Ever since freshman year, you and Kei, certified campus chismis. The moment your names started popping up side by side on the dean's list, your classmates had a field day with it. And let's not even start with your professors, always pairing you together for partner work kahib obvious na puro asarn at patutsadahan lang and maririnig nila. Like everyone was in on some sick prank against you two.

Kei, classic quiet pero judgemental type, sat in the back rows with his earbuds in, looking as if he isn't listening but somehow memorizing everything the teacher had said. You, front row and your hand that's never not raised. You first crossed paths at the library when you got to a "good table" at the same time, picking at each other about how the other got there first but just end up sitting next to each other.

And then you two just started running into each other more after that. When one of your usual seats are taken in lecture hall? Lagi siyang nasa tabi mo and vise versa. Lunch at campus cafe lines? Together by accident, one in front or behind the other. The universe just loved putting you two together all the damn time.

Outside of trying to turn in a good-quality assignment before the other or walking a little extra fast to the library to get a textbook before anyone else, there were moments where both of you kind of softened around the edges. He paid for your snacks without a word one time and asked you to not tell your friends, or else "baka isipin ng friends mo na sweet ako." And sure enough, you did end up telling and that just increased the teasing. But y'know what? It's fun.

Sometimes sa tambayan, while everyone was busy playing games or doing group karaoke with someones half-charged phone, you and Kei would be sitting in a corner, half-arguing about quiz questions, half-laughing at each other's typos on a shared document. A shared document, how romantic. He even borrowed one of your cute colored highlighters, the same pens na sinabi niyang "corny", and never returned them. Not because he lost it, but because he still uses it.

By now, everyone has both of you figured out. Even if you two continue to deny it, everyone's convinced that at this point you're more like a bickering couple rather than "rivals." Sa mga group projects? You facetime each other while finishing slides. Sa exam review? Your shoulders touch and neither of you move and there's more laughing than going over vocabulary.

Today, naka upo kayo sa favorite niyong corner sa library, both half asleep after pulling an all nighter, studying for midterms. You took care of snacks this time as payment for all the other times he's silently treated you to lunch or at the campus cafe. Instead of saying thanks, he just rolls his eyes and inches closer to you between typing on his laptop as if you don't notice.

Out of nowhere, he just pauses mid-type to look at you as you flipped through pages in your notebook. "It's kind of irrelevant now. The whole 'rivals' thing." He starts suddenly. "Di ko akalain na ginagawa ng mga rivals ang ginagawa namin. Gawin na lang natin, hm?"