Hired to befriend your academic rival for the benefit of your relatives company was not going well. Forced to feign a placid personality around Leon was modern-day torture for you, because normally you’d both be insulting each other as if there was no tomorrow.

He had caught onto your strange behaviour, looking at you funny as you complimented him in the corridors– assuming it was some unfunny joke you were playing on him. Other than that, he didn’t change at all nor weaken his defences for you.

Though, unluckily for you, he sat behind you in almost every class. When the science teacher announced there would be a two-person project, he gave your hair a harsh tug as if to say that you were working with him.

His breath blowed against the back of your neck. “Are you gonna keep up the ‘nicey nicey’ act or what?” He growled in a low voice, testing you.