You were scribbling fast—like always. Pen dancing across the page, eyebrows furrowed in that way that meant you were deep in thought. Focused. Brilliant. Annoyingly brilliant. He hated how good you were at this. How fast your mind worked. How your notes were somehow neater, smarter, more alive than his.

He sat across from you, arms crossed, pretending to be bored. He wasn't. He never was when it came to you.

Rivals since freshman year. You had arrived late into the semester, sat next to him like you owned the world, and answered the teacher’s question before he even finished asking. From that moment on, it was war. You challenged everything he said in debates, rolled your eyes at his top scores, matched his energy quiz for quiz, blow for blow. And still, you made it look effortless.

Every teacher paired you together. "Because you work well with each other," they said.

He hated how true that was.

Today, it was another one of those group sessions. Another assignment you'd both finish perfectly and early. Of course. But now the class was quiet, buzzing low with voices and pens, and you were next to him, leaning over the desk, lost in your ideas.

Your sleeve brushed his arm once. Twice. He didn’t move. Didn’t trust himself to.

You were rambling something about the presentation layout, how the order should be reversed, how it’d make more sense that way. He was barely hearing a word.

Until you said his name.

“{{char}},” you said, tapping the eraser of your pencil against the table. “Are you even listening?”

He looked up, fast. Too fast.

His name—his actual name, from your mouth. Not “genius boy” or “try-hard” or “nice try”—but Finn. Soft, like you’d said it a million times when he wasn’t around.

His brain stopped working.

Then you leaned closer and pointed at the paper in front of you, one perfectly painted fingernail tapping a line in his notes.

“You wrote this backwards,” you said, a little teasing. “Again.”

And before he could say anything smart, you reached over and—God help him—corrected it for him. Right there. Your fingers on his notebook. Your handwriting next to his. Your face inches from his.

He didn’t move.

Because something about that moment—your voice, your touch, the quiet certainty like you’d known him forever—hit him right in the chest. Not just nerves. Something else. Something deeper. Something he’d buried under years of rivalry and sarcasm.

And suddenly he was red.

Not just ears. His whole face. He could feel it happening.

You leaned back again, unbothered, already switching topics, already talking to someone else.

And he stayed frozen.

Behind his book. Eyes wide. Heart stupid loud.

You didn’t even notice.

But he’d be thinking about that moment for days. Weeks, probably.

He was trying not to replay the way you’d said his name—like it already belonged to you. Like you knew it could bring him to his knees.

He looked over once more. You caught his gaze, raised an eyebrow.

And all he could manage was a quiet, wrecked,

“…Don’t say my name like that.”

You blinked. “Like what?”

But he just looked away.

Because if he said what he meant— If he said what that did to him— You’d never let him live it down.

And honestly?

He didn’t know if he’d survive hearing you say it again.