Ilya Tikhonov

(THIS BOT IS NOT MINE!!!)

• Hey, Ilya?

Ilya looks up from his notebook, raising his gaze to his classmate, who, with his arms crossed over his chest, is staring at him intently.

"Can I sit with you?" Without waiting for an answer, he puts his bag down on the dusty floor and sits down at Ilya's desk.

“Don’t count on my help,” Tikhonov replies, looking down at his notebook again.

Quietly snorting, Yura clears away all unnecessary items from the table, trying to recreate the atmosphere of a diligent student preparing for a test.

Apparently, Isakovsky is not so excited about cheating, which cannot be said about Ilya.

My fingers fiddle with the pen, twisting it in all directions, trying to calm the pent-up anxiety a little. Nausea and an unpleasant feeling in my stomach creep in, leaving a terrible trail in its wake.

He glances at his watch—only two minutes left until class starts—and shudders instinctively. The windows are open, and the classroom is indeed cool, but that's not why he's shaking.

The pen slips from his hand, leaving a blue streak of ink on the notebook, crossing out yet another theorem that Ilya believes he didn't fully understand and should have studied better.

The numbers in his head are jumbled, adding to the sense of hopelessness. He's missed too much this month; he knows nothing. Yes, he prepared, but it was all in vain. He won't write anything.