“Zhen, haven’t you ever thought…” Katya began, choosing her words carefully as she stirred the cooling tea in her cup with a spoon. “We’ve been together for almost two years. We live together. That’s still a stretch of time. Maybe it’s time we… made it official?”
They were sitting in her kitchen—cozy and bright—where every detail, from the napkin holder to the set of knives on the magnetic strip, had been chosen and bought by her. Yevgeny pulled his attention away from his smartphone, where he’d been lazily scrolling the news feed. He raised his eyes slowly, and the soft, relaxed half-smile that always appeared on his face after a hearty dinner slid off, like a mask. His gaze became sharp and appraising—like a realtor inspecting a questionable property.
“Make it official?” he repeated, placing the phone face down on the table. The gesture was pointedly businesslike, cutting off anything personal. “Interesting term you chose. Let’s break down your proposal from the standpoint of, so to speak, modern realities. What exactly do you mean by that?”
Katya was slightly thrown by the cold, almost accountant-like tone. She had expected anything—a joke, dodging the question, even a tender kiss—but definitely not an icy interrogation.
“Well… like everyone else. A wedding, a family. It seems like the logical next step.”
Yevgeny gave a short scoff and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. His posture turned lecturing. He looked down at her even though they were sitting at the same table.
“Logical, you say? Katyusha, logic is my strong suit. Let’s go over the facts. Marriage, in its classic sense, is an economic union. A joint venture. And like any venture, it requires investment. Both partners have to bring comparable assets into it. Do you agree?”
“I don’t understand where you’re going with this,” Katya felt an unpleasant chill run down her spine. The conversation was clearly veering in the wrong direction.
“I’m going toward efficiency, darling. Toward practicality. Let’s look at our starting positions. I’m a promising man with big plans. I have ideas, projects that are about to take off. You work as a manager. You make… what is it? Eighty? Ninety? Not bad money—to pay for this apartment and buy groceries. But for a project called ‘family,’ that’s—let’s be honest—nowhere near enough.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, and his voice dropped, turning confidential, as if he were sharing some great secret.
“I’m ready for serious relationships. More than ready. But I’m not prepared to drag dead weight. A modern family is a partnership of equals. It’s when a woman doesn’t just create comfort, but is a full financial pillar. Support. So the man can calmly handle strategic tasks, generate ideas, without being distracted by routine stuff like earning money for everyday life. Do you understand what I mean?”
Katya said nothing. Her fingers clamped around the cup handle in a death grip. She understood. Oh, she understood. Every word was measured and landed dead-center, smashing the illusion of love and partnership she’d been carefully building for the past two years.
“If you want, my dear, for me to marry you—find a job where you can provide for both of us completely! Otherwise, that’s the only way: we’ll only be in a free relationship.”
He delivered it as something self-evident, like an axiom that needed no proof. He even gave a small smile, pleased with how neatly he’d phrased it.
“I believe two hundred thousand a month is the minimum where you can even start talking about any kind of shared future. That will cover all our basic needs and let me work calmly on my projects. That’s fair. That’s partnership.”
He fell silent, waiting for her answer. He probably expected arguments, persuasion, promises. But Katya suddenly felt something inside her click—and burn out. The whole tangled knot of tenderness, care, and love she’d felt for this man turned in an instant into a cold, solid lump of contempt. She slowly set her cup on the table. The sound of porcelain on wood rang out unbearably loud.
“Got it,” she said. Her voice was even, not a tremor in it. “Your position is perfectly clear to me.”
She stood up. Yevgeny watched her with curiosity, like a scientist observing a reaction in a test tube.
“Well, I’m glad we’ve come to an understanding,” he said smugly.
“Yes. We have,” Katya confirmed, walking around the table. She stopped behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. Not gently—firmly, like an escort. “You have three minutes to pack your things and leave my apartment.”
Yevgeny jerked as if he’d been struck. He spun around; his face twisted with shock and anger.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m allowing myself not to support a gigolo with an inflated ego,” she said, still calm and ice-cold. “Your things are your laptop in the bedroom and your toothbrush in the bathroom. That’s more than enough time. The door is there.”
When he stepped out of the building, Yevgeny didn’t feel resentment or humiliation. On the contrary, he was filled with a strange sense of euphoria—like the relief of an investor finally dumping a toxic asset. Katya had been just a demo version, a training ground. She’d helped him sharpen his phrasing, harden his life philosophy. Now he was ready for the real market—for a premium option. He took out his phone and, with a businesslike air, opened a dating app, scrolling through profiles like stock reports. He wasn’t looking for beauty or shared interests. He was looking for markers of success: photos from expensive resorts, in the interiors of luxury cars, with a glass in hand against panoramic windows of business centers.
The first one to fall into his net was Veronika, the owner of a small PR agency. They set a meeting at a coffee shop. She arrived on time, smelling like expensive perfume and success. Yevgeny went straight for it.
“I don’t like beating around the bush,” he began, taking a sip of espresso. “I’m not looking for just a woman—I’m looking for a partner. For a serious life project.”
“Interesting terminology,” Veronika raised an eyebrow slightly. “And what are the entry conditions for your ‘project’? What’s the initial investment?”
“I’m glad you’re thinking in the right direction,” Yevgeny brightened. “My contribution is strategic vision, idea generation, and, let’s say, a representative function. From my partner, what’s required is full financial support of the project at the initial stage. Stable income of two hundred thousand and above, and your own place for comfortable basing. That will allow me not to get bogged down in operations and focus on what matters.”
Veronika stared at him for a few silent seconds, and then gave a quiet laugh. It wasn’t cheerful—it was cold, dissecting.
“Got it. So you’re a startup without a business plan, looking for an investor who will pay for your life while you ‘generate ideas.’ You know, I’ve seen a lot of bold freeloaders, but you might be the most… original. Good luck finding your power plant.”
She stood up, left a bill on the table for her coffee, and walked out without saying goodbye. Yevgeny remained seated, watching her go—not with hurt, but with righteous anger. “Another narrow-minded hen,” he thought. “Can’t see potential.”
And the next morning Katya woke up with an unfamiliar feeling of lightness. The apartment seemed bigger, the air cleaner. For the first time in a long while, she didn’t think about what to cook for breakfast for a man sleeping in her bed. She made coffee only for herself, turned on her favorite music, and stood in the shower for a long time. Yevgeny’s disappearance didn’t leave a void. On the contrary, it freed up a huge amount of space and energy, which she immediately began investing in herself. She threw herself into a challenging work project she’d been putting off, signed up for Spanish classes, started going back to the gym.
A couple of weeks later, at a business lunch, she was introduced to Sasha—the head of an adjacent department from a partner company. He was the complete opposite of Yevgeny. Calm, not talkative, with an attentive gaze. He didn’t try to charm her or impress her. He just listened. He was interested in her professional take on the problem they were discussing. He asked precise questions, remembered details. When lunch ended, he simply said, “It was really interesting talking with you. I hope we work together again.” And in that simple sentence there was more genuine respect than in all of Yevgeny’s compliments over two years.
Meanwhile, Yevgeny’s search turned into farce. There was another date—with the daughter of some official, who came with her friends and spent the whole evening discussing handbags and cosmetic doctors, using Yevgeny like a silent coat rack. Then there was a freelance woman who, after his “business proposition,” offered him a job as her personal assistant for a salary of thirty thousand—with duties that included walking her corgi. His savings dwindled, crashing at friends’ places became more and more humiliating. Confidence turned into irritation, and then into a dull, heavy gloom. But he didn’t miss Katya. He missed her comfortable apartment, her delicious dinners, the sense of stability and comfort she provided. He began thinking of her not as a “toxic asset,” but as an undervalued resource he’d written off too quickly.
Three months passed. Three months of drifting between friends’ apartments, odd jobs that barely covered food, and humiliating dates. The world turned out to be surprisingly unwelcoming to a genius who needed only complete financial upkeep to unleash his potential. The idea that had seemed so brilliant and modern to Yevgeny failed in practice. Women earning two hundred-plus either weren’t interested in men at all, or preferred partners whose capital exceeded their own. The realization ate at his self-esteem slowly, like rust. In the end, he came to what seemed to him the only correct conclusion: Katya wasn’t just an option—she was his fate. She just hadn’t understood yet what treasure she’d lost. He magnanimously decided to give her a second chance.
He approached her door like a triumphant man returning from a long and tiring campaign. In his hand he held a bouquet of asters—cheap autumn flowers bought from an old lady near the метро, but in his mind they looked like a grand gesture of reconciliation. He rehearsed his speech: a little repentance, a lot of condescension, and a generous promise to start over on more “compromising” terms. He rang the bell, straightening his shoulders and arranging his face into an expression of weary wisdom.
Katya opened the door. And the first thing that hit Yevgeny was how she looked. Calm, confident, with a faint smirk at the corners of her mouth. She was wearing a simple home sweater, but on her it sat like an expensive designer piece. No trace of sleepless nights, no stamp of suffering. She looked like someone who’d just come back from a resort—not someone who’d spent three months pining for him.
“Zhenya? What are you doing here?” she asked in an even tone—no surprise, no joy. Just mild confusion, like seeing last year’s snow in July.
“Katyush, I came…” he began his rehearsed line, holding out the flowers. “I’ve thought everything through. I was too harsh. Let’s talk like adults.”
And at that moment, from deeper inside the apartment, a calm male voice called out: “Katya, who is it?” A man appeared behind her shoulder—tall, broad-shouldered, in a plain T-shirt, quietly wiping his hands on a towel. It was Sasha. He didn’t look at Yevgeny with hostility or challenge. He looked at him the way you look at a delivery guy at the wrong address—with polite indifference.
Yevgeny’s world wobbled for a second. He hadn’t calculated this scenario. In his universe, Katya was supposed to be crying into a pillow and waiting for his call.
“And… who’s that?” he forced out, stupidly pointing at Sasha with the asters.
“That’s Sasha. We live together,” Katya answered simply, not bothering to explain. She stepped back a little, partly blocking Sasha from view—while also creating an invisible wall between her present and his past.
Yevgeny ignored Sasha. He decided to act as if that man didn’t exist. Just an annoying obstacle—some piece of furniture that would be moved soon.
“Katyusha, don’t do this circus,” he lowered his voice, trying to sound conspiratorial. “I get it—you wanted to make me jealous, show you’re not alone. Well done, you succeeded. Now have your… friend leave. We need to sort out our issues.”
Sasha stopped wiping his hands. He looked at Katya, then at Yevgeny.
“I think you were told clearly there are no more ‘your’ issues,” he said quietly—yet every word weighed a ton. No aggression—just fact.
That was what set Yevgeny off. This man’s calm was unbearable. It devalued him—his appearance, his “magnanimous” gesture.
“Don’t butt in!” he snapped, jabbing the bouquet toward Sasha. “This doesn’t concern you! This is between me and her! You’re just a temporary option—something to plug the hole so she’s not lonely!”
He turned back to Katya; his face twisted. The wise-man mask fell away, revealing a spiteful, wounded child.
“Found a replacement that fast? I see. So while I was thinking about our future, you were already spreading yourself for the first guy you met? And what—does he provide your two hundred thousand? Or did you find yourself another freeloader, just with broader shoulders?”
Katya looked at him without emotion. Her face was like the smooth surface of a frozen lake. She listened to his tirade, then shifted slightly to the side, opening the doorway completely to Sasha. But Sasha didn’t move.
“Leave, Zhenya,” she said. Not advice. Not a request. An order. “You came at the wrong time. You came never.”
She reached for the door handle.
“You’ll regret this!” he shouted after her, seeing he was losing for good. “You traded a Ferrari for a tractor! You’ll come crawling back!”
Katya didn’t answer. She just closed the door. The soft click of the lock sounded louder than a gunshot. He stood alone in the dim corridor with a ridiculous bouquet in his hands, feeling himself burn—not with love or jealousy, but with cold, helpless rage that his investment project hadn’t merely failed—it had been successfully bought out by a competitor.
The defeat at her building didn’t cool Yevgeny down. It stoked an icy, searing flame in him. The rage of a loser whose brilliant scheme hadn’t been appreciated by the primitive world demanded an outlet. He didn’t want her back anymore. He wanted to destroy her peace, trample the self-respect that enraged him in her eyes. He wanted to see something on her face—pain, fear, regret—any emotion that would prove he still meant something to her. Two days later, in the evening, he lay in wait for her outside her office center. He stepped out from behind a column and blocked her path. He looked rumpled, stubble on his cheeks, his eyes burning with a feverish, unhealthy fire.
“We need to talk,” he threw out instead of a greeting. His voice was hoarse and hard.
Katya stopped. She didn’t flinch or get scared. She just looked at him the way you look at an unpleasant but expected weather event—like a stubborn autumn rain.
“There’s nothing for us to talk about, Zhenya. Get out of my way.”
“No. You’ll listen,” he stepped closer, invading her space. “You think you won? Found yourself that brainless wardrobe and think you caught God by the beard? Do you even understand what you traded?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Words poured out of him as a filthy, stinking stream. He wasn’t speaking—he was spitting accusations, mixing truth with outright lies just to hurt more.
“I wanted to devote my life to you! Open a new world for you! And you turned out to be some petty, small-minded woman who just needs a guy to carry bags and nail shelves! You don’t need a genius—you need a plumber! Do you even know what people said about me? That I was with you only for the apartment? And I shut them up! I defended you, you ungrateful idiot! I said you had potential! And you flushed that potential down the toilet for this jock who has fewer thoughts than an amoeba! You mercenary bitch, Katya! You heard ‘two hundred thousand’ and got scared you couldn’t handle it! Scared you’d have to invest instead of just consume! So you found yourself an easier option who’ll eat your borscht and keep quiet!”
He spoke louder and louder, waving his arms, drawing a few glances from passersby. He wanted a reaction. Wanted her to flare up, justify herself, scream back. That would feed him—give him energy, ground for further fight. But Katya stayed silent. She stood with her arms crossed, looking at him with the detached curiosity of an entomologist studying a fussy, primitive insect. A faint, almost bored smirk played on her lips. And that silence—that smirk—infuriated him far more than any shouting. He ran out of steam; his tirade broke off mid-sentence. He was breathing hard, staring at her with hatred.
And then she spoke. Calmly, clearly, without the slightest hint of emotion. Her voice was even and cold, like the steel of a surgeon’s scalpel.
“Are you finished? Good. Now you listen to me. You know, I actually want to thank you. Sincerely. Your ultimatum did more for me than two years of our relationship. You cured me. Of illusions, of the stupid belief that someone like you can be changed.”
She paused, letting the words sink into his inflamed mind.
“You call yourself a project, an investment, a genius. But you don’t see the main thing. You’re not a predator looking for prey, Zhenya. You’re a parasite. A primitive organism that can only exist by latching onto someone stronger. And your whole philosophy is just a pathetic attempt to justify your worthlessness. You talk about money, but what you’re really afraid of isn’t poverty. You’re afraid of being alone. Because alone you’re zero. Empty space. You need a host—someone to feed you, wash your clothes, and admire your ‘genius ideas’ that will never become reality.”
Each syllable landed like a precise blow. She wasn’t insulting him—she was diagnosing him.
“And do you know what your biggest problem is? Not even that you’re a gigolo. It’s that you’re a boring gigolo. You have no charm, no charisma, not even basic gratitude. You’re just a consumer with a swollen ego. You say I traded a Ferrari for a tractor? Well—you’re not even a Ferrari. You’re a Chinese knockoff of one. Shiny on the outside, but inside it’s cheap plastic and empty promises. And Sasha… he’s just a normal man. And next to him, you look even more pathetic.”
She glanced at her watch.
“I have to go. Unlike you, I have work and a life. And you—keep looking for your ‘investment project.’ Only I’m afraid with a business plan like that, you’ll stay forever in the category of failed startups. Goodbye, Zhenya.”
Katya stepped around him the way you step around a lamppost, and without turning back, walked down the street, dissolving into the evening crowd. She didn’t hurry, didn’t glance over her shoulder. She just left. And he remained on the sidewalk, alone. Every word jammed in his throat. He was broken, crushed, annihilated—not by shouting, not by a scandal, but by the cold, merciless contempt of a woman who had just shown him his true reflection. And in that reflection there was no genius, no strategist. There was only nothingness…