The Heart of Him

OWT

Piping hot coffee slides down Zayn's throat and warms his insides, tongue long since burnt by the cup prior.

It's 8:55 AM and the educator's seriously considering getting up from behind his desk and locking his office door so he can take a kip on the couch that's situated against the room's left wall. He couldn't be called unprofessional if it was only for fifteen minutes. That's all he needs until the morning's second round of caffeine hits.

Knock, knock, knock.

It was a nice fantasy while it lasted.

"Is it alright if I come in?" Liam's head pokes through the small gap in the door that's widened thanks to the pressure of his knuckles hitting the wood.

All Zayn can muster up is a "yeah" in reply, but as soon as Liam accepts his invitation and steps through the room's threshold, he's feeling a bit more alert.

Unlike the last time he saw the man, Liam's dressed down entirely. He's got a pair of dark blue jeans on instead of smart trousers, and a plain white t-shirt underneath a grey bomber jacket. It's the kind of outfit that a preppy jock might wear, not an Oxford PhD student that probably had an IQ that puts him in Mensa. With the breaking of stereotypes and early timing, Zayn's fascinated by this Liam Payne.

"You alright?" He greets once the man's closed the door behind him and picks the right chair in front of Zayn's desk to sit in.

"Good, yeah," Liam smiles widely, and it's then that Zayn notices more than the other's ensemble; his skin doesn't look bogged down by the early hour of the day like Zayn knows his does, it looks as awake as ever.

Feeling slightly insecure about his own appearance now that he's in front of someone who's practically radiating, Zayn takes another sip of his coffee and hopes for the best. "Didn't have any problem finding the place then?"

"Not at all," Liam responds quickly. "I always cut through the side street next to this building to get to Sainsbury's. Besides, Oxford's a pretty small place. It's hard to get lost."

A short chuckle falls from Zayn's lips, "Says who? I've been here less than a month, and I've had to count on walking directions from my maps app to get me around more times than I'd like to admit."

"You're new to town?"

There's pure intrigue in Liam's tone and expression at the discovery that Zayn reveres. It was a simple fact derived from inference, yet it seemed to fascinate Liam as if it was something much grander.

"Only moved up from London two weeks before the first day of term," Zayn answers, watching Liam transfer the small black backpack that he brought with him, from the floor, to the unoccupied chair on his left.

"Where'd you teach there?"

"Oh no," Zayn's quick to correct, his eyes snapping over to Liam's. "I just finished my own PhD in July. This is my first position out of school."

Astonished, the medical student's eyebrows shoot up. "Your first teaching job is at Oxford?"

"I still don't believe it's real," Zayn chuckles. "And yet, we're sitting in my office."

When the man's eyes trail around the room that he still needs to get around to decorating, Liam's' follow. While the office might not be the largest, Zayn holds as much pride for it as if it was a one room mansion. It took him a hell of a lot of hard work to be able to have his name on the plaque outside, but he also isn't blind to the fact that it's just as much luck that impressed one of his PhD advisors so much, that she forwarded his final thesis to a friend. A friend that just so happened to now be his current boss.