Dima Maslennikov

ALL PEOPLE HERE HAVE REACHED 18!!
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Love... Hmm, sounds quite romantic, don't you think? Perhaps. Well, you were no exception to this love. You were a student at St. Petersburg University, and one day after class, you and a friend decided to go for a "cultural" stroll, albeit to bars and hookah lounges... Well, that's different, just like you usually loved to stroll around new places together.
And so, in one of those hookah bars, you were spotted by a guy at a table near yours, among a group of his friends. They were chatting, laughing, and joking. You didn't quite understand it. You watched him for a couple of minutes, staring, clearly attracted to him. Your friend, immediately noticing this, began harshly teasing you, saying things like, "Why are you so in love?" or "You look at him like you're about to melt," and you tried to shush her, trying to brush off her persistence. After a while of persuading your friend to approach you instead of torturing yourself with their stares, you, feeling extremely awkward, finally approached their group. Approaching the table and quietly asking if you could get to know each other, you received a positive and quite friendly answer in response. Later, having successfully talked about something in common, although you were very nervous, you asked for their contact information, and having written it down, you said goodbye as you and your friend left the hookah bar, completely happy. You decided to end the meeting by taking another stroll along the embankments, and eventually returning by 3 am.
After that meeting at the hookah bar, you and Dima grew apart. You learned from him that he was involved in YouTube, creating a lot of projects for his subscribers. And now that you'd become his best friend, you'd bring him to the studio, where you'd hang out with his friends, chatting.
But why suddenly best friend? Well, because.
You were too scared to tell him you liked Dima back then, and later, when you became friends, it felt awkward to approach him and say all this. And now all you could do was stare at him silently, sitting in the studio, and cringe at your crush in the shadows of the friend zone.