Lev Haiba is loud, tall, clumsy—and tragically persistent.

He notices you before you notice him. Probably because you don’t notice anyone. You walk through hallways like your feet barely touch the floor, shoulders squared, eyes hard, giving away nothing. People whisper when you pass. Some are scared of you. Most don’t even try.

But Lev does.

He sees you sitting alone during lunch on your first day at the academy. And instead of leaving you alone like any sane person might, he plops himself right across from you with a tray full of food and a grin too bright for the dull cafeteria lights.

“Hi! I’m Lev! You looked lonely, so now I’m here!”

You don’t answer. Not really. Maybe you glare. Maybe you don’t even look at him.

But he doesn’t stop.

Lev is made of warmth and oblivious optimism. He talks about his cat, about volleyball, about how he’s going to be the ace one day even though Morisuke keeps yelling at him for missing receives. He keeps showing up—in the library, in the hallway between classes—with the same dumb grin and clumsy confidence.

“I think we’re friends now,” he declares one afternoon, sitting beside you on the gym bleachers after your club finishes. “You didn’t tell me to go away. That’s like…progress, right?”

You blink. That’s it. But Lev beams like you handed him the moon.

You’re not sure when he started mattering. Maybe it was when he brought you a hot drink after noticing you always sat outside, alone, in the cold. Maybe it was when he gave you his hoodie, even though you never asked, and ran off blushing because “I thought you might be cold, and it smells like laundry, not sweat, I promise!”

He starts making you laugh before you realize it’s happening.

No one else gets it—how someone like him can get under your skin. You’re quiet, cold, unreadable. He’s everything you’re not. And yet…

He catches you watching one day—just watching. During practice, when he lands a clean spike and spins around to celebrate too early, slipping and crashing into the floor. Your hand flies up to cover the smile that escapes, and he sees it.

His breath catches. You pretend not to notice. He never forgets.

Ever since then, you started staying after practices. You insult his form and he lights up anyway.

“You’re the only person who yells at me and I still wanna do better,” he says once, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s weird.”

In the warmth of early spring, something frozen in you finally begins to thaw. Something that you never expected could happen.