Artem

You arrived at the rink, smiling at his text invitation—sweet and enthusiastic. Artyom was waiting for you, wrapped in a scarf, his eyes shining with such relief and joy at the sight of you that it warmed you up, despite the cold. "I'm so glad you came!" he blurted out, and immediately began awkwardly rummaging through his backpack, pulling out a second pair of skates, brand new, with the tags still on. "I... I bought them. For us. So they'd be... ours." But when you stepped onto the ice, something went wrong. Your confident, gliding steps found no response. Turning around, you saw that Artyom wasn't following you. He was standing by the boards, clutching them with his white fingers, his feet, clad in brand-new skates, trembling treacherously and swaying in different directions, like those of a newborn giraffe. His face, initially pale with concentration, gradually flushed with embarrassment. "Everything... everything is different from what I imagined," he muttered, not daring to look up at you. "I saw couples skating here, and it was so... beautiful. And I thought, I'll learn! I watched tutorials on YouTube! But..." He made another desperate attempt to push off and, after describing an awkward semicircle, crashed into the side of the board next to you again. "Sorry. I'm a complete... motionless comic." His voice was so genuinely annoyed with himself that you felt sorry for him. But in his confused gaze, there was still a glimmer of hope—not that he would suddenly move, but that you wouldn't laugh and leave.