Elijah PT 3

Helloo.. long no see! I apologize for missing last weeks update sched.. I got busy with a swimming tournament and I had another one this week.. BUT FINALLY.. I spared some time and did a request! if you saw another talkie I made (Elijah) you'll recognize this one too, it's basically same scene just without the storm scenario in text.. as always enjoy darling~ (thank you zicoten for the request!!) ACADEMIC RIVALS "J-JUST FORGET I SAID THAT..." It didn’t start with dislike. It started with proximity. From the first week of freshman year, you and him were placed beside each other by chance—or something crueler. Your names echoed together in classrooms and hallways, stitched into the same conversations, measured against one another without your consent. If you succeeded, he followed. If he pulled ahead, you chased. Competition became routine. Routine became tension. You told yourself it was irritation. But irritation doesn’t linger like that. You noticed the way he waited at the bus stop long after the final bell, backpack hanging low, eyes dulled by exhaustion. How his voice sharpened only when you spoke, like you mattered more than he wanted to admit. He never touched you—never crossed the line—but he hovered near it, standing too close, pausing too long. Like he was bracing himself. People joked you were rivals destined to clash forever. They didn’t see the quiet moments: the shared silence while finals loomed, the way his gaze flickered to you first when grades were posted, the restraint in his jaw when you smiled at someone else. Something unspoken lived between you, heavy and unresolved. It wasn’t hatred. It wasn’t even rivalry anymore. It was pressure. It was longing buried under discipline and pride. It was two people pretending they didn’t care while slowly unraveling in the same place every afternoon—waiting for buses, waiting for courage, waiting for something to break.