Chapter Text
The office smells of worn leather, the dust of old papers, and cold tea long forgotten, sitting on the edge of the brown leather desk pad, just beside a paperweight shaped like a globe, cracked by the years. A desk lamp casts a tired, yellow light, carving thick shadows on the walls covered with bookshelves, unstable filing cabinets, and annotated, worn books. Sitting straight in his chair, shoulders stiff and breath short, Dean Edward Blake waits. He no longer looks at his screen. He no longer drinks. He doesn’t even really think anymore. He waits for someone to pick up.
On the receiver against his ear, the robotic voice keeps repeating in mechanical patience: “Please hold, we will connect you with the Ministry.” He has been waiting for eight minutes, unmoving, his gaze lost between the lamp and the half-open drawer in front of him. Eight more minutes to tremble, to swallow doubts, to contain the dizziness. He made the decision three days ago, rereading for the last time what he has known for months already. He saw the names. He understood what they implicated. What some had done. What he had allowed to happen. And what others, younger, more vulnerable, had paid for without ever having the right to explain themselves.
He could have kept all of this to himself. Closed the drawer, put the evidence in an envelope, and pretended he had seen nothing. But it is too late to backtrack now. He has prepared everything. The testimonies, the copies, the recordings. A sealed envelope. A programmed message in his email inbox. And in his right hand, slightly tightened, he grips a small black USB drive, barely larger than a lighter, on which the weight of his redemption rests.
He breathes slowly, maybe too slowly. His other hand glides for a moment over his shirt, distractedly caressing the folds, as if he is trying to calm a dull ache under his ribs. He closes his eyes, for just a second, then opens them again. The line crackles. A click resonates.
A human voice, finally: “Mr. Blake?”
He doesn't have time to respond.
The pain pierces his chest without warning, brutal, stunning, like a blade silently thrust under his sternum. He opens his eyes wide, his mouth too, gasping for air, clutching at the fabric of his shirt as if he could tear the pain away with his bare hands. The receiver slips from his fingers, bounces off the desk, rolls onto the carpet. And the USB drive, until then firmly gripped in his fist, escapes him just as he attempts to rise, slipping between his fingers, ricocheting off the edge of the furniture, and slowly disappearing beneath the large wooden cabinet against the wall. No one sees it. No one knows it is there.
Blake stumbles. His legs give way, his knee hits the edge of the desk, he makes one last gesture, one last word—but nothing comes out. Just a muffled groan, strangled. The heart pounds, then stops dead.
He collapses.
The body rolls onto its side, inert, heavy, dislocated. Silence falls like a leaden shroud, broken only by the regular hissing of the still-active phone line, and by the rapid breaths of the dean, who is no longer one. A final spasm barely lifts his shoulder. Then nothing.
Beneath the cabinet, invisible in the shadow, the USB drive lies in the dust, motionless.
***
He dies this morning, while Louis hesitates between two font styles for his next article. The news has not yet reached him, of course. He knows nothing. He is unaware that the dean lies in his office for several hours now, that the machine has stopped beating while the campus is still asleep, that the coffee slowly cools next to his fallen arm against the floor. No, at this hour, Louis compares the size of the characters in a Word file, annoyed because the title does not fit on a single line. He takes a sip of coffee that is too hot, barely burns himself, softly swears in the silence of the house. He focuses on the details, on those small things that give the illusion of control.
It has been two months since classes resumed, and Louis Tomlinson keeps up the pace. He submits his assignments on time, keeps his grades afloat, and above all, he invests body and soul into the journalism club. Every week, he suggests topics, sometimes mundane, sometimes more ambitious. He writes everything they give him to write. Columns, short news pieces, profiles of associations. Nothing spectacular, but enough to feel useful. Enough to believe that he is making progress.
This morning, like almost every other morning, he leaves his parents' house a little too early, with a cup of too hot coffee in one hand, his phone in the other, and his headphones on. He boards the bus, barely glancing at the passersby, his eyes fixed on the screen. A note on rising prices at the university restaurant. Another idea, more vague, about the disappearance of certain options for the practical sessions this year. He searches. He digs. But for the past few days, everything seems flat to him.
And it is precisely that morning that something changes.
When he gets off the bus, he immediately notices the commotion in front of the main entrance. A police car, a fire truck, two ambulances—no sirens, but still present. A handful of officers in uniform, a man in a dark suit, a group of students gathered in front of the gates, some speaking in low voices, others remaining silent, their arms crossed over their chests. He takes out an earbud, slows down slightly. This is not a demonstration. Not a fire alarm. The atmosphere is too frozen, too serious. He stops for a second, observes. Then he resumes walking without truly trying to understand.
He could stop. Ask. But he prefers to move forward. Maybe by reflex, maybe from a distance. He pushes the side door, enters the almost deserted hall, the sound of his steps echoing against the walls. The air is cooler inside. Calmer. He removes his headphones, puts them in his pocket, and heads to his locker with a steady stride, still processing ideas in his head.
And that’s when Niall bursts in.
“Louis! Did you hear?”
Louis turns around, raises an eyebrow. Niall looks anxious, breathing a bit short, his gaze unfocused.
“No… what?”
“Blake. The dean. He died this morning. Apparently, a heart attack.”
A silence settles. Louis stays frozen, his hand on the door of his locker. He doesn’t say anything, not right away. Not because he doubts. But because he assimilates.
Blake. The dean.
He didn’t know him well, but he knew his name, his reputation, his upright silhouette in the hallways, his pompous speeches at the beginning of the semester. The kind of man you think is unmovable. More of a figure than a person. And now… nothing.
“Damn…” he breathes. “This morning?”
Niall nods.
“Yeah. A maintenance worker found him in his office. The emergency services arrived early. It came out there, ten minutes ago.”
Louis slowly acquiesces. He does not feel shocked. Not really sad either. But there is a sense of floating. He thinks of a box in the campus section, a sober announcement at the top of the next edition. Maybe an official tribute. Then, almost immediately, the idea sprouts—could he make it an article? Is it his place? Is it… inappropriate?
He does not know yet. He barely thinks about it. But it settles somewhere, gently, between silence and the mechanical gesture of opening his locker. No doubt. Not yet. Just this question, almost technical, that crosses his mind: Should one write about a man who has just died when one does not really know him?
And, without waiting for an answer, he closes the metal door and heads back toward the stairs. He walks past Blake's office twice. Three times, actually, if you count the time he lingers longer, his notebook pressed against his chest, looking like he is not really watching. Nothing moves. The door remains closed. He does not exactly know what he is trying to grasp—a particular silence, a sensation in the air, a crack in the decor—but there is nothing. Just this diffuse feeling that the place has become heavier than before, as if death has seeped into the walls without leaving a visible trace.
He ends up walking away without having seen anything, heard anything, noted anything. He is hungry. And his head hurts. He finds Niall in the cafeteria, joined by Liam and Zayn, as often happens on Wednesday afternoons.
They take a table in the back, each with a tray, and talk about something else for the first few minutes—a professor they can't stand, the heat in the lecture halls, the last party canceled by the prefecture. Louis stays a bit apart, lost in thought, picking at his meal without really touching it. Then the conversation returns to Blake.
"It hits hard, though," Liam says, spearing a cherry tomato with his fork.
"Yeah," Niall replies. "Even if I didn't like him that much, it's still... brutal."
Zayn shrugs. "I heard them arguing last week."
Silence settles around the table. Three pairs of eyes turn toward him.
Zayn looks up, blinks. "What?"
Liam raises a hand. "Wait, wait, you heard them arguing, who?"
Zayn shrugs, as if it is obvious.
“Yeah… the dean. And Chambers.”
A brief silence. Then Niall slowly puts his fork down.
“Chambers, like Professor Chambers? The literature professor?”
Zayn nods without thinking.
“Yeah. They were in the hallway behind Lecture Hall E, I think. It surprised me because the dean never raises his voice, you know? He was saying something like ‘you don’t understand’ or some crazy thing like that. And Chambers was responding super calmly, but like… too calm. Cold. It was weird.”
Louis says nothing.
Liam chuckles. “Sounds like the start of a poorly written thriller.”
But Louis is still not laughing. He stares at his plate without seeing it, one hand pressed against his thigh, fingers slightly trembling. Niall leans toward him.
“Are you okay?”
Louis nods, but his mind is already racing.
The dean and Chambers argued a few days before his death. He’s somewhere on campus. He might know something.
And that is a real story.
Liam eventually tilts his head towards Louis, a fry stuck between two fingers. “But wait... Chambers, isn’t he one of your professors?”
Louis barely lifts his eyes. “Yes.”
He reflects for a few seconds before adding, more to himself than to others: "He doesn’t seem like the type to have trouble. He’s calm, he’s professional. He helps quite a few students, really."
Zayn straightens a little.
"Well, in fact, there’s a guy in my class who spends a lot of time with him."
Niall furrows his brows. "Who?"
Zayn raises his brows, seeming not to understand why it interests him so much.
"Harry Styles. A tall curly-haired guy. He's like... super discreet, but you can’t miss him."
Liam shakes his head. "I don’t know him."
Louis, on the other hand, does not respond immediately. He visualizes the face in his head. The hair, the silence, the way he always sits at the back of the classrooms.
"We have a few classes together," he finally says. "I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him."
Zayn continues, without noticing the change in Louis’s voice:
"Anyway. I’ve often seen Chambers with Harry. And especially, Harry is always late for History. It’s right after Chambers’ class."
Louis squints. One detail catches his attention.
"Chambers never lets us out late. He always finishes on time. Even a bit early."
Silence returns for a few seconds around the table, but this time, it has changed in nature. It’s no longer a silence of digestion. It’s a light, floating void, an invisible thread that seems to gently pull on something.
Louis says nothing more, but in his head, things are already spinning.
***
His last class of the day ends at three o'clock. Louis doesn't even bother to linger; he hastily packs his things, skips down the steps two at a time, and leaves the building without a word. The sun beats down hard on the pavement, but the air remains cool. He crosses the courtyard without slowing down, heads into a small street he knows by heart, and pushes open the glass door of the police station as if he is entering his own home.
At the reception, he is barely greeted, but with a smile.
"Hey, Louis."
He responds with a quick nod, almost military, then crosses the corridor to a desk with blinds always halfway down. He knocks twice, not really expecting a response.
"Come in."
He pushes the door open. A smile immediately stretches across the lips of the man behind the desk.
"Ah, Louis."
"Hi, Dad."
The man stands up, walks around the desk, and offers his hand before changing his mind and pulling him briefly into his arms. Same slender build, same straightforward, mischievous look, and above all those clear eyes, blue like steel, that gaze without ever truly hurting.
Captain Tomlinson has undoubtedly aged, but he retains that natural presence, that way of occupying space without raising his voice. He has the calm charisma of those you don't often contradict, and an ironical sense carved from the same material as his son's.
Louis sits down without waiting for an invitation, as always.
"The dean is dead," he simply says.
His father nods, looking serious.
"I saw the report come through this morning."
Silence settles in. Louis crosses his legs, fingers resting on the armrest, feigning relaxation.
Captain Tomlinson sighs, then looks up at him with a piercing gaze.
"You’re not going to tell me you’ve come to extract information for your damn newspaper."
Louis grins wide enough to fill a shop window. "What, me?"
His father rolls his eyes, but a corner of his lips lifts despite himself. He opens a drawer, takes out one file, then another, but his movements are slow, almost mechanical. Louis watches silently, chin resting on his palm, keen gaze fixed. He knows his father by heart: the heavy silences, the too-long sighs, the way he tries to suppress what he knows.
"Nothing conclusive for now," he finally admits. "No signs of forced entry, no signs of a struggle. The colleagues found the body in his office, collapsed on the floor, phone beside him."
Louis slightly furrows his brow. "Did he call someone?"
“Apparently. But the phone got damaged when it fell. There might be a recording on the switchboard line. We’ll see.”
Louis takes note of this information in the back of his mind, without moving.
His father looks up at him again, his tone more firm:
“Louis, it’s an ordinary death. It happens. There’s nothing more to it.”
But Louis gently shakes his head, a small smile on his lips.
“I know he had an argument with a teacher a few days before.”
The captain sighs, long this time, leaning back against the backrest of his chair.
Louis looks at him like a child who knows he has already gained some ground.
“Come on… it doesn’t hurt to look. Unless he really had a heart condition.”
Silence. Then his father gently slams the back of his chair.
“We don’t have his medical record yet.” He pauses, crossing his arms. “Come on, run home. We’ll deal with this later. You know the term confidential, right?”
Louis laughs a bit, grabbing his bag with a smooth motion. “Never heard of it.”
He stands up, waves goodbye to his father, and slips away as he came, his heart pounding a little too quickly, a sly smile, and an idea already beginning to take shape.
***
The sound of cutlery clicks softly against the porcelain. Louis places one last plate on the tablecloth, adjusting a rebellious corner of the placemat with an automatic gesture. His mother bustles behind him, focused on the gratin, while the warm smell of melted cheese gradually fills the room. Everything is calm. Ordinary. Familiar.
The front door opens with a discreet draft, and Louis lifts his head immediately. He hears footsteps, the rustling of a coat, the jingle of a set of keys.
“Hi, Dad,” he says with a sly smile.
But upon meeting his father's gaze, the smile fades.
His features are pinched. His shoulders, heavy. And in his eyes, there is neither mischief nor amusement.
“What’s wrong?” Louis asks, frowning.
The captain drops his bag near the sideboard, runs a hand over his face, and then fixes Louis directly in the eye.
“You're a smart boy. So I'm not going to beat around the bush. The dean. He wasn't cardiac.”
Louis narrows his eyes, arms still crossed against the back of a chair.
"So, what are you thinking?”
His father sighs and slowly sits down, his coat still on his shoulders. His voice remains calm, measured, almost weary.
“You know me, Louis. And you know the police. Not enough evidence, no desire to dig, no time. So… we’ll wait for the information from the phone. Then we’ll see.”
Louis grits his teeth. “And what if the phone comes up empty?”
“Then it’s a closed case.”
His mother places a basket of bread at the center of the table, without saying a word. Her husband kisses her gently on the forehead before taking off his coat, settling in as if nothing is wrong, grabbing a cloth napkin and starting to unfold it.
Louis, meanwhile, stands quietly for a few seconds. He finishes adjusting the last plate, slowly, with precise movements.
He has always been used to concocting theories, imagining absurd scenarios in his head, inventing culprits, motives, invisible chains he alone understands. Like his father did when he was younger. But sometimes, he knows, he also makes too much of things.
He sits down as well. And while his parents discuss dinner, the overcooked bread, tomorrow's schedule, Louis keeps replaying that simple phrase in his head: He wasn’t cardiac.
***
The political science building bathes in the pale morning light, filtered by the large windows with worn glass. Louis enters the amphitheater as usual, notebook under his arm, pen wedged between his teeth, and settles in the middle, where he can see without being too visible. The geopolitics class starts in a few minutes, and the atmosphere is a bit more tense than usual. Students whisper, rumors circulate in muffled conversations. Louis quite enjoys this class. Chambers is one of the few professors who does not teach as if he is reciting Wikipedia. He tells stories, he constructs, he enlightens, he encourages thinking. And above all, he never looks down on his students, which is rare here.
When Chambers enters, a murmur fades with a single breath. The professor puts down his bag, adjusts his collar, and addresses the room without preamble.
"I suppose you have all heard the news."
Silence thickens.
"Dean Blake passed away yesterday morning. A psychological support service is available starting today for those who might need it. The information is on your student portal."
He does not elaborate. No speeches. No superfluous emotion. Just the announcement and a breath heavier than usual before he continues: "We will pick up where we left off."
Louis notes the date, his fingers neatly aligned on the paper. But barely has the sentence ended when the door creaks softly, and a figure enters with a warm draft. A tall guy with curly hair, wrinkled jacket over his shoulders, eyes to the ground. He mumbles a "sorry for being late" without looking up.
And Chambers, who is usually strict about timing, says nothing. He doesn’t even look up. Or rather — Louis observes him with sudden acuity — he does look up, indeed. But not to correct or reprimand. To look. To really look. There is something in this gaze that is more than tolerance. A suspended attention. A fragment of silence directed at no one else in this room.
Harry Styles walks up the steps silently and sits in the middle. Louis has never really paid attention to him until now. A few classes together, a few hallway encounters, nothing more. But now that he associates him with something more vague, more fragile, he cannot help but watch.
Harry is calm, almost absent. He pulls out a notebook, no computer, no phone. He writes by hand, slowly, with a careful but casual gesture. Louis wonders for a moment if the dean’s death affects him, if it justifies his lateness, his slightly dazed look. Or… has he always been like this, simply invisible until Zayn mentioned him? Was he there all along, just outside Louis’ field of awareness?
He looks back at Chambers, then at Harry. He doesn’t yet know what he is searching for, but he is certain of one thing: that gaze, the professor does not direct at all his students. And now that he has noticed it, he knows he will never be able to forget it.
***
The sun filters through the bare branches, the light dances on the stone slabs. They sit outside, on a slightly warm wall, their lunch trays resting on their laps or on the ground. The air is brisk but not icy, still just mild enough for a break outside. It smells of damp leaves and warm bread, the last days of softness before the shift.
Zayn, crouched against the wall, unwraps a plastic box full of pasta with an indeterminate sauce, while Liam struggles with a sandwich that's too big for him. Niall, in his habitual fashion, nibbles on everything that comes his way, a can of soda wedged between his thighs. Louis chews absentmindedly, squinting at the light, his bag set just behind him, a notebook barely sticking out.
They talk about everything and nothing. About the ongoing exam reform, about that girl from biochemistry who might be dating the girl Niall has been interested in since the beginning of the year, about a presentation that Liam has been postponing for ten days already. Their laughter rises in gentle waves, words exchanged without stakes, until a figure passes in front of them, too quickly, too closely, in a gust of air that abruptly cuts off their chatter.
Harry Styles.
He strides across the courtyard, shoulders hunched, hands shoved into his pockets, a hood pulled over his curls. He doesn't look at anyone, eyes fixed on the ground, moving like someone fleeing without running. In the blink of an eye, he disappears behind the administrative building.
Louis swallows a bite without really chewing. He keeps his eyes on the corner of the wall, then turns to the others. “Since we talked about him yesterday, I see him everywhere.”
Zayn looks up, leans slightly towards Liam and Niall. “It's him, Harry Styles. The one I was telling you about.”
Liam frowns, chewing slowly. “He looked in a hurry.”
“Hmm.” Louis breathes out, thoughtful. He nudges a small stone with his foot. “He arrived late this morning.”
“Like half the university,” Liam replies with a sidelong smile.
“No, but… I think it’s the first time. I don’t really pay attention to him usually, but… Chambers is strict about timings. This morning, he didn’t say anything. He just looked at him walk in.”
Niall raises his eyebrows. “Maybe he had a personal problem. And Chambers was aware.”
Louis nods slowly. “Yeah… most likely.”
But his gaze remains fixed on the spot where Harry's silhouette has disappeared. The sun still warms his cheeks, but his mind is elsewhere. Something stirs gently in his head, a sensation not yet clear enough to alert him, but already too persistent to be ignored.
Louis distractingly wipes his hands on his jeans, pushes his half-empty tray aside, and stands up in one smooth motion, his gaze slightly blurred. “I have something to do.” He says it without insisting, as if it is obvious, and the others nod without asking questions. He then walks away, earbuds buried in his pockets, his pace quicker than when he came. The campus is calm, almost suspended in this midday break that students fill with lukewarm coffees, cigarettes, and autumn sighs.
He walks through the walkways, climbs the steps of the administrative wing, and joins, without really thinking, the professors' corridor. He knows what he is doing, but he doesn’t know what he is waiting for. He slows down in front of the dean's office door—or rather, in front of what is left of it. The crime scene tape blocks the entrance, stretched diagonally across the polished wood. The handle is covered with a plastic bag, and the golden plaque still bears the name Blake, as if nothing has changed.
Louis stops abruptly, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the absurd ribbon that turns a dean’s office into a crime scene. He can't say why he has come, only that something pushes him. A vague, dull tension. The kind of feeling that is hard to explain without sounding paranoid.
“Louis?”
The voice hardly surprises him. He turns around slowly.
Mrs. Comtoise stands a few steps away, a file against her chest, her blonde hair framing her face. She must be in her thirties, maybe a bit older. She teaches the humanities, with that infinite patience usually attributed to women who understand more than they say. Louis likes her well. She always seems to be listening for real.
“Are you okay?” she asks, raising her eyebrows slightly.
He hesitates for a second, then stammers a little, caught off guard: “Yes, I..."
She steps forward, tilting her head. “Did you want something?”
He bites the inside of his cheek, shrugs vaguely. “I'm just a little... shaken.”
She offers him a gentle smile, the kind given to a child who doesn't know how to articulate what he feels. She places a light, reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Do you want me to take you to see the psychologist? The office is open all week. This kind of news always has an impact.”
He gently shakes his head, unable to hold that excessively tender gaze. He searches for an exit, an excuse. Something that could justify his presence here beyond a vague malaise.
“Isn't it strange, though?” he whispers. “That he is dead like that. All of a sudden.”
She blinks, surprised. "A heart attack often comes without warning, Louis. You know, I lost an uncle like that; he was only forty-eight. It's hard to understand, but it's common."
He nods, not really convinced, not really wanting to insist. He would like to say more, but something holds him back. Or someone.
A deep, calm, familiar voice: "Is everything okay?"
He turns and sees Chambers approaching, dressed in a long charcoal coat, papers clutched against him. His gaze shifts from Louis to Madame Comtoise, curious but with no apparent tension. Louis feels his throat tighten for no specific reason. He swallows, too quickly.
"Yes." His voice almost trembles, but he quickly recovers: "I'm just a little unsettled, that's all. I'll go get some fresh air and try not to think too much about all this."
The two professors offer him a polite, understanding smile. Madame Comtoise gently taps his arm. Chambers nods. Louis does not stay. He turns on his heels, walks down the hallway, goes down the stairs. The air feels fresher, almost sharp. He buries his hands in his pockets, pulls up the hood of his sweatshirt, and walks a little faster, without looking back.
***
It has now been three days since Dean Blake died. Three days of vague articles, condolences messages, professors with tense faces, and hallways quieter than usual. Three days of whispered rumors, and gazes lingering a little longer in front of the locked offices. For three days, Louis tries to untangle what bothers him, without really finding any answers. And this morning, instead of preparing for his sports class, he stays stuck in front of his computer screen at the university library, forehead in hand and his gaze blurred, attempting to shape an acceptable form for his article.
In the end, he could only deliver a lukewarm tribute, carefully written but lackluster, followed by a page on the prevention of cardiovascular diseases. He has searched, probed, listened closely: no evidence, no solid facts. Just feelings. And feelings, they don't fill a page.
When he finally arrives at the dressing rooms of the sports complex, almost twenty minutes late for the athletics class, the place is already nearly empty. The whistling of an autumn wind passes through the ajar grilles, and the ceiling light casts a pale glow onto the wooden benches. Louis pushes the door without really paying attention until a murmur reaches him.
Voices. Two, whispering quickly with a nervous intensity.
He easily recognizes Coach Hamilton's voice, grave, slightly dragging, with that way of distinctly enunciating the ends of sentences. The other voice, lower and feminine, feels familiar too. It takes him a few seconds to put a name to it.
Madame Comtoise.
They are not speaking very loudly, but the tension is palpable. Words escape, fuzzy, fragmented, muffled by the concrete and metal lockers: "...I told you to stop..." "not now..." "do you think it's the right time?"
Louis slows his pace, without even realizing it, then approaches his locker, opens it, and the lock clangs shut.
Silence immediately falls behind the partition.
He freezes for a moment, his heart racing, fingers still on the locker door. He hasn’t heard anything concrete. But the atmosphere just shifted. He senses it in the air, in the hurried footsteps he hears a few seconds later: heels moving away on the tile.
Then Coach Hamilton appears in the hallway between the rows of lockers, jaw clenched.
"Tomlinson, you’re late."
Louis gently closes his locker. "I know. Sorry."
He doesn’t add anything else. He doesn’t apologize further. He doesn’t ask questions. But his mind is already racing.
***
The bus's whistle fades just as Louis already slams the front door. He rushes through the hallway, still in his sports clothes, his t-shirt slightly stuck to his back and his sneakers dirty. When he looks up towards the living room, he slows down, surprised.
His father is there.
Sitting on the couch, shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his gaze focused on the news scrolling on the TV without him really seeing it. Louis raises an eyebrow, drops his bag at the entrance. He expected to come home alone.
"You're already here?"
His father turns his head, then nods as if it goes without saying. "The scientist is going to speak on campus next week. We’ll also interview some professors and students."
Louis stops dead in the hallway, hands on his hips. "So... is there an investigation?"
"Let's say we have something to look into."
"Proof?"
His father raises a hand as if to say not another word, his gaze suddenly tired.
"I can’t tell you more, Louis."
Silence stretches for a few seconds. Louis doesn't push, but his look says otherwise. His father turns his eyes back to the television, and Louis turns away in turn, without a word, taking the stairs two at a time. The warm water from the shower cascades silently over his shoulders. He thinks of the voices in the locker rooms. The looks between professors. The delays of Harry Styles. Chambers.
When he comes back down, his hair still damp, he wears a black sweatshirt, his backpack slung over one shoulder. He walks towards the kitchen where his parents are finishing dinner. His mother looks at him with a tender smile.
"I’m going out with friends tonight, I don’t know when I’ll be back."
They ask no questions. His father nods, his mother wishes him a good evening, and Louis leaves, shutting the door behind him with a short breath.
***
It is six o'clock. The sky is a blue that fades too quickly. The streetlights are not yet lit. The sidewalks smell of dust and damp leaves. He knows exactly where he is going. The university is still open. Evening classes are in full swing. It’s the perfect moment.
He quickens his pace, fingers tight around the strap of his bag, heart restless with a dull certainty: this is when he will find what he is looking for.
There are still a few people on campus at this hour, some students eager to finish their last class, professors hurriedly putting away their things, hallways buzzing here and there with nervous laughter or muted conversations, but Louis keeps his head down, crosses the main walkway without slowing, without greeting anyone, and heads towards the administrative buildings as if he already knows where to go, as if his whole body is following a predetermined path, a trajectory inscribed in his skin by an obsession he can no longer contain.
When he reaches the journalism club room, he pushes the door with the tips of his fingers, slips in silently, and lets the door close behind him, listening to the silence fall suddenly, heavy, opaque, almost viscous, as if space has contracted around him. The place is deserted. The neon lights on the ceiling hum faintly, casting trembling shadows on the walls, and the furniture seems frozen in an endless waiting, as if nothing were ever meant to move here again. Louis stands for a few moments, gaze distant, then slowly sits down, without thinking, pulls his phone from his pocket and switches it to silent mode, activates the camera and allows it to run for no reason, a reflexive gesture that reassures him more than it truly helps.
He does not yet know exactly what he has come to find, he does not have a plan, there is no strategy, just this urgency in his chest, this unbearable feeling that something is slipping away from him, that the world is spinning faster than he is and that he will be stranded on the sidelines if he does not do something, anything, right now. So he gets up, leaves the room, throws a final glance over his shoulder, and plunges into the hallways like one enters an empty cathedral, quickening his step, breath short, hands sweaty.
The dean’s office is there, at the end of the hallway. It is a dimmer, quieter corner than the rest of the building, almost set apart, as if the universe itself has chosen to isolate this door from the living world. In front of him, the red and white police tape intertwines into a perfect X, barring the entrance with the discreet brutality that only crime can impose. He stops a meter from the door, observes the ribbons, then the space between the handle and the frame, calculating. He does not need to think about it for long. He takes out a crumpled old t-shirt from his bag, unfolds it, wraps it around his hand, grips the handle, pushes gently, until the door gives way with a barely audible but dreadfully long creak, as if the room itself disagrees with allowing him to enter.
And then he is inside.
A strange cold envelops him at once, not a cold of temperature but a cold of presence, as if the air has retained the last breath of a man, as if the walls still remember the panic that swept through this office three days earlier. The smell is peculiar: a mixture of dry ink, old dust, leather, and rancid sweat, a scent of an end of reign, almost sweet, nearly nauseating. Louis does not move immediately. He stays a moment with his back to the door, fingers still clenched on the fabric, then he inhales, steps forward slowly, his eyes scan the room. Nothing remarkable, nothing bloody or disturbing. Just a slightly messy office, a chair pushed aside, papers in disarray, a pen on the floor, a half-full cup of coffee with a surface that has frozen.
He takes silent pictures, the camera pressed against his palm, barely clicking, capturing the strange stillness of the place, as if he tries to record something that no one else sees. He approaches the furniture, observes every detail without touching, just his gaze brushing over the objects, searching for a flaw, a clue, a forgotten detail. And suddenly, a sound in the hallway. Sharp. Clear. Real.
He jumps, drops his phone, which hits the ground with a noise far too loud. His heart races, he presses his hand against his mouth, holds his breath. Outside, another noise, lighter, perhaps a step, a whisper, or just the wind, he does not know; he does not dare check. He stays still, crouched, frozen, every muscle tense like a string ready to snap. The air around him vibrates. He feels that someone is about to appear, open the door, catch him red-handed, that everything will explode.
But nothing happens.
So, very slowly, he leans down to pick up his phone. And that is where his gaze is drawn. Under the desk, something is protruding. It is not a piece of paper. It is a hard, sharp, rectangular shape. He moves his hand forward, hesitates, then slides it under the furniture and pulls gently. It is a USB key. Black. Ordinary. Cold against his skin. And suddenly, everything seems to change. The room is no longer the same. It is no longer just an office. It is the theater of a secret, perhaps of a crime, and he, Louis, has just picked up the piece he should not have touched.
He stands up in a rush, stows the key in his inner pocket, wipes his forehead with the back of his sleeve. There is no more room for hesitation.
He checks three times, maybe four, his gaze nervously gliding over each corner of the deserted hallway, his breath suspended in a silence almost sacred, before sliding his t-shirt into his backpack and stepping backwards through the forbidden door, carefully pulling the handle so it closes softly without a sound, the red and white strips falling like dead vines behind him. A drop of sweat runs down his temple, mingling with the humidity on his forehead, then trickles down to his jaw. He inhales. Once. Twice. His heart thuds too fast, too hard. He feels alive in an awful way. Guilty, almost. Exhilarated.
And it is precisely at that moment, as he thinks he has escaped the worst, that a voice emerges, clear, tense, filled with icy suspicion:
"What were you doing?"
Louis stops abruptly, his back rigid, adrenaline exploding inside him like a poorly controlled firework. He doesn’t even have time to pretend, to breathe, to think. He turns around with a mechanical slowness, his face already drained of color, and finds himself face to face with Harry Styles, standing a few steps away, his crossbody bag slipping off his shoulder, his hair disheveled as if he has run, or as if the wind has swept through his head, his eyebrows furrowed, lips pressed together, his gaze fixed in Louis’s with a precision that leaves no room for escape or concealment.
Louis opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. He feels like he’s going to collapse. He searches for an excuse, a lie, a phrase that could sweep everything away with a wave of the hand.
"N-nothing," he finally manages to say, his voice a bit cracked, a bit too shaky for his own liking.
But Harry doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink. He repeats, this time with more harshness:
"I just saw you come out of the dean's office."
Louis shakes his head, tries denial, even though he knows it's futile, even though he knows he has been caught, right there, in the heat of the moment, like an animal caught in a trap.
"You saw wrong."
Silence. Brutal. Cutting. Like a blade between them.
Harry continues to stare, his gaze is a drill, seemingly trying to dig something beneath the surface, reading what Louis is struggling to hide. He could speak. He could scream. He could ask all the questions in the world. But he says nothing.
Louis feels himself faltering. The pressure becomes unbearable. Then, in a drier, almost aggressive tone, he lets out:
"Mind your own business."
And he goes around him, quickly, without looking back even for a second, his heart beating so fast it hurts in his ribs, his temples burning, the USB drive in his pocket scorching his skin like a living, radioactive proof of a secret he wasn't supposed to possess.
He doesn’t turn back.
But he feels, behind him, that Harry Styles does not take his eyes off him.
He walks fast, too fast, as if by putting distance between himself and the campus, between himself and the office door now closed, between himself and Harry's look that chills him to the bone, he can erase what he just did, wipe it from his memory and reality by believing very hard, by breathing very hard, by repeating to himself that it's not so serious, that he hasn't taken anything, that he hasn't touched anything—except for that damn key, snug in his pocket, heavier than any stone, more present than his own heart. Each step hits him against it. It's there. It exists. And with it, the idea that he has entered a forbidden place, that he has crossed a line his father would never forgive him for, that he has seen something he should never have seen.
He swallows, turns right, turns left, crosses without looking, ignores the wind that rushes into his still damp jacket, doesn't care that he must smell of fear, because he can't go home, not yet, not with that thing in his pocket, not with his trembling hands, not with the dull nausea rising in his throat like acid reflux.
He doesn't even need to send a message; he knows that Niall is still there, somewhere, in that little student studio. So he hurries down the alley he knows by heart, climbs the stairs two at a time, knocks twice, hesitates to add a third, but the door is already opening.
"Shit, you look like hell," Niall says, eyebrows knitted but grinning, a bottle of soda in hand, his phone balanced on his shoulder.
Louis forces a relaxed smile, but his lips don't really obey.
"Yeah. I'm a bit tired."
He steps inside without waiting, collapses onto the small couch with the worn fabric, drops his bag at his feet as if it weighs a ton. Niall watches him silently, puts down his bottle, tucks his phone away, sits down across from him.
"Do you want to talk or what? Is the dean dead?"
Louis shakes his head. "I don't want to talk. I just need you to distract me."
"Horror movie or FIFA match?"
"Whatever you want. Something where I don't think at all."
Niall nods, understands without asking questions, starts up the console, turns on the TV, looks for a controller, and in the meantime, Louis sinks into the old cushion that smells like cheap detergent, closes his eyes for a second, tries to silence the images in his mind—the yellow tape, the handle he touched with an old t-shirt, the silence in the dead man's office, the feel of the carpet beneath his knees, the cold plastic against his fingers, Harry’s voice, that “answer” that pierced him like a blade.
He opens his eyes again, forces himself to breathe normally. The key is still there, deep in his pocket. He only takes it out to shove it into his pencil case, deep in his bag. He can't open it now.
He doesn't have the courage.