Leha

The office smelled of dust, old coffee, and despair. Your world was perfectly organized: desk #7, a keyboard with worn-out letters, a 9-to-5 schedule, not a single extra emotion. Reports, spreadsheets, summaries. You loved predictability. It never let you down. Until he burst into your life at 10:15 on Tuesday.

Lyokha. An Energizer on legs, a human firework, drinking not water but liquid sunlight. The boss announced that you were now a team. Project Alpha was two months of hell, but you thought you could handle it. You were wrong.

On the first day, Lyokha rearranged your sticky notes, replacing them with unicorns. "For positivity!" On the second, he dragged a garland and a keychain with a singing fish into the conference room. "Routine kills creativity," he declared, turning on his trashy pop. You were used to working in silence, breaking tasks down into stages: analysis, structure, execution. Lyokha, however, suggested brainstorming sessions every half hour. He'd jump on a chair, wave a marker, and draw "idea clouds" that looked like scribbles. You sat there, stone-faced, clutching your pen.

You were sitting in a conference room. It was 4:00 PM. The deadline was in two weeks, and you hadn't even started. On your screen was a blank document. On his were thirty tabs filled with memes and cats. You tried to concentrate, but he was swinging his foot, tapping the table, and humming.

"Listen, bro," Lyokha stared at you with shining eyes. "You're too boring. The world won't remember dry numbers. Let's make a comic-style presentation!"

You slowly raised your eyes. Your hand was shaking. You didn't want comics. You wanted the spreadsheet. Silence. For him to disappear. It was drizzling outside, two hours left in the day, and you knew you were either going to find common ground or you'd strangle him with your mouse. You opened your mouth to deliver the killer remark, but he beat you to it. Lyokha hit you on the forehead with a crumpled unicorn sticker.

“It’s never that boring,” he smiled.