking this course." He turned the pages in his notebook again. "Believe me, this won't help me philosophize."
Talking to others didn't make her nervous as it did to many people—what did make her nervous were exams, presentations, essays, everything that had to do with her future. She could always pull a new topic of conversation out of her sleeve in less than a second. However, Jon did make her nervous. She couldn't find words to continue the conversation.
So, she was only able to say, "So, what topic would you like to review first?"
"Bessel functions, I think. Or Laurent series. Or…limits, maybe?"
She held back a giggle.
"Alright, we'll start with limits."
"Sorry," he sighed. "I know I suck at this."
"No, it's fine," she assured him. "You'll pass, you'll see."
He put on his glasses. Dany bit her lip. They made him look even more attractive. She blinked, looked down at her notebook and tried to focus. She started by writing down a couple of equations for him to solve. He did the first one but got stuck on the second one. She watched his fingers, long and boney, as he rolled his pencil between his hands while he focused on the equation with narrowed eyes. She put her elbow on the table to rest her face on her hand while she looked down at his notebook.
"Wait," he said. "This one's a bit harder."
"Take your time."
He rested his pencil on his lower lip while he thought of the answer, which made Dany's eyes drift to his mouth for a few seconds. He glanced at her and she looked away sheepishly, hoping he hadn't caught her staring at his lips.
"Does it…" he furrowed his brow, "Does it converge to zero?"
"It does! How did you figure that out?"
"If…the n in the denominator grows, or…tends to infinity, the fraction gets…"
"Smaller, yes. It tends to zero."
"Okay," Jon said, adjusting his glasses and writing an annotation about it. He turned the page and toyed with his pencil once more. "What about the dominated convergence theorem? Could you quickly explain to me what it is about?"
Dany explained to him a couple of theorems while he listened carefully. She drew charts in his notebook to help him understand. She even had to remind him about some basic math concepts and rules to explain in depth the most advanced theorems. He looked a bit embarrassed at times for not knowing basic stuff, but she tried to play it cool to not make him feel bad. She talked and talked and talked more while he responded at times with short words: 'yes', 'okay', 'sure', 'makes sense', 'wait, why?' He asked 'why' often. Well, she guessed, philosophers question everything.
"I-I think I finally get this," he told her.
"I hope you do, this is the first time I've actually given a whole lecture to somebody," she joked.
Their knees were touching. She did not make an effort to move hers, though, and neither did he.
"Yeah, you just told me the whole history of mathematics and for some reason, I'm the one who is exhausted."
"Is this the only mathematics course you have to take?"
He shook his head. "Philosophy of Mathematics, too. But I have to take it next year. It's not too numerical, though. It's much more theoretical."
"Is it popular among philosophers?"
"Sort of, but more among mathematicians, I think. You got great thinkers there, though: Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle..."
"Oh, Pythagoras! Sure, the one of the theorem…"
"Yes, the triangle one."
They laughed and their eyes met. A funny tingle rushed down to her stomach as he held her gaze. She turned her body slightly towards him, unconsciously, as if an invisible string was pulling them closer together. "Do you have a favorite course here?"
"I like History...and Philosophy, of course. Anything that helps you understand humankind."
"You would love economics then!"
"Well, anything that helps you understand humankind that doesn't involve math," he joked.
She laughed out loud. "Our majors are not that different, actually."
"Aren't they?"
"I don't know much about philosophy, but...humanities and social sciences...both kinda have the same purpose. Both try to understand people, to explain things, to look for solutions. We just follow science a bit more than you guys, that's all."
Jon grinned. Her attention went straight to his mouth and then back up to his eyes, hoping he hadn't noticed. "Y-you social scientists rely too much on science, though."
"Do we?" Dany smiled. "Is that wrong?"
"It's not, but...you leave critical thinking a bit aside."
Dany stayed silent for a second. "I can't deny that."
"You...you start your theorems and equations w-with too many assumptions."
"Have you been questioning the assumptions of the theorems I've been teaching you?" she grinned.
"A bit." Dany laughed, he did too. "How do you guys know those assumptions are correct?"
"We don't," she replied. "In fact, in economics, most of the time they aren't. But it's the easiest way to solve problems. In calculus, they are true, though."
"How do you know?"
"They're absolute truths. We demonstrate them all with equations. In the social sciences, though, assumptions are far from being absolute truths."
He nodded and her gaze lingered on his. A silence filled the room, maybe the first one in the night, given how much she had spoken. Apparently, they were both eager to break it, because they both spoke at the same time:
"And, the maths have..."
"Your hair looks pretty," he said in a tight voice, so quickly it took her a second to understand what he had said.
"My…hair?"
He looked down. "Yeah. I don't know, my sister told me to compliment a girl's hair if I think she's pretty and…" He stopped talking abruptly.
Dany blushed. She also thought he was attractive, but wouldn't say it like that when they had just met. Well, it was an accident, she thought. He had spat it out awkwardly. He seemed too shy to be so bold. She was trying to find what to say to make him feel less embarrassed, but nothing came to her besides, "Tha...thank you."
She let out a tiny chuckle and looked down at her notebook. Should she also state in some way that she found him attractive? Embarrassment pushed her back from doing so, though. When she looked up at him, she forced a tiny smile and he responded with another one. To her surprise, he lowered his gaze to her lips and held it there. Her skin turned warm again. She gasped a nervous laugh and pushed a loose lock of hair behind her ear as she looked down.
"I..." she cleared her throat. "I have a couple of summaries of these theorems. You can take pictures of them with your phone if you want."
"Okay, thank you." He scratched the back of his neck. She handed him a couple of sheets and he grabbed his phone to take pictures. Once again, neither of them said a word. She had been talking to this guy for hours and now neither of them could say a single word.
She worried they wouldn't talk again after tonight, it was too embarrassing for both. She was even slightly annoyed; she was helping him study and he had wanted to kiss her? Did he only ask her for her help for this? She dismissed the thought, his grades were terrible, he did have a valid reason to ask for her help and she had seen Professor Selmy point her out to him. And did she not want to kiss him too? She could not kid herself, maybe in another situation, like a party, she would have kissed him.
He finished taking the pictures and gave her the papers back. They were both sitting still, quietly. She looked down at her notebook and pretended she was reading her notes.
"Hey, thanks, Daenerys," he finally said. "This was really useful to me."
He gave her a warm smile, despite the tension in the room, and she mirrored it without thought.
He put his notebook away and she did the same. She thought about what would happen from now on: They would say goodbye, each of them would go to their own way, and would not speak again. He certainly would not, at least, given how shy he was. So, she guessed this was in her hands. The way she said goodbye would be the way things would end between them: either avoiding each other for the rest of the semester in class or keeping on talking.
"It's okay," she said, "By the way, no one calls me Daenerys. So just say Dany, it's better." He smiled immediately.
As they walked out of the library, she thought again about the two options: avoiding each other completely or keeping on talking. So, she said, "If you want to review some more stuff now, we could maybe...go somewhere else?"
"At midnight? Where?"
Time had flown by. It was already midnight. But she did not want to leave him just yet. Not when they had almost kissed.
"Anywhere," she said. "My room, for instance. My roommate is at a party right now. We could review some more topics."
She couldn't believe what she had just said, and apparently, he couldn't believe it either, judging by how his eyes widened.
"O...okay, okay," he stuttered. "I guess I could do some more calculus for a while."
The tension eased as they walked across the campus, down a large brick road under the dark night. Tall lamps were the only source of light when the campus got so dark and quiet. This was an opportunity to talk a bit about something unrelated to mathematics, which they had already done enough. First, they talked about the easiest subject: the weather. Some days King's Landing was extremely hot, some days it was cloudy and cold. Then, they talked about school: if they liked it, what courses were they taking, and if they liked their professors. Then, about where they were from. He was much less talkative than her.
When they arrived at her room, she didn't want to talk about calculus again. Perhaps he didn't, either, because he didn't like math. She led him inside and he sat on the couch. Her room had one bed on each side, two bureaus, two desks, a mini fridge, a coat hanger, a couch, and a sink. It was enough for her. The beds were unmade, especially Missandei's, and their desks were filled with stacks of books, especially Dany's.
She sat down next to him on the couch as he turned the pages of his notebook. She didn't take out any of her material this time.
"Maybe we could focus on integrals? I'm struggling with the most basic ones, I don't know how I'll deal with double integrals."
She turned her body to face him. "They're not that different, really. If you understand the simple ones you'll have no trouble when there's two of them."
He stared at his notebook while she stared at his face. The movement of his lips seemed like an invitation for more while he talked about a theorem she couldn't focus in. She had been staring at them for hours, the whole evening, and whenever she wanted to think about something else, they yanked her attention back to them. He had called her pretty. He had been staring at her lips. Did he want to kiss her too, then? A part of her desperately wanted to find out.
"And what about two definite integrals?" he interrupted her thoughts. "How do I split the equation in two? Or do I solve the integrals on the right first and then the-"
She cupped his cheek and gave him a chaste kiss on the mouth. She pulled away and he looked at her in awe, his hands still on his notebook. She couldn't believe it. She had never been this reckless in her life.
"I'm sorry!" she blurted out. "God, I don't know why I-"
This time he cut her off and leaned in to kiss her. He grabbed her face with both hands and gave her a long, soft kiss. She posed her trembling fingers in the back of his neck and deepened the kiss.
The door suddenly flung open and they pulled apart hastily.
"Shit!" Missandei shouted. "Shit, shit! Dany, sorry, sorry!" She was holding a guy's hand at the door, both clearly drunk. Jon and Dany sat motionlessly. "We're going to your room," she told the guy without hesitation.
"But it's on the other side of campus!" he complained.
"We're going to your room. My roommate hasn't fucked anyone ever, so don't think I'll ruin this night for her!"
"Missandei!" Dany yelled.
"I'm serious, Dany. You guys stay." Missandei pulled the guy out of the room and shut the door loudly.
Once again, silence filled the room.
"You have a lovely roommate," Jon joked.
Dany covered her face with her hand. "Sorry about that. I..."
"It's okay. Don't worry."
Again, silence.
He stared at the floor with his hands on his knees, thoughtful, before saying, "I should get going. I have to..." His voice quavered as he put his notebook away. "I have to wake up early tomorrow."
"Okay," she replied. What else could she say? She didn't want him to leave, but she wouldn't beg him to stay in her room either.
He stood up and put his backpack on his shoulders. "Thank you again. Seriously. It's been so kind of you."
When he was about to leave, he stopped at the door frame and turned to her. He rubbed his hands down his hips. Were they as sweaty as hers?
"Let's…go…out?" he asked. She wanted to laugh at the way he asked it, but only nodded with a smile. He smiled back and scratched his arm. "Whenever you want, then," he said.
If it could be whenever she wanted, she would say the following day, but she had to start studying without any distractions.
"After midterms?" she asked.
His mouth parted with a tiny smile, but no words came out. His head moved in small, quick nods.
"Okay," he only said.
And before he closed the door to leave, she said, "Jon?" But she had nothing to say, she had just blurted out his name in the hopes of him staying a bit longer. "Please don't fail that midterm," she improvised.
"The hell I will," he said, and gave her the last smile of the night, the most confident one of them all, and turned to leave.
She let out a laugh as he closed the door behind him.