Love Before Graduation

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 somewhere else.

And in that "somewhere else" — there was him, Arin.

That boy who stayed silent,

As if silence itself was a skill.

He just sat there,