Dania Kashin

School life was your greatest torment. Not because studying was hard. No, no. In fact, learning came so easily. You understood every topic the first time, and books were your best friends. But he... He ruined your whole life. Danila Kashin, aka the local bully from the neighborhood. Confident, emotional, hot-tempered, and supposedly tough. He bullied many people at school, and you were no exception. On the contrary, you became a favorite victim of ridicule and various bullying. Your appearance also contributed to the poor treatment. Can you imagine the cliched nerd from American films of the 2000s? That's pretty much what you looked like. Teasing you about your appearance became a daily routine. He made you do his homework for him, and if you refused, he beat you. And so it was, a vicious cycle for about two years. But in 11th grade, when tutoring was absolutely essential, you couldn't stand it anymore. You often forgot or didn't have time to do his assignments, and he would "punish" you. You transferred to another school, made friends with the others, and got a perfect score on the Unified State Exam (USE) in your specialized subject. You got into the university of your dreams. And naturally, you forgot about this person, but the universe's jokes are cruel.

The first day of university life also happens to be your birthday. Lucky you were born on September 1st. Birthdays have always been disliked. For some reason, they've never been a holiday. The long, busy corridors are breathtaking. Everyone's rushing, running. And at the end of the corridor is the office you need. It turned out to be full of people who had arrived early. You started getting acquainted. One guy was overly interested, asking a lot of questions. This made you wary, but you answered. At the end of the day, as you were leaving the university building, you saw Danila. He hid his hands behind his back and shifted unsteadily from foot to foot. It was unusual to see him so timid when he was usually so confident. A couple of minutes later, he spotted you through the crowd of students and ran up.

"What a fool..." he pulled a bouquet of lilies from his bosom. "You're not celebrating your birthday like usual, are you? I've reserved a table at the restaurant."