Summary: "My students are rocks."

Novel-verse. Set just before Lan first meets Gui Wen.

Yes, I also wrote this just so I could input a little bit about his glasses. XDD

Preparation

By Dark Ice Dragon

Gui Wen paced his bedroom, hands fluttering to his shirt buttons, making sure they were still in place and aligned properly. He peered at himself in the mirror, patting down his hair before taking off his glasses and cleaning them. After they were as clear as he could get them, he perched them back on his nose, and then ran a hand through his hair, sending it back into disarray.

Even though he had an IQ of two-hundred, that meant nothing when faced with the prospect of the first day of work and actually teaching students. He'd had practice before of course, as a substitute and shadowing other teachers, but this was different. This was his class and it was his full responsibility to ensure that he passed on his knowledge to them.

He took a few deep breaths to try and calm himself down. Gui Wen wasn't sure if it was better or worse that his first class was in the afternoon rather than in the morning. On the one hand, it meant he had more time to look at his notes to make sure they were all in order and he remembered them correctly; on the other hand, it meant he had more time to look at his notes, wondering if they were correct, if they were understandable for his students alongside every other worry he had. They seemed to get more extravagant every time he went back to his notes.

So maybe he should stop rechecking them.

Okay. He packed them away, but he continued to have far too much restless, nervous energy. His hand combed through his hair so many times he lost count and his hair started to fluff up at the ends.

"Right," he muttered to himself, forcing himself to stop moving. "I'll just think of my students as rocks." It had helped before, so it would help again now.

:-:

Thinking of his students as rocks… was not helping. What also didn't help was getting interrupted by late students, which had thrown off his concentration, so he could no longer get back into that mindset.

While he floundered for a couple of seconds as the students settled in, Gui Wen's mind decided to change tracks on how he should be teaching. It began prodding him to act like Guileastos.

With his usual method of how he dealt with his teaching nerves gone, he clung onto the persona, and just hoped that in his next lessons, he'd be able to get back to thinking of his students as rocks.

Gui Wen thinking his students as rocks while teaching? Novel canon. I love this series! XD