The school library was silent, save for the low hum of the air conditioning and the rhythmic tapping of a single pen. Mika sat hunched over a laptop, her back ramrod straight, while Leo sat across from her, his leg bouncing nervously under the table. The air between them was thick with the residue of their fight. They hadn't spoken since leaving the cafe, and their first project meeting felt less like a collaboration and more like a hostile negotiation.
"The prompt," Mika said, her voice clipped and professional, "is a character analysis of a protagonist with conflicting motivations." She slid a printout of the assignment across the table, not meeting his eyes.
Leo glanced at the paper. "Okay. We should split the research. I can focus on the first half of the book, you take the second." He was being direct, sticking to the rules of the project. It was safe. It was simple.
Mika's jaw tightened. He was treating her like an asset, not a person. "I'll do the full analysis. You can write the final paper," she said, her voice cold. "I have a very specific way of organizing my research."
He looked at her, and his anger flared. It was a familiar pattern: her need for control, her refusal to be open. "We're partners. We do it together," he said, his voice flat. "Or did you forget how this works?"
"I know how it works," she shot back, finally meeting his gaze, her eyes burning with a fire he hadn't seen at the cafe. "I'm just trying to make sure the project gets done right. With your... track record, I don't want to leave anything to chance."
The words landed with a sting. Her insinuation—that he was lazy, that he didn't care—was the exact accusation he had tried to outrun his whole life. He wanted to lash out, to remind her of her own hypocrisy and her cowardice at the bus stop.
Instead, he took a deep breath. His hands clenched beneath the table. "Fine," he said, using her word, "you do the research. But you send it to me every night. No excuses."
The tension eased, but only slightly. They worked in silence for the next hour, communicating only through the brief, clipped sentences needed to complete the task.
As they were packing up, Mika's pen rolled off the table and fell to the floor. She knelt to get it, her movements stiff. Leo reached for it at the same time. Their hands brushed for a fleeting moment. Mika pulled her hand away as if she had been burned.
The rejection was a cold, hard stone in Leo's gut. He saw her quick, panicked withdrawal, the faint blush on her cheeks. He saw it all through the lens of his reputation, of the whispers that followed him in the hallway. He wasn't just a partner; he was a problem. A filthy, contaminated person she didn't want to touch. The anger from the cafe was replaced by a familiar, stinging humiliation.
Mika, meanwhile, was furious at herself. It was just a touch. Why had she reacted so violently? Her heart was racing, her face felt hot, and she just wanted to disappear. It wasn't disgust. It was the shock of his closeness, the terrifying intimacy of a simple touch. She just wanted to fix it.
Leo, his face a mask of cold composure, picked up the pen and handed it to her. He didn't say a word.
"Thanks," she whispered, her voice barely audible. It was a quick, whispered apology for her clumsy reaction, a tiny olive branch she hoped he would see.
But all he saw was her flinching away, her shame for being caught touching him. He just gave a small nod and turned away. The fight was still there, but a new, deeper wound had been opened. The project was the rope tethering them together, a tool that might either pull them closer or tear them completely apart.The first week of the project was a study in cold, professional silence. They worked in separate rooms in the library, communicating only through their shared cloud document. Leo found himself obsessing over every line of the notes Mika sent him. Her documents were perfect—every entry meticulously cited, every argument flawlessly structured. The thoroughness was undeniable, but the tone was formal and distant. It felt less like a collaboration and more like a carefully crafted indictment of his own work ethic. He saw it as a silent message: I'm doing the heavy lifting because you're lazy.
His insecurity simmered beneath the surface, feeding the resentment from the cafe and the sting of her hand pulling away. It all fit. She saw him as a mess, a rumor, and this was her professional way of managing the fallout.
When they met for their next session, the air crackled with hostility.
"I need you to look at my research," Mika said, her voice flat. "I'm ready to move on to the outline."
"I've seen it," Leo said, his voice clipped. "What's with the twenty-page emails? Did you think I was just going to skim it? Do you think I don't know how to do research?"
Mika was genuinely stunned. She had been so proud of her work. "That's how I organize my notes," she said, her tsundere defenses instantly rising. "They're thorough. It's called being prepared."
"No, it's called being passive-aggressive," he shot back, his hurt breaking through his composure. "It's called showing me that I'm a waste of your time. Don't act like you're not judging me for my 'track record.' Just say it."
His words hit her like a physical blow. She had tried so hard to be perfect for this, to show him she was a reliable partner, and he was taking all of her effort and twisting it into a personal attack. "I'm not being passive-aggressive!" she yelled, her voice breaking. "I'm being professional! And maybe you'd know what that was if you ever bothered to try!"
"Bothered to try?" The words were like a match to a fuse. His trauma, the years of people assuming he was lazy and stupid, the memory of his friends' betrayal, all came crashing down. He had tried to be good. He had tried to be honest. But with her, it was all a lie. He had let himself be vulnerable, and she had just confirmed every single one of his fears.
"I'm done," he said, his voice low and shaking with controlled rage. He grabbed his bag, his eyes locked on hers, not with anger, but with a deep, crushing hurt. "I'm done with this project, and I'm done with this conversation. Find another partner."
He stood up and walked away, not turning back, not looking for her to follow. Mika sat alone, the silence of the library a cold, heavy blanket. The project was the last thing on her mind. The look on his face—the pain, the finality—was a new, terrible wound. She had pushed him away, and this time, he wasn't coming back.