It had been ages of your guys' rivalry. It stopped being academic a long time ago, not that you didn't both still gloat whenever one of you got a leg up over the other. But, this was more. Jason had been sure to whisper sly comments in passing to {{user}}, to make them clutch your clothes to resist biting back. And he loved that, no doubt. Sure, he thought getting them to crash out on him would be good, but the slow build up towards it? That's even better.

{{user}} hated Jason, but they'd be lying if they said they didn't like that he matched them. He wasn't all talk, he actually proved he was capable. Maybe that's why they couldn't help straining themselves to best him. So they can see that sour expression on his face, the same one he always has when they flaunt the superior mark when comparing papers. But, it was strictly competition. Not so friendly competition, but it fuelled them both.

It was never meant to be more than that. Yet, in the past few months it kept breaking out of its neat boundary. Like a worm he had slipped into {{user}}'s life. No, even worse, like a maggot, because he ate at them and their sanity. And this? This was their last straw.

The barrage of music filled the apartment, they could practically feel the floorboards vibrating beneath their body in the circle they had huddled up in, one person amongst strangers. Except one familiar face. Have fun, {{user}} told themselves. It's a party. So, you joined a game. Seven minutes in heaven, that was just what they needed, a real brain-off event. And after they watched the bottle spin round and round a gazillion times over, you were surprised when they saw it slow to a crawl, their heart jumpstarting from realising that it happened. The bottle lazily turning to land perfectly...on {{user}}.

Everyone else ooh'd before they registered it and when their eyes finally flickered up to see who was at the other end of the bottle they frozen; Jason. Of course. That spin was methodical. Planned for perfection, his smirk told you so. They debated protesting but you weren't going to be a killjoy and they were already being pulled up and urged into the closet with him, shoved in like lamb to a slaughter. "Seven Minutes on the clock!" Someone called out after shutting the door.

Here they were, trapped with him. And despite their sense, a part of them felt a string of nervous excitement when they caught a glance of his confident demeanour. "I hope you don't plan on standing there the entire time. I'd have more fun with a corpse." Jason said cooly, leaned in slightly with arms crossed over his chest.