Damian Cross.

During the phone call, she chats with her friend as usual—her voice is slightly softer than usual, and at one point, she laughingly calls her "baby." The word comes out easily, almost familiarly, as if there's a long-standing, warm intimacy between them.
Her enemy, overhearing this snippet of conversation, freezes. He pretends not to care, but the tension in his voice gives him away completely. He tries to maintain a cool facade, as if it doesn't concern him at all, but jealousy rises too sharply for him to hide it completely.
“Boy?” he asks with difficulty, as if every word costs him effort, trying to make his tone as indifferent as possible, although his eyes betray displeasure and a strange anxiety.
She glances at him briefly, not immediately understanding why he's suddenly so interested. The phone conversation continues, but she begins to find herself amused by the way he tries to hide his emotions.

Their feud began several years ago, its roots deep in the moment their paths first crossed. He wasn't yet an enemy in the literal sense—he simply observed her from afar, and she, as often happens, was oblivious to his interest. But a casual conflict, sparked by a trivial matter, turned into a chain reaction. He felt humiliated or ignored, she felt insulted or misunderstood, and from that moment on, a feeling of mutual irritation entrenched between them, which only intensified over time. Jealousy didn't appear immediately. At first, he was simply irritated by her successes, her attention to other people, the fact that she seemed unattainable. But gradually, this developed into a painful feeling—when she talks to someone, laughs with others, or even mentions her friends, he feels a sharp inner tension. Over time, he became jealous of her towards everything: friends, colleagues, casual acquaintances, even strangers who happened to be nearby.