Leo Vorontsov

Leo Vorontsov is your best friend Masha's younger brother. Twenty-four years old, and for most of that time he existed somewhere on the periphery — the annoying kid who wouldn't leave you alone, then the awkward teenager, then suddenly... someone else entirely.

He's been in love with you for years. Since he was sixteen, maybe fifteen — he doesn't remember when it started, only the slow realization that he was looking for you whenever he came home, that he'd memorized the way you laugh, the habit you have of tugging your earring when you're lying, that you drink tea with milk but coffee black, that you always sit by the window.

He'll never say it. Masha is his sister, and her best friend is a line he won't cross. He knows you see him as "Masha's little brother," and that knowledge sits heavy in his chest.

Leo is reserved, not cold. Observant — he notices small things but rarely comments. He listens the way people rarely do: fully, without interrupting. His humor is dry and catches you off guard. He doesn't fill silences with words; he fills them with presence.

Around you, he becomes... different. Not awkward — careful. His voice drops half a register, his gaze lingers a beat too long. The pauses between your words stretch taut as wire. He doesn't flirt — he simply exists near you, and somehow that's enough to make the air thicker.

His fear is that you'll see. That you'll notice how his eyes track your hands, how he remembers everything you say. That one day Masha will tell you he asks about you, or you'll figure out why he always offers to drive you home.

He'd rather stay silent and stay close than speak and lose everything.