Love Before Graduation

The shrill scream of the phone tore apart the last fragment of sleep.

With tangled hair and half-open eyes, I searched for the phone—

like someone looking for an old letter that never arrived. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"Aira," it was Nami's voice—more awake than I was, "school's closed today."

I opened my eyes fully. "What do you mean?"

"Some bureaucratic reason. I don't know, a notice came."

I stayed silent. Folded a corner of the blanket—

as if someone had placed a cold stone on my chest.

"You don't just shut down a school like that..."

"Oh come on, it's a day off—thank God for that!" she laughed—

an untimely, awkward laugh.

I looked at the ceiling—like maybe the answer was written there somewhere.

"But school isn't that bad..."

There was a pause, then she chirped,

"Really? Then go, sweep the classroom!"

The call had ended, and I lay there

as if not a conversation, but a relationship had been left incomplete.

A day off?

That means no Arin.

The boy who never looks at me,

but whose back still feels like poetry to me.

He won't appear today.

Won't smile, won't sit on the bench during lunch.

And I won't look at him—secretly, silently.

Just an empty day.

And in that emptiness, a silent ache named Arin—

neither complete, nor incomplete.

Just a fog that devoured this morning.

I got out of bed like I was serving a sentence—

dragging my feet to the kitchen,

where the smell of breakfast turned my hunger into a wild, growling animal.

The stomach, sometimes, makes the most pathetic noise.

Just as I reached for the toast, Mom looked at me—

no, she glared at me.

As if I hadn't walked into the kitchen,

but trespassed barefoot into a temple with my shoes on.

"At least brush your teeth first,"

her voice carried no disgust,

just that exhausted mom-tone that greets her daughter's worst habits every morning.

I froze—half a bite in my mouth, half hanging from my hand.

"I was hungry,"

as if I were making my last wish before a hanging—

but I still finished the bite.

She shook her head and said,

"Is hunger the only feeling you have?"

I smirked and replied,

"What else? Love? Shame? Compassion?

Those are made for TV soaps, Mom."

She didn't reply—just swallowed her frustration through the clatter of dishes.

Then my brother flung his words like a knife from behind,

"Mom, why do you bother? She's the most useless one here."

I turned—like something poisonous had stung me.

"And you're the hardest worker, huh?

You wake up just to complain."

Mom sighed between us—

as if reminding herself that both of us were her own children.

"At least she gets up early. You sleep like you're buried in the ground."

I threw a victorious smile—

a smile made of toast, sarcasm, and my brother's defeat.

"Mom, where's Dad?" I asked while picking up the last piece of toast—

wondering if I could maybe extract some money for school books today.

There was a strange hesitation in her eyes.

As if something was stuck in her mind, but not bleeding out.

"You don't know?" she asked—

not like a question, but as an examination

of how blind I still was.

"What?" I put the toast down—

my hunger instantly disappearing.

"It's about Subh..."

Her lips trembled,

like not news, but mourning was trying to come out.

Subh... my classmate.

Dad's friend's son.

The one who quietly loved Suhina—

so much that just saying her name made his eyes tear up.

"Subh... is gone."

Those three words weren't words.

They were a shroud, wrapped in sentence form, thrown over my ears.

The warm kitchen air turned cold.

The toast tasted like ashes.

A day off now felt like punishment.

Mom's words didn't reach my ears—

they hit straight in the chest.

"Subh... is gone."

I didn't say anything.

What could I have said?

What's there to cry for in a word from which no one ever returns?

Sunlight came through the kitchen window,

but beneath it, Subh no longer sat—

the one who always laughed and said,

"Suhina will never talk to me,

but if she ever visits in a dream,

I'll stay there forever."

I looked into Mom's eyes—there were no tears.

Just exhaustion.

Maybe she was tired of crying, too.

One more son was gone,

but the world still went on spreading butter on toast.

"How?"

It came out of my mouth—

like someone else forced me to ask it.

"At night..." she took a deep breath,

as if wrapping herself in a shroud before speaking,

"Dad got a call. Subh's mother was crying.

Near Suhina's house... they found his bicycle.

Not him."

"Then?"

"There was a search.

They found his body in the nearby lake."

Lake.

I closed my eyes.

He used to sit by that very lake.

"Aira, water is like silence—it hides everything, but reveals nothing."

Now he himself was buried in that same water—

quiet, as always.

"Suicide?"

I didn't know why I was asking.

Maybe the question mattered more than the answer.

"Can't say. No note. No signs.

Just a shadow left behind."

I looked at the wall—there was nothing there.

Yet it felt like Subh's shadow sat there—head down,

eyes carrying that same incomplete love.

Would Suhina know?

Maybe not.

And even if she did—so what?

Does someone start loving just because someone else died?

I looked at the toast again—still lying on the table.

But now it had no taste.

It was just the last thing I ate while Subh was still alive.

"Dad went?"

"He did. Early morning.

Subh's father said you shouldn't come.

Didn't want a crowd. Just family."

Just family.

I stood up and quietly walked to my room.

Closed the door, hugged the pillow—

and broke down in silence.

Because sometimes,

we cry the most...

when we know there's nothing left to say to anyone.