Love Before Graduation

It was morning, and I was alive.

Sometimes, I had to remind myself of that—because it was hard to believe.

The city was awake now, or maybe it had never really slept. The children's screams, the rickshaws' absurd honks, and the vegetable vendor's off-key calls... it felt like not a person, but the entire neighborhood was screaming.

I stood by the window—like I did every morning.

A cup of tea in my hand, now gone cold.

Just like me—once warm, now just a faint steam.

The road below was the same.

The same turn, the same crossroads...

Where two nights ago, Arin had said:

"Nothing will change."

And I had laughed, because by then, everything had already changed.