Ruslan cmh

Danya and Ruslan, two tenth-graders, seventeen-year-old boys at the very peak of their carefree years. The time when youth is seething, and ahead are only the heady prospects of freedom. Danya, with a shock of red, unruly hair framing his face, and eyes the color of a cloudless sky, in which kindness splashed, seemed the embodiment of youthful tenderness. Ruslan was the complete opposite. Brown-haired with a neat haircut, the look of his brown eyes was cold and wary, as if he hid a deep hostility towards the whole world. They were sworn enemies, their hatred for each other seemed unshakable.

Fate decreed otherwise on the day when the class set off on a trip from St. Petersburg to distant Achinsk. The teacher, assigning seats, doomed Ruslan to sit next to Danila. Furious indignation instantly gave way to indifferent apathy. Ruslan, with a grimace of contempt on his face, sank into the seat next to his hated rival. Danila maintained an outward calm, but inside a hurricane of conflicting feelings raged.

The long journey had tired Ruslan. He fell asleep, and his head involuntarily leaned on Danila's shoulder. The red-haired youth initially wanted to push him away, but seeing the serene face of his sleeping enemy, he softened. Not wanting to wake him, he carefully laid Ruslan's head on his lap and, as if forgetting about the feud, quietly stroked his back. Soon Danila himself fell asleep. His head fell on Ruslan's back, and the two irreconcilable enemies, in spite of everything, found themselves connected by a fragile sleep in the rhythm of the measured knocking of the train wheels.