It's strange how someone can sit two benches away from you for years and still feel like a stranger.
Rayan was that kind of person for me. We'd been classmates since forever — same corridors, same teachers, same roll calls — and yet, I couldn't recall a single real conversation between us. Maybe a borrowed pen, a random "hi" in passing, but nothing that ever stayed.
He wasn't the loud type. He was just... there. Present in every group photo, every annual function, every classroom memory — quiet but somehow known by everyone.He had this easy way of fitting in without ever trying. Talkative, yes, but not noisy. The kind of talkative that made people laugh, not roll their eyes.
And I, on the other hand, was the complete opposite — loud, dramatic, always getting scolded for talking too much in class.We existed on different sides of the same world, and I never really thought our paths would cross in any real way.
Until the day the computer teacher announced, "You'll be working in groups for this project."
That's how everything began — not with fireworks or confessions, but with a class assignment.
___
Our group met after school in the computer lab. The room smelled like chalk dust and cold metal.
The fan above made a lazy whirring sound, and the old monitors blinked like sleepy eyes.
My best friend and the class topper were already bickering about the layout. I sat between them, pretending to type, but really just watching everyone talk.
Rayan sat across from me, half-focused on the screen, half-smiling at the chaos.
When the program crashed for the third time, I groaned dramatically.
"See? Even the computer hates this project."
He looked up, resting his chin on his hand.
"Or maybe it hates your typing."
"Excuse me?"
"You've hit backspace more times than actual letters."
I wanted to argue, but the corner of his mouth curved upward, and I laughed instead. It was stupid, but the kind of stupid that makes the moment stay longer than it should.
---
After that, the lab became our small world.
We stayed after school, eating leftover chips from lunch, passing headphones around to play songs we weren't supposed to listen to during class.
He fixed all the errors in our code while I pretended to supervise.
"You know," he said one evening, eyes still on the screen, "for someone who talks this much, you're surprisingly bad at giving instructions."
"And you're surprisingly good at judging people," I shot back.
" You type slow"
'' excuse me?"
"Yeah ,I excuse you"
He laughed — quiet, easy, unbothered — and that laugh stayed with me for days.
---
Our WhatsApp group — originally made for "project discussions" — became something else entirely.
We sent memes, jokes, song lyrics.
Sometimes we talked about nothing — which, somehow, meant everything.
Rayan wasn't the most active one, but when he spoke, it was always to me.
He'd reply to my messages even when the others went silent.
A "good luck" before exams, a random "you okay?" on dull Sundays.
And slowly, without even noticing, I began waiting for those small blue ticks next to his name.
Back then, I didn't know what it was — the way he made silence feel comfortable, or how his messages made my day feel lighter.
Maybe it wasn't love, not yet.
Maybe it was just the beginning of a story I didn't know I'd remember this deeply.
But one thing is for sure ....he is my best friend now ...