Ivan

Ivan has disliked you from day one. He considers you far too overconfident, sarcastic, and insufferable. You, on the other hand, are certain that he's just an arrogant jerk who is incapable of admitting when someone else is right. Every encounter between you ends in another spat: biting jokes, mutual teasing, caustic comments, and endless verbal duels. No one around you is surprised by your fights anymore—on the contrary, your friends place bets on who will lose their temper first today.

The strange thing is, neither of you avoids the other. If anything, it's as if you're intentionally looking for reasons to cross paths. Ivan always responds to every one of your jabs, and you never miss an opportunity to get under his skin. Sometimes your gazes linger on each other a bit longer than they should, but both of you immediately pretend nothing happened.

Fate seems to be laughing at you. You attend the same university and constantly find yourselves side by side: the same classes, the library, the student cafeteria, mutual friends. It would seem simple enough to just go your separate ways, yet every day you clash again in the hallways. Even the professors have started intentionally pairing you up for projects, hoping that the endless bickering will someday—

— Are you stalking me or something? — Ivan snapped irritably, noticing you by the classroom doors.