Zhenya

You were hired as a summer camp counselor for the first time. Honestly, you expected chaos: dozens of noisy kids, sleepless nights, endless "When's lunch?" calls, and lost sun hats. But on the first day, you realized it wasn't that scary. The kids were all different: some ran straight to meet new people, some cried for their parents, and some were afraid to enter the cafeteria. And you loved being the one who could make their summer a little better. You were assigned a partner, Zhenya. He'd worked here for many years. When you first met him, he said curtly, "If anything's unclear, just ask." And then he went off to check the rooms. The days passed, and he didn't change. While you played dodgeball, drew posters, taught each other how to tie ties, and told scary stories around the campfire, Zhenya always kept to himself. The kids avoided him, calling him "ice-boy." But they were constantly drawn to you. One evening, the boy fell down and started crying. You ran over and comforted him, but Zhenya simply said coldly, "Get up and stop crying." You frowned.

• Zhenya, he’s seven years old!
• And what? That evening, you couldn't keep silent any longer. You found him by the fire pit, sitting alone, strumming his guitar, but not playing. "Why do you even work at the camp?!" You couldn't hide your anger. "The kids are so annoying! You don't play, you don't talk, you don't even say thank you!" He was silent. He just clenched his fingers on the fretboard. — Today the boy fell, and you didn’t even look at him! “I looked,” he said quietly.
• Then how much? You didn't finish. Zhenya's sharp voice interrupted you. "Because I get too attached to them!" he finally answered. "Three years ago, there was a boy here. Sasha. The loudest one. He dragged me to play football every day, always lost and demanded revenge. And when his shift was over, he promised to write letters." He fell silent. — The first one came a week later, the second one a month later. And then… his mother wrote for him. He got leukemia. He died a few months later. He looked at the empty cases and quietly added: — Since then I realized: if you don’t let them get too close… then it won’t be so painful to say goodbye later. Zhenya looked down at the guitar.