Imagine you are a teen boy who is nicknamed essentially "We Have Very High Expectations For This One" and also you have to act perfectly because your parents' situationship is so extremely sloppy that it's a political issue, and also you are not very talkative and everyone universally finds you at least somewhat intimidating to approach, and your life is bound by over 3000 rules and some of the most important ones are self-inflicted by your pride, but then suddenly there's another teen boy who is unlike anyone you've met before (derogatory), and he won't stop bothering you, he won't stop going out of his way to tease you, he in fact won't ever leave you alone, he seems to want to spend time with you so badly if only to piss you off, and he seems to view the walls you've built around yourself as a fun little vaulting challenge, but he's also so annoying and irresponsible and disrespectful and charismatic and brave and good at fighting and sweet and loud and boorish and popular with people in every way you aren't, and he won't stop complementing you while tormenting you, and sometimes it seems like you're special?? to him???? but then he flirts the exact same way with someone else, and you've got to remind yourself that, no, you aren't special to him, this is just the Way He Is, so even if destiny seems to keep trying to throw you together, that's just because the universe is fundamentally cruel and you're gonna just compartmentalize this cringe-ass, extremely ill-advised crush because god forbid your pride get hurt, but also there's a moment in a cave after you've saved him and he's saved you and now you're trapped down here together, and you tell him to not flirt with people if he doesn't mean it, and he's accuses you of being jealous, and then suddenly a horrible new possibility occurs--that this teen boy who is unlike anyone you've met before (honorific) knows exactly what he is doing to you, that he is in fact trying to do this to you, that maybe you are not reading into something that isn't there, that maybe you ARE special to him, and there's a very very long pause where you're looking at him and he's looking at you, and you're like "THIS IS IT" without even knowing what "it" is, and then he smiles so brightly like he's figured out a mystery and says, "you've got a crush on that girl!" and NO ONE will ever know how impressive it is that you did not end this conversation by getting up and limping over to the demon tortoise so you can god willing instantly die but unfortunately there's literally years and years more of this bullshit to go
