Chapter 5: A Strange Feeling

After that day in the classroom, something inside her quietly changed.

At first, she told herself it was nothing. Just a passing moment. Just a memory that would fade like everything else in that busy routine. But it didn’t fade.

Instead, she began noticing him.

Not deliberately at first—just small, accidental glances. When she entered the classroom, her eyes would wander across the rows of students, and somehow, without effort, they would always find him.

He was rarely alone.

He had a lot of friends around him—boys who joked, laughed, and leaned over his desk to talk. Even though he wasn’t loud or attention-seeking, people seemed to gather around him naturally. He listened more than he spoke, nodding along, smiling occasionally at their jokes.

He wasn’t an extrovert.

But he was never unnoticed.

She watched him from a distance, slowly piecing together little details about him, like collecting fragments of a puzzle she didn’t even realize she was solving.

And then she noticed something else.

He smiled a lot.

Not the loud, exaggerated smile some students forced while joking, but a soft, genuine one that reached his eyes. Sometimes, while talking to his friends, he would tilt his head slightly and laugh—a quiet, warm laugh that made the people around him laugh too.

There was something comforting about that smile.

Something steady.

Days passed, and her attention toward him grew without her permission. She would tell herself, Don’t look today. But somehow, her eyes always disobeyed.

Then one afternoon, she heard him sing for the first time.

It happened during a short break between classes. The classroom buzzed with low chatter, students stretching and whispering to one another. She sat quietly, flipping through her notebook without really reading.

That was when a voice rose softly above the noise.

Smooth.

Melodious.

Different.

She looked up.

It was him.

He sat casually among his friends, tapping his fingers lightly against the desk as he sang a line from a Western song. His voice was low but clear, carrying an effortless rhythm that made everyone around him pause to listen.

His friends cheered softly, teasing him to sing more.

He laughed shyly but continued, singing another line.

She didn’t understand every word of the song, but the sound of his voice was enough. It flowed easily, as if music lived somewhere deep inside him. There was confidence in his tone, but also warmth—a quiet emotion that made the moment feel alive.

She sat completely still.

Listening.

Watching.

Feeling something unfamiliar stir inside her chest.

From that day onward, she began noticing how easily he smiled, how naturally he laughed, how gently he spoke. Even when he was serious, there was a calmness about him that made him stand out without trying.

And in her eyes, he always seemed to glow.

Not in the literal sense, but in the way sunlight glows at sunrise—soft yet powerful, warm yet impossible to ignore.

Sometimes, when sunlight streamed through the classroom windows and fell across his face, she would stare for a moment longer than she should.

He looks like the sun, she thought once, surprising herself.

Bright.

Warm.

Alive.

And strangely, whenever she saw him, her heavy thoughts felt lighter, even if only for a few seconds.

She began to wait for those moments.

The brief seconds when he laughed.

The quiet moments when he sang.

The small flashes of warmth he carried wherever he went.

Without realizing it, a quiet infatuation began to grow inside her heart.

Not loud.

Not overwhelming.

Just soft and steady—like the first ray of sunlight slipping through a window after a long night.

She never spoke to him.

Not even once.

They lived in the same world, breathed the same air, sat in the same classroom—yet remained strangers separated by silence. Sometimes, their eyes almost met, but she quickly looked away, her heart racing as if she had done something wrong.

She didn’t know his favorite subject.

She didn’t know his dreams.

She didn’t even know if he had noticed her existence.

But still, her thoughts circled around him like a planet around the sun.

And in her imagination, he remained that same glowing figure she had first seen—the boy who had cried softly, missing his mother.

The boy who now smiled so brightly, sang so beautifully, and carried warmth wherever he went.

Sometimes, as she watched him laugh with his friends, a strange thought crossed her mind.

I wish I could catch a ray of light from him.

Just a small piece.

Just enough to hold on to.

Enough to brighten her own lonely days.

Enough to remind her that hope still existed.