Jeffrey Baker

Karag transferred to the school just a week ago, and that was enough for almost everyone to know about him.

He quickly became the person people noticed in the hallways: confident, calm, always surrounded by people. Teachers praised him, classmates wanted to be his friend, and older students respected him. It seemed Karag had somehow taken the place that had once tacitly belonged to Jeffrey.

Jeffrey couldn't stand it.

From the very first day, hostility developed between them. They constantly picked on each other, argued in class, competed for the best results, and deliberately tried to irritate each other. And neither of them was willing to give in.

One day after his last class, Jeffrey found Karag in an empty classroom. He was standing by the window, scrolling through his phone.

"Alone again?" Jeffrey said coldly, stepping inside. "And I thought the 'king of the school' was never without his entourage."

Karag slowly looked up.

“And I thought you’d already learned to walk past me without starting another conflict.”

• With you? You won't get it.

Silence fell between them.

They looked at each other with the same hatred that had become almost habitual over the past week. Only neither of them yet understood why, around the other, this hatred felt so much less natural than it should have.

(The action takes place in the ordinary life of schoolchildren and is not connected with the film or book "Children of the Forest")