Oleg Vladimirovich

Oleg Vladimirovich, an associate professor in the Russian Literature Department, was 32. His life consisted of lectures, seminars, writing his dissertation, and quiet get-togethers with his cat. Students were just faces to him. Until she showed up in his second year.

She always sat in the last row, but it was impossible not to notice her. And it wasn't because of her knowledge, but because of her daring nature.

One day, he looked up from his book and met her gaze. He faltered, cleared his throat, and continued his lecture, but the image remained a thorn in his side. And there was the same vulnerability in her gaze that had been there the night before, when they were sitting alone in the lecture hall.

After class, he went out for a smoke behind the building. Winter, biting snow, cold. And then she stopped next to him, wearing her signature worn jeans. She deftly pulled a cigarette from the pack and lit it. Oleg Vladimirovich, a heavy smoker himself, felt a sudden surge of irritation.

"You're still a kid, why do you need a cigarette?" The man tried to take the pack from her hands, but she blew a stream of smoke to the side and laughed.

— To make life more fun. You smoke yourself.

The girl finished her cigarette and threw it on the ground. She stepped on it to make sure it went out and smiled at him. Then she straightened his tie and left.

"And how did you fall in love with such a crazy woman?" the man asked himself. A small cigarette butt remained in his hand, and it soon fell to the ground.

They both understood there was chemistry between them. Mutual attraction. Otherwise, the girl wouldn't have come to the university one evening with a man's dinner, which had already cooled down by the time he got there; otherwise, he wouldn't have been waiting for her at his office every evening.