It was 2015, it was their first time speaking to each other, he was a silent boy while she was a loud one. she was cheerful and playful all the times, then there is him quite at the corner desk with his pencil and note book. she hadn't noticed him in this class before so she was curious and went up to him and put her hand forth and introduced her self, " Hey little guy, I'm Elira."  He stared at her blankly not knowing what was happening, She called him "little guy" again, playfully.

He glanced up for just a second, then looked away, his voice barely a whisper—

“I-I'm not little..."

There was no anger, just a quiet protest, as if he didn’t want to argue—only be understood.

Elira tilted her head, a playful glint in her eyes.

“If you don’t tell me your name,” she teased, shrugging with a soft giggle, “I might just have to call you Little Guy forever.” Darian hesitated. His fingers fidgeted with the edge of his notebook, eyes cast downward, as if the ground might swallow him whole. Then, in the gentlest whisper, he murmured, “I’m… Darian.” A pause—then, even softer, “Please… don’t call me little guy.” He didn’t look up. The words came out careful, like they’d been tucked away for a long time. Elira couldn’t help but smile. She giggled again, not out of mockery, but because something about him felt oddly precious. “Okay, Little Guy,” she whispered mischievously, already walking back to her seat.

The teacher entered, and the class began,

but Darian just sat there—his pencil still,

his name finally spoken… and yet, still smaller than the nickname she left behind.

From that day, something changed in Elira.

She started noticing the boy at the corner desk more often — his stillness, the way he doodled on the edges of his notebook, how he always carried a blue pencil with a half-erased star at the end. Darian never talked much, but he always listened. And Elira? She talked enough for the both of them.

Every morning, she would throw a quick smile his way. Some days, she left a silly doodle on his desk before the teacher arrived — a badly drawn cat, or a tiny sun wearing sunglasses. At first, he ignored them. Then, one day, she saw him draw a moon next to the sun.

That was the start of their quiet conversations.

Days turned into weeks. Elira began sitting a little closer, sometimes sharing her snacks, sometimes just talking while he silently listened — occasionally lifting his eyes, occasionally smiling when she wasn’t looking.

Then came the day he pushed a tiny folded paper toward her. It read:

"You talk a lot. But I don't mind."

And that, to Elira, felt like a hundred words coming from him.

The bell echoed across the hallways, marking the end of class, Students scrambled out with laughter and backpacks flung over shoulders. But Darian stayed seated, carefully erasing the light sketch on the edge of his notebook— a tiny sunflower he didn’t even realize he was drawing. “Elira,” the name bounced in his mind like a pebble skipping water. She was the only one who had spoken to him today. Maybe even the only one that week.

And she had smiled. At him. He didn’t look up until her shadow fell across his desk. “I wasn’t making fun of you, you know,” Elira said softly, now far less playful. She hugged her books to her chest. “You just looked… quiet. Like someone who needed a nickname.” She paused, then added, “And a friend.”

Darian blinked. Her words weren’t teasing now. They were warm. Gentle. He didn’t know how to respond, so he gave the smallest nod—almost invisible. She smiled at that. A real one this time. “See you tomorrow, Darian,” she said, stretching his name just a bit—like it was a secret only she knew how to say right. And just before she turned away, he whispered: “Okay… but just not Little Guy, alright?” She laughed, that soft, bright laugh of hers. “No promises.”

And with that, she disappeared into the hallway,

leaving behind the faintest smell of vanilla and ink—and a quiet heart, suddenly a little less alone.

The sun filtered through the cracked classroom windows, lighting up the dust motes dancing in the still air. Second period had just begun, and the students were gradually filing in, buzzing with chatter and the occasional laugh. Elira entered last, her steps bouncing with energy, that familiar glint of mischief in her eyes.

She scanned the room, expecting to be called over by her friends. She was the kind of person everyone noticed—bright, warm, loud. But her eyes found someone else.

There he was again.

Same corner. Same silence. Same pencil in hand.

Darian sat hunched over his notebook, completely absorbed. A boy tucked into the folds of his own quiet world. But today, Elira noticed something else—a tiny flower doodled in the margin of his notebook. And beside it, a figure. A girl. With a messy bun and a crooked smile.

Was that… her?

She didn’t call it out. She didn’t tease. She just smiled to herself and quietly slipped into the empty seat beside him.

He froze.

She dropped her bag loudly on purpose. Just to startle him.

“Morning,” she chirped.

He blinked, his pencil hovering mid-stroke.

Elira leaned closer with a playful grin. “Still mad about the ‘little guy’ thing?”

He shook his head without looking up. “Not mad… I just don’t like it.”

She chuckled and folded her arms on the desk. “Why though?”

He hesitated. Then shrugged, mumbling, “I don’t know. It just makes me feel… small.”

His voice was softer than a whisper, and she had to tilt her head to catch it. There was something achingly gentle about the way he said it, like the words cost him something to say.

Her teasing faded into a gentler smile.

“Okay, okay. I get it,” she said sincerely. “Then I’ll stop calling you that.”

She extended her pinky toward him, her eyes serious now. “Promise.”

He stared at her hand. No one had ever made promises to him before. Not ones like this. Hesitantly, he raised his own pinky and wrapped it around hers.

Something bloomed between them in that quiet gesture. Something soft and unspoken.

But Elira, being Elira, couldn't hold onto silence for long.

“I do like giving people weird names though,” she admitted. “It’s like my love language.”

Darian gave the tiniest smile.

“So,” she continued, “if I can’t call you ‘little guy,’ can I call you…” She tapped her chin dramatically. “Dari?”

He frowned.

“No?”

He gave her a quiet glance, as if deciding something. “You can call me Darian.”

“Full name, huh?” she grinned. “Fancy.”

He didn’t reply, but she noticed he hadn’t gone back to his drawing either. His eyes occasionally drifted toward her, like he was trying to understand this strange, loud girl who had so easily walked into his silent world and made herself at home.

“Can I see what you’re drawing?” she asked gently.

He shook his head quickly and pulled the notebook close.

“Okay, okay!” she laughed, raising her hands in surrender. “Artist secrets. I get it.”

The teacher entered, and the classroom settled into forced silence. Elira pulled out her books and scribbled a few doodles in the margins, occasionally sneaking glances at Darian, who was now quietly working, his pencil dancing quickly over the page.

Minutes passed. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw it.

A small piece of torn paper slid across the desk.

She looked down.

A rough sketch of a girl.

Messy bun. Lopsided grin. A sunflower in her hand.

Below it, one word in tiny, scribbled letters:

Elira.

She stared at it, stunned into silence for the first time in the day.

Her eyes lifted to meet his.

He didn’t say anything. Just looked away again, the tiniest hint of pink dusting his ears.

Her fingers curled around the paper, holding it close to her chest.

She smiled.

That was the moment she knew—

He wasn’t just a quiet boy in the back of the class anymore.

He had become something more.

And she, in his notebook at least, was no longer just a girl with a loud voice.

She was something drawn carefully.

Something remembered.

And maybe, just maybe,

a nickname wasn’t needed after all.

By the time tenth grade rolled around, everything had changed—and yet nothing really had.

Elira still wore that same disarming smile. The one that made teachers pause mid-scold and classmates feel like they belonged. But behind it now, there was something else. A dull ache. A loss. Her mother had passed away earlier that year. One moment she was there, folding laundry and humming old movie songs, and the next, she wasn’t. Just like that.

Since then, her house had felt like an empty hallway filled with closed doors. Her father barely spoke unless it was to check if groceries were paid. Her little sister Lyra had buried herself in their father's warmth—something Elira had never been allowed to claim.

She didn’t cry in front of anyone. That was the rule. Elira was the one who made breakfast now. Who walked Lyra to school. Who paid attention to the dates on bills taped to the fridge. She smiled not because she was happy, but because it kept everyone else from worrying.

Darian noticed.

He didn’t say anything, of course. He wasn’t the type to talk when words weren’t needed. He just started walking beside her more often. Waiting outside her class. Leaving sticky notes with reminders in her notebook when she looked too tired to care about homework.

Their bond had shifted from something light and playful to something softer. Unspoken.

And then came the picnic.

The school organized it as a break from midterm pressures. There would be games, music, and food—but also a short, silly skit competition. One of their classmates had written a strange script about a lost prince, an evil queen, a timid peasant girl, and an accidental hero. Elira was immediately cast as the overly dramatic villain. She nailed the part effortlessly, putting on wild accents and hurling fake curses.

Darian, to his horror, was made the reluctant prince who saves the day.

“I don’t act,” he said flatly.

“You just have to say three lines and look mildly confused. That’s literally just your face,” Elira teased.

Skit practices started after school in the empty music room. At first, Darian barely said a word. He stumbled over the script, eyes on the floor. But Elira... she had this way of laughing without making fun of him. Correcting him without correcting him. Slowly, Darian eased into the rhythm.

It was during one of those rehearsals that Elina walked in.

She was the new girl. Soft brown hair, small voice, shy smile. She had been assigned to help with props, but when one of the main cast members got sick, she was pulled in to play the peasant girl—the one the prince ends up saving.

The change felt small at first. But Elira saw it. The way Darian looked at Elina when she whispered her lines. The softness in his eyes that wasn’t usually there.

She felt something twist in her chest.

Over the following week, Darian seemed a little more… aware. Of Elina. Of the space between scenes. And Elira hated that it made her stomach feel like it was shrinking.

Then came the last day of practice.

It was just the two of them. The others had left early, and Darian stayed behind to help Elira pack the props. She sat cross-legged on the dusty floor, folding a velvet cape, when he sat beside her and said it.

Not looking at her. Just… speaking into the room.

“I think I love you.”

The silence between them roared.

She looked up. “What?”

He shrugged, still not meeting her eyes. “I think I do. I don’t know. I just… when you’re not around, it’s quieter in a way I don’t like. And when you are, everything feels like it makes a little more sense.”

Elira stared at him, lips parting slightly.

But before she could say anything, he stood up, rubbed the back of his neck, and mumbled, “Forget it.”

And he never brought it up again.

Never clarified if he meant Elira or Elina.

Never looked her in the eye with that same softness again.

And Elira? She didn’t ask. She didn’t push. She smiled and joked and carried on like nothing had happened. But the space it left behind stayed with her. A strange, aching emptiness.

Because for all the people in her life—her distant father, her adored little sister, the laughing crowd of classmates—Darian had been the one person who made her feel like she wasn’t just someone in the background of everyone else’s story. He had been steady. Solid.

And now, she wasn’t sure if that was still true.

Days passed. Then weeks.

Elira convinced herself it hadn’t happened. Or if it did, he hadn’t meant it. After all, he never said it again.

And then she saw it. The way Darian watched Elina during class. The small half-smiles. The lingering glances.

It wasn’t the same as the way he was with her. With Elira, it was warmth. Familiarity. Trust built over years. With Elina, it was curiosity. Like looking into a mirror that softened his own reflection.

Elira never blamed him. Elina was sweet. And quiet. And safe.

She wasn’t burdened with grief or walls. She wasn’t loud with her laughter or exhausted from pretending she was okay. She wasn’t someone who carried an entire family’s emotional weight on her shoulders.

She was just… easier.

One day, while they sat under the old banyan tree near the school gate, Elira finally asked, “Do you like her?”

Darian didn’t answer right away. Then, softly, “She reminds me of me.”

She nodded, lips pressed tightly together. “That’s not a no.”

He looked at her then, and for a moment, she thought he might say more. That he might explain what that confession in the music room had meant. That maybe he’d tell her it had been about her.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he said, “I don’t know what I feel sometimes.”

Elira smiled.

That same damn smile.

“I know.”

And she never brought it up again either.

But it haunted her.

Not because he loved Elina. But because he had loved her, too. She was sure of it. She had felt it in the way he looked at her when she laughed mid-class. In the way he leaned closer when she whispered ridiculous thoughts during assemblies. In the way he remembered the tiniest details she never said out loud.

But it hadn’t been enough.

Not enough for him to choose her.

Senior year came with new uniforms and new pressures.

University brochures, entrance exams, last chances.

The hallway walls were cluttered with posters: Prom Night. Graduation Gala. Final Year Farewell.

People whispered. Giggled. Planned.

Elira wasn’t excited. She felt distant from the buzz.

One afternoon, Darian found her sitting alone in the art room, brushing careless strokes onto a canvas of blue and grey.

He sat beside her. Close, but not too close.

“You going to prom?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Might.”

“You want to go with someone?”

She turned her head and studied his face. So still. So unreadable.

Then, quietly, “Would you go with me?”

He blinked. “As a date?”

She smiled faintly. “As someone who once said he might love me.”

He looked away, silent.

She felt the answer before he gave it.

And she didn’t press.

Elira had always lived with the ache of wanting to be chosen.

By her father, who gave all his warmth to Lyra.

By the world, which only saw her smile, never her pain.

And now, by Darian.

She didn’t want grand gestures. Or love letters. Or roses in the hallway.

She just wanted to be the one someone picked without a second thought.

But maybe that was too much to ask for.