Ep-3

Theon's Pov :

Mondays were the worst.

Not because of school itself—but because Mondays meant silence.

After spending entire nights laughing together in calls, waking up the next morning always felt oddly empty. Like someone had suddenly muted the world.

I was sitting at the back of my classroom, half-awake, hoodie sleeves pulled over my hands while the teacher explained something absolutely nobody cared about.

My phone vibrated once.

Then stopped.

I glanced down immediately out of habit.

Nothing from the group chat.

Weird.

Usually by now Cherine would’ve spammed at least ten dramatic messages about school already. Susen would be awake too, probably complaining about assignments or how tired she was after staying online too late again.

But the chatroom stayed quiet.

Even Ruaan hadn’t texted since last night.

Actually…

Ruaan had been disappearing a lot recently.

At first nobody really noticed. He was always the quieter one anyway. But lately, he’d leave calls early, reply hours later, sometimes vanish for entire days before returning casually like nothing happened.

And strangely, Susen noticed every single time.

That was the part I tried not to think about too much.

Because whenever Ruaan went offline longer than usual, Susen became quieter too.

Not obviously.

Just little things.

She checked the chat more. Asked where he was indirectly. Stayed online longer than necessary.

And I noticed because…

well.

Because I noticed her too much in general.

“You’re smiling at your phone again,” my friend beside me said suddenly.

“I’m literally not.”

“You literally are.”

I locked my screen immediately.

Embarrassing.

The truth was, somewhere between all those late-night calls and endless conversations, Susen had become my favorite person to talk to.

She laughed at my dumb jokes even when they weren’t funny. She remembered tiny details about things I said once months ago. And somehow, even through a screen, she felt comforting.

But there was also Ruaan.

Calm, unreadable Ruaan.

The kind of guy people naturally leaned toward without realizing it.

Even me sometimes.

So of course Susen did too.

The bell rang loudly, pulling me out of my thoughts.

Finally.

The moment lunch break started, my phone buzzed nonstop.

(World War 3)— 27 unread messages.

There they were.

Cherine had returned to life first.

Cherine: I hate school I wanna go home.

Susen: You say this every Monday.

Cherine: Because every Monday deserves hate.

I smiled unconsciously reading the messages.

Cherine was the youngest among us, yet somehow the loudest. Sixteen years old and already capable of starting arguments in under thirty seconds.

Susen was trying to calm her down.

Which was funny because Susen herself was only seventeen but acted like everyone’s exhausted older sister half the time.

Then there was me and Ruaan—both eighteen, supposedly the “mature” ones.

Which was honestly hilarious considering our group chat name was literally World War 3.

I scrolled further down slowly.

Still nothing from Ruaan.

And right after that came Susen’s message.

Susen: Did Ruaan disappear again?

I stared at the screen a little longer than I should’ve.

Then typed casually:

Me: Probably sleeping through life as usual.

She reacted with a laughing emoji almost instantly.

And somehow that tiny notification made my chest feel lighter.

Pathetic.

I tossed my phone onto the desk and rested my head on the desk closing my eyes for a brief second.

Maybe this was dangerous.

Maybe getting attached to people through screens was always dangerous.

Especially when feelings quietly started growing in places they weren’t supposed to.

And maybe the worst part was knowing—

if Susen’s heart was slowly drifting anywhere…

it probably wasn’t toward me.

TO BE CONTINUED~🍀

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