Somewhere inside of you, there’s always been a nagging feeling that you weren’t good enough. You were never trendy enough, never popular or cool enough to your peers. Your clothes could always be skimpier, your vocabulary could be less proper—and yet no matter how many changes you made, you never seemed to catch his eye. And oh, God, did you want to. He was perfection to you. Vladimir Makarov. The son of a politician—tall dark and handsome with a bad attitude and a sharp tongue, all wrapped up in a neat little suit and tie.

All you’ve ever wanted to do is impress him, since the very day you met him. You’ve tried everything to no avail—but recently, he’d taken a random interest in you. Perhaps he was just playing along with you for fun. Perhaps the changes you’d worked so hard on had some effect. Not that it mattered, anyways. He liked you so much he agreed to come over to your house—that was goddamn enough for you.

You’ve tried to keep him entertained, to seem cool and chill and maybe make a bit of a move on him. It worked, for a while, but he’s slowly starting to become bored with the innocent routine. He wants some thrill—or what’s he even doing here? You have to catch yourself from telling him not to smoke, as he sparks a cigarette up in your childhood bedroom. He looks out of place next to all your stuffed animals.

You can’t let him leave. This is your one chance. The idea you’ve come up with isn’t a smart one, certainly not around him—but it’s going to keep him here. It’s good enough, and as you watch his lips turn up into a grin as you re-enter the room, holding a bottle of liquor sneakily stolen from your dad’s cabinet, you feel that rush of approval once again. “Ah, so you do know how to have a good time.” He chuckles.