That night, Bara wrote in his notebook—not song lyrics like usual, but a list of pros and cons, like the ones Kiki always made for every major decision.
If he transferred: he’d be closer to his dad, have a more complete family, start at a new school, and begin again from scratch.
If he stayed here: the band, school, friends, Kiki—but his dad would be disappointed, and they might see each other even less.
He called his mom to ask for her opinion.
“That’s your decision, honey,” his mom said over the phone, her voice gentle. “I’m not going to force you. But remember, family isn’t just about living under the same roof. You and I are still family even though your dad is rarely home, right?” she said wisely.
Her words made Bara reconsider.
All this time, he’d always felt like his family was “incomplete” because his dad was rarely around—but maybe completeness wasn’t always about sharing a roof. Maybe it was about how present they were for one another, even from far away.
The next day, he called his dad and asked for more time to think it over before giving him a final answer.
Kiki, knowing Bara was still conflicted, finally asked him to have a serious talk in the school garden that afternoon.
“Bara, I want to talk about something, and I need you to listen until I’m finished first,” Kiki said, her voice soft but steady.
“If you do decide to transfer, I’m not going to hold you back. I know it’ll hurt me, but I also know that having the chance to be closer to your dad is important, and I don’t want to be the reason you regret it someday,” Kiki said seriously, offering her advice.
Bara fell silent, his eyes beginning to glisten—he almost never looked that emotional.
“How can you be this kind, Ki?” Bara asked, his voice hoarse.
“Because I love you,” Kiki answered simply and honestly. “And loving someone isn’t just about wanting to stay close to them all the time. Sometimes, love means being willing to give the person you love space, choosing what’s best for them, even when it means being the one who has to let go.” Kiki’s voice sounded slightly raspy.
Bara hugged Kiki in the middle of the deserted school garden, not caring whether anyone saw them. “Thanks, Ki. Really,” he said sincerely, hugging her even tighter.
That small piece of advice—that mature love sometimes meant letting go instead of holding on—became one of the moments that stayed with Kiki the most, even long after that day had passed.
Competition preparations grew more intense. They practiced every day until afternoon, held a dress rehearsal in the school auditorium, and Bara still hadn’t given his dad a final answer about transferring—he’d asked for time until after the competition was over.
In the middle of all that chaos, Della had a “brilliant” idea for a little surprise.
“Let’s make a support banner for Bara’s band! It’ll get them even more pumped!” Della suggested to Kiki and a few of their classmates.
The night before the competition, they secretly made a huge banner that read, “STATIC RADIO, WE SUPPORT YOU!” complete with ridiculous drawings created through a whole-class collaboration—including a stick figure in Bara’s style that had been the subject of their jokes since the beginning of the story.
Kiki wrote a small message in the corner of the banner, a simple sentence whose meaning only she and Bara would understand: “Not everything beautiful has to be planned first.”
Unfortunately, the happiness didn’t last long.
Kiki’s mom, casually scrolling through the school’s social media, accidentally saw a photo of the support banner—complete with Kiki’s name tagged by several classmates and comments about “the most supported couple in the whole grade.”
That same night, Kiki was called into the family room.
“Kirana.” Mom’s voice was cold. She almost never used Kiki’s full name unless she was serious. “Are you dating someone?” her mom asked firmly.
Kiki was startled, but she couldn’t lie anymore. “Yes, Mom,” she said softly, lowering her head.
“Since when? Why have you never told me?” her mom demanded.
“I was scared, Mom. Scared you’d be disappointed, scared you’d think I wasn’t focusing anymore—” Kiki’s sentence was cut short.
“Is that why your grades dropped last time?” Mom interrupted, her voice rising. “Kirana, you know how hard it is for your dad and me to send you to a good school so you can have a bright future. Not so you can date some band kid who—”
Before she could finish, Kiki cut her mom off.
“Bara isn’t a bad person, Mom!” For the first time, Kiki dared to interrupt her mother. “He’s the one who helped me learn to take it easier on myself. My grades didn’t drop because of him. That was completely my fault for being careless, and I’ve already fixed it this week,” she said more loudly, her eyes glistening with tears.
The family room fell silent for a moment.
Mom stared at Kiki for a long time, perhaps seeing her daughter speak so openly for the first time.
“We’ll talk about this later,” Mom said at last, her tone still tense but not as angry as before. “For now, I don’t want you seeing him outside school hours.” Her final word left no room for argument.
For the next few days, Kiki lived under new rules: she had to go straight home after school, her phone was checked more strictly, and whenever Bara’s name came up, the atmosphere at home immediately turned tense.
Kiki didn’t openly fight back. But she didn’t just sit around doing nothing, either.
Every night, she studied harder than usual—not because she was afraid, but because she wanted to prove to her mom that she could have a relationship and still succeed, both at once, without having to choose one over the other.
Meanwhile, her communication with Bara became limited. They could only talk at school, and even then, Della often had to keep watch, acting as a “secret courier” to deliver messages whenever Kiki had to rush home.
“This is seriously like one of those old-school romance novels,” Della remarked one day as she handed Kiki a small note from Bara. “But being a love courier is kind of fun, too,” she added with a giggle.
Yuda, who had overheard them, shook his head.
“You two are like reincarnations of Romeo and Juliet as high-schoolers, except way more ridiculous,” Yuda said with a laugh.
Kiki read Bara’s note: “I get that things are hard for you right now. I’m not going to pressure you to meet up. Just focus on your mom for now. I’ll wait, no matter how exhausting it gets.” The note made Kiki feel a little calmer.
Kiki kept the note inside her notebook, in the same place where Bara had first drawn that playful stick figure.
Without being asked, Della and Yuda began serving as a “secret operations team” so Kiki and Bara could keep supporting each other despite the restrictions.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” Della explained to Yuda as she drew a sloppy diagram in her notebook. “I’ll bring messages from Bara to Kiki, and you bring Kiki’s messages to Bara. That way, it won’t look suspicious if someone reports back to Kiki’s mom,” Della said, explaining it to Yuda.
“Why do we have to split it up like that? What a hassle,” Yuda said, confused.
“To make it dramatic, Yud! This is an important part of their love story!” Della was always the most over-the-top one of them.
The “secret operation” ended in chaos more than once—messages sent to the wrong person, notes getting mixed up, and one day Della nearly getting caught by Kiki’s mom after slipping a letter into Kiki’s uniform jacket while her mom was waiting outside the school.
Even though it was a mess and often made their whole group laugh, that small effort proved one thing to Kiki: support from your closest friends was incredibly valuable, especially when you were going through the hardest time of your life.