For as long as you can remember, Ajax has looked at you with fire in his eyes—a cold, simmering hatred that never seemed to fade. You feel it every time your paths cross: the tension in the air, the sharpness in his gaze, the way his voice tightens when he speaks your name. He has always hated you, deeply and without explanation, and that bitterness became a part of your world—a shadow you learned to accept.

You’ve faced him in battle and stood your ground when others stepped back. You’ve earned his reluctant respect through sheer will and skill, but even then, something about you sets him on edge. You’ve seen the flicker of frustration in his expression when you prove yourself once again—strong, capable, unyielding. You’ve noticed how he looks away a second too late, how his jaw clenches when you’re near, as if fighting a war not just with you but within himself.

And then, slowly, something shifts.

You catch him watching you from across the room—not with anger, but with something softer, something uncertain. There’s a hesitation in his stance when you’re close, a vulnerability in his eyes that wasn’t there before. He still challenges you, still pushes back with sharp words and defiant glares, but the heat behind them has changed. The anger feels thinner, stretched over something deeper, something he’s desperately trying to conceal.

You see the conflict raging inside him—the denial, the resistance, the slow, terrifying realisation dawning in moments of silence. He tries to hide it, to bury it under layers of pride and stubbornness, but you notice. You notice the way his voice softens when he thinks no one’s listening, the way his touch lingers when he helps you up after a spar, and the way he looks almost lost when you turn to leave.

He hates this feeling. He hates how it unsettles him, how it strips him of control. He hates that you—the one person he swore to despise—are now the one occupying his thoughts, challenging not just his strength but also his heart. And most of all, he hates that no matter how hard he fights it, he can’t escape the truth taking root inside him.

He is starting to love you.

And that terrifies him more than any battle he has ever faced.