The noise in the classroom was as lifeless as a yawn.
The teacher was writing on the board like a blind man—
Perhaps he didn't know that inside a human body, there's also a heart,
One that reacts more intensely than any chemical bond.
I was sitting in the third row.
Pen in hand, but a storm of silence in my mind.
The notebook was open, but life was being written sowhere else.
And in that "sowhere else" — there was him, Arin.
That boy who stayed silent,
As if silence itself was a skill.
He just sat there,
Shoulders straight, eyes buried in his books.
But ?
I was captivated.
And eyes—they're strange.
They can turn you into both prisoner and executioner.
And mine... kept searching for him,
Like a courtesan who waits every evening
For the sa client who never returns.
I scolded myself, warned myself, cursed myself.
"Focus, Aira. This isn't love, it's stupidity."
But really, is there any vast difference between love and foolishness?
I looked again.
And this ti—he looked too.
Just for a mont.
A single mont.
But in that mont, my breath emigrated from my body.
My heart seed to surrender.
I stood up.
"Nami!"
My voice ca out as if soone had thrown a stone at the wall of my heart.
She was startled.
Asked,
"What happened?"
I said,
"It's an ergency. Let's go to the washroom."
She followed, tangled in questions.
I led the way, running from the answers.
When she stopped in the washroom and asked,
"Now tell , what's going on?"
It felt like I wrote a confession.
"My eyes just won't leave arin.
At this point, I think I need a mystic, not a doctor."
She laughed, but I didn't.
I looked at myself in the mirror—
A girl choking her own senses for a boy.
"When he looks at ,
It feels like the whole world stops,
And only I exist—or maybe only I'm dying."
Nami said,
"You've gone mad. He doesn't even talk to you!"
I replied,
"Love doesn't depend on conversation.
If ti stops in his eyes, that's enough."
Then she teased —
"Go tell him today. Like they do in dramas."
I laughed—a bitter laugh.
"You want to say sothing like,
'Arin, your presence has auctioned off my sanity.
You tell —is this a punishnt or a reward?'"
She pulled along, and I followed,
But in love, the one who gets pulled
Never quite arrives.
We returned.
And right at the door—Sir.
Mr. Raghavan.
There wasn't a teacher in his eyes,
But a coward
Who spent his life teaching chemistry
While love remained beyond his understanding.
"Where were you two?"
He asked
As if we hadn't just left class,
But fled his personal life.
I said,
"Sir, it was a dical ergency."
"And distracting the whole class is part of the treatnt plan too?"
Laughter echoed from behind.
And then—Arin again.
His eyes, that smile...
As if he knew everything
Yet said nothing
Because silence is the cruellest weapon.
"Go inside, Miss Aira.
And next ti—leave your love outside the classroom."
He walked away,
But I stayed frozen there,
Wondering—
Maybe even Mr. Raghavan
Once looked at soone just like that,
And now walks around, angry, playing the role of a teacher.
________________________________________
"This isn't love, it's an obsession.
A filthy ga of a woman's helplessness and a man's silence."
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