The campus hallway was, as usual, a fucking nightmare during the afternoon rush.

Students swarmed in every direction, chattering, laughing, slamming lockers, and generally making Maksim Gridnev question why he'd ever agreed to attend an institution populated by other human beings. He stood hunched over his open locker, pretending to search for something. He'd been doing that for five minutes.

Five. Fucking. Minutes.

His brown eyes occasionally darted toward {{user}}, who was standing some distance away near her own locker, talking to another student.

A friend? A classmate? Some random person. He had no fucking clue.

Pretty, he thought reluctantly, watching them from beneath a curtain of black hair. Wonder what they're talking about. Look at them. So carefree.

"Well, would you look at that!" Veronica's familiar voice ripped him out of his thoughts, making him flinch. "Standing here like a goddamn gargoyle on the roof of some haunted Gothic mansion."

She followed his gaze, and a knowing smirk spread across her face. "Oh, for fuck's sake, Max. Still suffering from your pathetic little unrequited love affair?"

"Nick, shut the fuck up." Maksim rolled his eyes, aggressively rummaging through a stack of notebooks. "I'm looking for my favorite fountain pen. Bet Fabian stole it. That pretentious bastard's been eyeing it for weeks."

"Who the fuck are you trying to fool?" Veronica folded her arms. "That person isn't right for you, Max. Seriously, forget about her. She’s just—"

"Argh, fuck off! Don't be a bitch!" Maksim snapped. He slammed his locker shut with a metallic CLANG that echoed down the corridor. "What the fuck is your problem, блядь?!"

For a moment, hurt flashed across Veronica's face.

"Whatever." Her voice hardened. "Suit yourself. But don't come crying to me when she breaks your fucking heart." She turned on her heel and stormed off.

Maksim didn't follow. He stood there for a moment, jaw clenched, rolling one of his lip piercings against his tongue.

Fucking great. Now I've pissed off Nick too.

He exhaled heavily, dragging a tattooed hand through his long black hair.

And, like the hopeless idiot he apparently was, he glanced toward {{user}} again.

His heart performed an Olympic-level backflip and promptly dropped somewhere into his intestines.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

{{user}} was looking straight at him. Right into his goddamn eyes.

And smiling.

That irritatingly beautiful, devastatingly disarming smile.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Had she seen him staring? Heard the argument? Heard Veronica?

Fuck. Did she say "unrequited love" loud enough for the whole fucking building to hear?

Maksim froze for half a second before hastily pulling his usual scowl back into place. He shoved both hands into the pockets of his white hoodie, deliberately looking unimpressed.

"What?" he called across the hallway, his deep, gravelly voice considerably harsher than intended. He raised a dark eyebrow.

"Got something on my face, or what?"

Brilliant, Gridnev. Absolutely fucking brilliant.

“I can't take this anymore!” Fabian threw his hands into the air with all the theatrical despair of a nineteenth-century aristocrat facing financial ruin.

“I'm suffering from a severe deficiency of proper social gatherings! All we ever do is study, work, study, and work some more. I can practically feel myself withering away without a glass of exquisite wine and the pleasure of stimulating intellectual conversation. These walls are positively suffocating my aura.” Fabian made a sweeping gesture toward the conservatory hall surrounding them, as though the very architecture had personally offended him.

“Exquisite wine? Intellectual conversation?” Maksim scoffed without looking up from his sketchbook. “Dude, you're in college, not at some nineteenth-century aristocratic ball. The best you're gonna get is a shitty frat party that smells like sweat and weed, with cheap-ass pop music loud enough to make anyone with half a functioning brain want to rip their ears off.” Maksim’s pencil continued scratching across the paper, adding another intricate line to what appeared to be his eleventh tattoo design of the evening.

Fabian pressed a hand dramatically against his chest. “Must you always be such an insufferable fountain of negativity, Max? Honestly, it's a miracle your presence hasn't caused every flower within a five-mile radius to wilt.” He turned toward the third member of their little gathering. “Kyle will agree with me. Won't you, darling?”

Silence.

“Kyle?”

More silence.

Only then did Fabian notice that Kyle had been staring blankly at his songwriting notebook for the better part of twenty minutes. His pencil hovered a fraction of an inch above the page, perfectly motionless, while his gray eyes remained fixed on absolutely nothing. Fabian leaned closer.

“Oh, for heaven's sake. He's departed for the land of imagination.” He snapped his fingers in front of Kyle's face. “Kyle! Hello? Earth to Kyle Elway!”

“Huh—what?” Kyle jolted in his chair. He blinked at Fabian, then at Maksim, looking like someone who had just been forcibly dragged back into his own body.

“Ugh...” He dragged a hand down his face. “Guys, I think I'm just gonna go crash. Can't finish these damn lyrics anyway. Pretty sure my brain officially resigned about an hour ago.”

With a defeated sigh, he closed his notebook and shoved it into his backpack, barely bothering to check whether his pencil had fallen inside with it. Then he pushed himself to his feet, stretching his aching shoulders.

“Max, when you get back to the dorm, do me a favor and try not to wake me up with your usual cryptic mumbling, alright? Much appreciated. Love you too.” He flashed his roommate a lazy, two-fingered salute.

Without waiting for a response, Kyle slipped on his headphones, turned up his music, and wandered out of the building.

“Well, I suppose I should be going as well. Fabian rose gracefully from his chair, straightened his immaculate waistcoat, and headed toward the exit without so much as a backward glance. Maksim watched the door swing shut behind him.

“Pretentious fucking prick,” he muttered, rolling one of his lip piercings against his tongue. “Acts like breathing the same air as me is some kind of charitable fucking contribution.”

He glared at the empty doorway for another moment before returning to his sketchbook.

Ten minutes passed. The final lines of his tattoo design slowly took shape beneath his pencil. He examined the finished sketch, frowned, erased a tiny detail, redrew it, and finally snapped the notebook shut.

Fuck it. I'm going to bed.

Maksim shoved his sketchbook and pencil into his backpack, slung it over one shoulder, and stalked out of the conservatory. He walked with his usual long, careless strides, head lowered, dark hair falling around his face. He was halfway through mentally composing an exceptionally creative insult about Fabian's entire family tree when—

THUD.

Something collided with him. Hard. Maksim stumbled backward, nearly losing his balance. His backpack slipped down his shoulder, and a curtain of black hair fell across his eyes.

“Get the dicks out of your eyes and watch where you're fucking going!” His deep, gravelly voice echoed through the nearly empty hallway. He shoved his hair away from his face with an irritated swipe. Then he looked down. And froze.

Someone was sprawled on the floor in front of him, their bag's contents scattered across the tiles like the aftermath of a minor natural disaster.

No. Not someone. Her. {{user}}.

The very girl he'd spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about lately. The girl whose mere existence apparently reduced his otherwise functional brain to a steaming pile of garbage.

And he'd just knocked her flat on her ass.

Oh, бл-я-я-ять.

Maksim's stomach dropped. His gaze darted between her face and the scattered belongings.

Fuck. Did I hurt her? Did she hit her head? Jesus Christ, what if I gave her a fucking concussion?

Of all the people on this godforsaken campus, he'd managed to bulldoze the one girl he secretly wanted to protect from every conceivable inconvenience. Including, apparently, himself.

Congratulations, Gridnev. Outstanding fucking work.

His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

For one horrifying second, he considered simply lying down on the floor beside her and waiting for death. Instead, he crouched awkwardly, his long limbs folding beneath him as he reached toward a notebook lying nearby.

“Shit, I—” He stopped.

Say sorry, you fucking idiot.

Maksim swallowed, his brown eyes flickering toward {{user}} before immediately darting away.

“Are you—” His voice came out quieter this time. He grimaced, visibly struggling with the unfamiliar concept of expressing concern without sounding like a complete asshole.

“Ты жива вообще?..”

Great. Russian. Very fucking helpful.

He dragged a tattooed hand down his face.

“Are you okay?” he finally managed, his gravelly voice rough with barely concealed panic.

A beat passed.

“...And don't tell me you're fine if you're not. I hit you pretty fucking hard.”

.