Beneath Their Devotion (Yanderes x Reader)

1.25 Bathroom Break

There were certain things Y/N had come to expect from her routine. The chatter of full lecture halls, the stiff-backed chairs in the east wing classroom where the windows never quite closed properly, the droning voices of professors who thought enthusiasm was a personality trait. And, lately—more often than not—she'd come to expect Ren.

She wasn't sure when it started. When his presence had become... frequent. He always sat beside her now. Every shared class brought the same low murmurs between them, shared notes, the occasional comment that made her laugh under her breath. And he never imposed himself. He asked, gently and in such a charming way, always, and yet she never found herself saying no.

She was starting to realise she didn't want to.

Their walk back to her dorm after class had been as she'd come to gotten used to. The kind of easy conversation that slipped into place without effort, steps aligned, conversations drifting from the material to strange hypotheticals about failed experiments and which historical figure would've made the worst baker or something stupid like that. She laughed more when Ren was around. And not the polite kind, either. The real, from the gut kind that felt like it had been starved for months.

When they got to her dorm, she unlocked the door with a, "It's a mess, sorry," even though she'd cleaned the night before... just in case.

Ren smiled, the corners of his eyes soft. "Oh? I'll try not to trip over your chaos."

The inside of her dorm was quiet. Y/N peeled off her coat and kicked her boots toward the side. She gestured toward the desk table stacked with papers and highlighters.

"I have to study," she said, only a little apologetically. "A big test coming up."

"I figured," Ren replied, shrugging off his jacket with an ease that suggested he'd planned to stay a while. "That's why I brought snacks."

He pulled out a small bag from his tote—two wrapped muffins, a thermos of tea, and a pack of honey chews—like some absurdly charming domestic magician. Y/N blinked, caught off guard.

"Did you plan this?"

"I plan everything," he said half smirking, taking a seat beside her. "You just don't notice."

The truth was, he did have a knack for knowing what she needed before she realised it. A bottle of water pushed her way when she looked a shade too pale. An extra pencil the moment hers gave out. A gentle comment when she didn't know she was holding her breath. She hadn't questioned it before.

Now, she still didn't.

They settled into a comfortable silence. Y/N leaned over her notes, head resting on one palm, pen scribbling half formed thoughts. Ren sat beside her, their shoulders almost—almost—brushing, occasionally reaching out to adjust her formula sheet or point something out in the margin.

He was patient. God, he was so patient. He explained things twice without condescension. He never interrupted, never talked over her. He let her think— really think—until her eyes lit up with the answer and she looked at him with that startled kind of joy like she couldn't believe she'd gotten it right.

She thought she was fairly smart, but Ren seemed to be on another level.

She didn't say it out loud, but it stunned her a little. That she could enjoy studying. That learning, with him, could feel like this.

At some point, she realised how close they were sitting. But it wasn't uncomfortable. It was something. Nice?

"By the way," Ren said softly, during a lull when she rubbed at her temples and muttered something about her brain turning to soup, "has anything out of the ordinary happened lately?"