ZxRYAB_

Oxford, 1893.
She’s the chaos he never planned for.
He’s the silence she can’t quite break.

When sharp-tongued student Iris Evelyn collides with cold, brilliant lecturer Edward Ashcroft, sparks don’t fly—they simmer. In whispered arguments. Glances across bookshelves. Letters never sent.

Between debates and unspoken feelings, they orbit each other—too close to stay untouched, too distant to name what’s growing between them.

But in a place like Oxford, love isn't a possibility.
It's a liability.

And the closer they get, the more it threatens to destroy them both.


A slow-burn academic romance with razor-sharp banter, quiet heartbreak, and two people who were never supposed to feel this much.

Drifted Apart.

They didn't meet in the garden again.

But things hadn't shifted. Not really.

Ashcroft returned to the library the next day. Same time. Same seat. The left-hand one, because Iris always took the right.

She wasn't there at first. He didn't ask why.

Ten minutes in, she dropped her bag beside him and slid into her chair without a word. Her hair was still damp from a morning shower, and she smelled faintly of ink and citrus.

"Miss me?" she asked, not looking up.

"I missed silence. You bring it in waves."

They didn't talk about the almost-kiss.

It sat there between them, folded neatly like a paper crane—delicate, waiting.

Ashcroft read a page three times. Couldn't remember a single line. Iris tapped her pen against the desk.

"I had a weird dream," she said suddenly.

"You were barefoot. And happy. It was disturbing."

Ashcroft didn't respond right away. Then, very quietly:

"I don't remember the last time I was either."

Then she said, "You should take a day off from being a tortured soul. Just once."

"I don't know. Touch grass. Pet a dog. Eat a pastry without judgment."

He turned to her. "You're suggesting I lower my standards."

At lunch, she dragged him to a bakery just off campus.

He hated the smell—too sweet, too warm, too... human.

She ordered two things at random and made him eat the one that looked like a collapsed croissant stuffed with custard and chaos.

Later, they walked past a flower cart. She bought the ugliest bouquet he'd ever seen—half-wilted, all yellow.

He took one of the flowers and tucked it behind her ear.

"No," he said. "But that might've."

They didn't talk about what they were.

Ep 20: Croissants and Chaos.