The soft hum of voices filled the lecture hall, a low and steady murmur as students settled into their seats. A few flipped through their notes, some still scrolling through their phones, killing time before class began. Vivian sat near the middle, one leg crossed over the other, tapping her pen absently against the edge of her notebook.

Her focus was fractured.

Normally, Probability & Game Theory was one of her favorite classes, a battleground of logic and precision, where debates unfolded like intricate puzzles. Today, though, her mind was stuck on something else.

Something she couldn’t quite explain.

Noah Fang.

She had seen him. She knew she had seen him.

The way he had moved through Mirage, the way people had unconsciously shifted to make room for him, the way he had spoken to that man at the bar with the ease of someone who belonged. She could still picture him in that crisp black dress shirt, his sleeves rolled up, his posture straighter, more self-assured.

And yet—

Her eyes flicked up as the lecture hall door swung open.

Noah walked in.

Not the man from the club, but the Noah she knew. The one who wore glasses and smiled easily, whose presence felt warm rather than commanding. He passed a few students he knew, exchanged casual greetings, before making his way toward his usual seat.

Vivian frowned, gripping her pen tighter.

She didn’t wait. As soon as he settled, she leaned over slightly, lowering her voice.

“Noah.”

He turned, blinking at her. “Hmm?”

She studied him for a moment. The familiarity of his features, the relaxed way he looked at her—nothing in his expression hinted at the man she had seen that night.

“Were you at Mirage the other night?”

Noah’s brows pulled together. “Mirage?”

“The club.”

He looked genuinely confused. “I’ve never been there.”

Vivian hesitated. “Are you sure?”

A soft laugh. “Pretty sure. I don’t even go to clubs. You know that.”

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And the thing was—he sounded honest.

Completely, unquestionably honest.

If it had been anyone else, she might have pressed further, might have searched for the hesitation in their voice, the flicker of a lie beneath the surface. But this was Noah Fang.

The golden boy of their program.

The one who fought her for every first-place ranking, who challenged her, who smiled through their debates like he was enjoying them more than he should.

The one who wasn’t supposed to have anything to hide.

Before she could push further, the professor walked in, setting his briefcase down with a heavy thud. “All right, settle down. Let’s get started.”

The discussion began like it always did—carefully, the class offering predictable arguments, sticking to the surface of the paradox without getting lost in the details. The St. Petersburg paradox was one of those mathematical thought experiments that shouldn’t be complicated, but somehow always was.

It posed a simple question: Would you pay to play a game where you could, in theory, win infinite money?

The expected value—the mathematical prediction of the game’s worth—was infinite. But real people, with real money, rarely offered more than a few dollars to play. It exposed the way human instincts clashed with pure mathematical logic.

At first, everyone participated. Students tossed out ideas about expected value, diminishing returns, and real-world psychology. The professor encouraged them, occasionally redirecting, but as always, the conversation started to narrow.

Until only two voices remained.

Vivian and Noah.

She leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on her desk, fingers curled around her pen. “You’re assuming infinite expected value automatically justifies taking the wager,” she argued, voice sharp.

Noah sat a few rows ahead, his posture still relaxed. He didn’t need to lean in. He had her full attention without moving an inch. “And you’re assuming human psychology isn’t a limitation,” he countered smoothly.

Vivian arched a brow. “The paradox itself proves that it is. The average person wouldn’t pay more than a few dollars to play, even knowing the theoretical gains.”

Noah’s lips curved slightly, amusement flickering in his expression. “That doesn’t make the wager itself irrational. It makes people irrational.”

A few students exchanged glances, some whispering to each other. The room was starting to lose them.

Vivian tilted her head. “So you’d take the bet?”

Noah’s fingers tapped lightly against the edge of his desk. “For the right price.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Which is?”

A slow, almost lazy smirk. “Whatever you’d pay.”

Something shifted in the air between them.

Vivian exhaled slowly through her nose. “That’s not a mathematical argument.”

“Neither is yours,” Noah shot back, his voice dropping lower, threading through the space between them. “You say people wouldn’t pay much to play because their instincts override logic. But let’s say someone truly understands infinite expected value. Let’s say they can look at the numbers and see the outcome for what it is.”

Vivian’s grip on her pen tightened. “Then they’d wager everything?”

Noah’s gaze didn’t waver. “If they were willing to risk losing themselves.”

The room was quiet.

It wasn’t just the words.

It was the way he was looking at her—too focused, too steady. Like she wasn’t just another student in the discussion, but the proof he was testing, the equation he wanted to solve.

And maybe, break.

A slow coil of tension twisted in her stomach. Not attraction. Not fear. Just something unsettling.

She wanted to push back, to challenge him again, to see where the debate would go if no one stopped them.

But then the professor clapped his hands together. “All right, time’s up. Save your intellectual duels for next class.”

The moment fractured.

Noah stretched, rolling his shoulders as he grinned at her. “You were wrong, by the way.”

Vivian exhaled, collecting her notes. “Not a chance.”

Noah chuckled. “Same time next week?”

She smirked. “Obviously.”

And just like that, he was Noah again.

Bright. Normal. Easy.

The shift from before was gone, erased as if it had never happened.

And she was left wondering if she had imagined it.

Then her phone rang.