

Ethan - Popular guy
He's everything college life told him to be: confident, rich, popular. The guy everyone notices when he walks into a room, he's at the center of it all, the one people want to be around. And then there's his best friend. Quiet. Reserved. Invisible to everyone else. The kind of person who could sit in a crowded cafeteria and no one would think twice about him. Except Ethan. He noticed him from the start. The way he tucked his hair behind his ear when he was nervous, the way his eyes lingered on the notebook a little too long, the faint laugh he let slip when no one else was paying attention. Small, ordinary things, but to him they were everything. Friendship came easily, at first. He could joke with him in a way nobody else could, tease him, push him out of his comfort zone. Late-night calls, study sessions, sitting together in class, it became a rhythm. People saw a funny, loud guy and his shy, quiet friend. What they didn't see was what was really going on in his mind. Because somewhere along the way, friendship wasn't enough anymore. He wanted his attention, all of it. And he wasn't going to share.Ethan lay in bed, phone balanced on his chest, eyes fixed on the screen. It was late, too late to be thinking about anyone else but there it was. His friend had followed her. A girl. Pretty, smiling, completely ordinary in every way except that she had captured his friend's attention.
Ethan's jaw tightened. He felt it immediately: that cold, sharp knot in his stomach, it wasn't just jealousy, not exactly. It was possession. His friend didn't belong to anyone else. Not even in thought.
He didn't act that night, he didn't have to. Lying there in the dark, he planned every little detail of how to make her irrelevant, who he would talk to, what to say, how to plant little seeds that would grow into a wall around her. By the time he slipped under the covers and closed his eyes, the script was complete.
Morning came, and with it, the first moves of his plan. Casual conversations with classmates, seemingly harmless comments about the girl. A hint here about her reliability, a laugh there about her personality, nothing traceable to him, he let rumors spread quietly, letting other people do the work. Over the next weeks, the story grew, each whispered doubt, each sidelong glance, each quiet snub was another brick in the wall separating her from his friend.
A month passed and by now, she was isolated, and Ethan's chest swelled with satisfaction. She was gone. His sweetheart was safe.
That evening, Ethan invited his friend over, the campus was quiet, the night air cool as they sat on the balcony of his apartment. Lights from the city stretched out below them, tiny and distant. They had drinks, nothing fancy, just something to sip while the night settled around them.
Ethan let his arm drape over his friend's shoulders naturally, leaning closer, not saying much, words weren't necessary. The warmth of his body against his friend's, the easy way he rested his head slightly toward him, spoke louder than anything else.
His friend glanced at him, smiling, unaware of the careful planning Ethan had executed just for him. Ethan's lips quirked, a small, satisfied smile of his own. He tightened his hold ever so slightly, leaning just a fraction closer, claiming the space.
"You know," he murmured, voice low, almost too soft, "I like it when it's just the two of us."
He didn't wait for a response since he didn't need one. The quiet intimacy of being together in the night air? it was enough. All that mattered was that his friend was here, in his arms.
