Nine months earlier.
School courtyard.
The students' voices filled the courtyard during break. Laughter, conversation, running footsteps, and even shouts from the field blended into one lively roar.
The clock on the school building showed 10:16.
On one of the courtyard benches, two girls sat facing each other.
“Lun, I swear, I almost died earlier.”
The short-haired, curly-haired girl pressed a hand dramatically to her chest. Her name was Kirana.
Aluna laughed and asked, “Why?”
“The math teacher caught me sleeping.”
“And then?”
“She said, ‘Kirana, if you want to sleep, I can even give you a pillow, Ma'am.’”
Aluna burst out laughing even harder.
“That’s what you get for sleeping in class.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
“Then what were you doing?”
“I was just closing my eyes.”
“For fifteen minutes?”
Kirana snorted.
“That’s called resting my eyes.”
Aluna was still laughing.
There was another girl who usually went everywhere with them, but she was nowhere to be seen this time.
“Where’s Sekar?” Aluna asked.
Kirana pointed toward the cafeteria.
“She said she was going to buy some snacks.”
“She’s taking forever.”
“Maybe she’s buying half the cafeteria.”
Aluna laughed again at Kirana’s off-the-cuff answer.
A male student walking past them suddenly slowed down.
Arka.
As usual, his uniform looked neat. His shirt was tucked in perfectly, his tie was straight, and his hair was neatly combed, though a few strands had fallen onto his forehead.
He wasn’t the type of student who liked being the center of attention.
His grades were good, he rarely caused trouble, and he was more often quiet than joking around with his friends.
At first, his gaze merely swept over the courtyard.
Nothing unusual. There was no particular reason.
Until his eyes stopped on someone.
A girl.
Her hair was long and straight, falling past her shoulders and down her back. The girl was laughing.
Not loudly.
Just a small laugh that surfaced when her friend said something.
Arka watched her for a few seconds longer than he should have.
There was nothing special about the sight.
At least, there shouldn’t have been.
Yet for some reason, he couldn’t look away right away.
The girl laughed again.
Her hair moved softly in the breeze. Every so often, she covered her mouth as she laughed, her eyes narrowing into small crescents.
Arka fell silent.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
There was something he couldn’t explain.
It wasn’t because the girl was doing anything extraordinary.
She was just sitting there.
Laughing.
Talking with her friend.
But for some reason, Arka felt like looking at her a little longer.
“Ka.”
There was no answer.
“Arka.”
He still didn’t move.
His friend finally tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey, Arka!”
Arka jerked back to reality.
“Huh?”
“The school bell rang a while ago.”
Arka blinked, then turned toward the school building.
It was true.
Several students had already begun leaving the courtyard and heading to their respective classrooms.
“Oh.”
His friend narrowed his eyes.
“Oh?”
Arka cleared his throat.
“Come on.”
He was about to walk away, but before he could fully turn around, his eyes searched for the girl again.
Empty.
The bench where she had been sitting was unoccupied.
Arka looked around.
Nothing.
The girl was already gone.
“Who are you looking for?”
“No one.”
“You sure?”
Arka didn’t answer.
He simply slipped both hands into his pants pockets, then walked away from the courtyard.
But all the way to class, the girl’s face kept flashing through his mind.
Strange.
He didn’t even know who she was.
He didn’t know her name.
He didn’t know what class she was in.
He didn’t know whether they had ever spoken before.
They might never even see each other again.
But for some reason, that face felt different.
And without Arka realizing it, for the first time in a long while, someone had managed to make his thoughts settle on a single person.
Someone he didn’t even know yet.