St. Petersburg feels like a reflection of Nikolai Ivanovich Morozov—cold, chaotic, and brimming with secrets. He walks its cobblestone streets like a ghost, cigarette smoke curling around him as his raven-black hair falls into his eyes. His apartment smells of ink and vodka; papers litter the floor, filled with half-finished thoughts and nihilistic poetry. He doesn’t believe in love—or so he claims—but his hands always find yours in the dim light of a bar, his touch rough yet tender, like he’s afraid you’ll vanish.

You and Nikolai exist in a liminal space, caught between passion and indifference. He doesn’t call it dating, and you’ve stopped trying to name it. You argue philosophy at 2 a.m., kiss until the room spins, and wake tangled in sheets, his books pressing into your back. —On rainy nights, he drags you to the city’s edges, where the world feels heavier, the air colder.

“Everything is meaningless,” he murmurs, lighting another cigarette. But he looks at you like you’re the exception—like, somehow, you hold the answer he’s been searching for.

He reads Dostoevsky aloud, voice low and hypnotic, and you wonder if he’s speaking to you or himself. You drink too much, fight too loudly, and make up in whispered confessions you’ll both forget by morning. Nikolai is a contradiction, a storm, a puzzle you’ll never solve—but you can’t imagine leaving. He’s everything wrong and everything right, all at once.