The success of the presentation in front of Pak Dani still felt sweet, like palm sugar melting slowly in a glass of iced dawet from my favorite stall near campus—thick, comforting, and almost unreal after days of pressure. But just like that sweetness, it didn't last long. The aftertaste came fast. The shadow of Akmal—his face burning with anger, the way he slammed the door as he left the room—kept looping in my head like the choking exhaust from a poorly tuned two-stroke motorcycle. You could walk away from it physically, but the smell clung to you, stubborn and suffocating.
The next day, my grade came out: A+.
For a few seconds, I just stared at the notice board, blinking like I didn't trust my own eyes. My name was there, printed clearly. No ambiguity. No mistake.
A+.
Pak Dani's handwritten note underneath it was short, as always, but precise: "Solid analysis, good delivery. Deepen P-Delta effect and optimize R value in similar calculations."
That was his version of praise. Minimal. Direct. But coming from him, it carried weight.
Cantika also got a good grade for her foundation assignment. Her group's analysis on organic soil parameters had been validated, appreciated even. Academically, we had done more than just survive—we had dominated. Clean results. Strong validation. No cracks.
But outside academics?
It was chaos.
The gossip didn't slow down—it evolved. It mutated into different versions depending on who you asked. Some said I was a traitor who stabbed my own best friend. Some said Akmal had lost his mind and was acting out of jealousy. Others, more creative, began weaving stories about me and Vina, dragging her into something she wasn't even part of. It became a distorted narrative that fed itself, growing louder with every retelling.
The campus air started to feel suffocating, like being trapped in a closed room slowly filling with carbon monoxide—odorless at first, but deadly if you stayed too long. I tried to ignore it. I told myself to focus on what mattered: preparing my thesis, maintaining performance, staying on track.
But ignoring something doesn't mean it disappears.
Every time I walked through the corridor and felt eyes lingering a second too long… every time whispers dipped just as I passed… every time I caught Akmal from a distance staring at me with that same predatory intensity, like he was measuring when to strike again—that uneasiness came back. Sharp. Persistent.
Cantika became the only place where that noise faded.
We met often. Library sessions that stretched for hours, sitting side by side in silence broken only by the tapping of keyboards or the turning of pages. Lunch at the engineering cafeteria, which used to feel like a battlefield but now felt… manageable, as long as she was there.
She had a way of dissolving tension without trying too hard. Sometimes it was just her telling random stories about lecturers—how Pak Surya once threw chalk at a student for sleeping, or how one assistant messed up a simple calculation and got roasted for ten minutes straight. Sometimes it was her doodles—small sketches on the margins of her notebook, random, meaningless, but oddly calming.
And sometimes… it was nothing.
Just sitting there.
Close enough that our shoulders brushed occasionally. Close enough that when we passed papers, our fingers touched for a fraction of a second longer than necessary.
Every one of those small moments hit harder than they should have.
My heart reacted like an SPT drilling machine hitting resistance—sudden, forceful, impossible to ignore.
And that was the problem.
Because despite everything… I hesitated.
The issue with Akmal wasn't resolved. Not even close. My reputation was still unstable, like soil with inconsistent bearing capacity—you couldn't trust it to support anything long-term.
Did I really have the right to pull her deeper into this?
That question sat quietly in the back of my mind, growing heavier each day.
That Friday afternoon, the sky looked like it was holding its breath.
Gray clouds hung low, thick and heavy, pressing down on the campus like a lid. The air was humid, sticky, charged with the promise of rain that hadn't fallen yet. It matched exactly how I felt inside—full, tense, waiting for something to break.
I had just stepped out of the computer lab, my head pounding after wrestling with structural analysis software that refused to cooperate. My eyes felt dry, my patience thinner than it should be.
My Nokia vibrated in my pocket.
Cantika.
"Where are you? There's something I need to give you."
I frowned slightly as I read it.
Me: Just got out of the computer lab. What's up?
Her reply came almost instantly.
"Meet me at the park next to Kantek. 5 minutes."
No emojis. No casual tone.
Something was off.
I slipped the phone back into my pocket and headed toward the small park. It was one of those quiet spots most people ignored—just a few old benches, scattered trees, and patches of grass that never looked fully maintained. Good for thinking. Or for conversations people didn't want overheard.
I sat on a wooden bench that creaked slightly under my weight, the surface rough from years of exposure. The wind picked up, rustling the leaves above me. The smell of wet soil started rising, even before the rain arrived.
I didn't have to wait long.
Cantika appeared from behind a line of palm trees, walking faster than usual. Her blue sling bag was pulled tight against her side. Her face…
Serious.
Not her usual expression. No softness. No lightness.
In her hand, she held a pastel-colored envelope.
"Hey," she said, sitting down beside me. The distance between us was minimal—just enough space to breathe, not enough to feel separate. The familiar scent of her shampoo cut through the damp air.
"Hey," I replied, immediately locking onto the envelope. "What's up? You look really urgent."
She didn't answer right away. Instead, she took a slow breath, like she was preparing herself.
Then she handed me the envelope.
"This," she said quietly. "A letter. From Akmal."
Everything inside me froze.
"Akmal? To you?" I repeated, staring at it like it might explode. "When?"
"He gave it to Kak Dea this afternoon. Asked her to pass it to me." She shook her head slightly. "I read it. The contents… are heavy."
I took the envelope carefully. It felt absurdly heavy for something so light.
Inside was a sheet of lined paper. Akmal's handwriting. Normally rushed and messy, but this time it looked more controlled—though parts of it still betrayed emotion. Pressure marks. Uneven strokes.
I read it once.
Then again.
Each word hit harder the second time.
By the time I finished, my jaw was tight, my chest heavy. It wasn't just anger. It was something more complicated. Something old.
I closed my eyes briefly.
"Tik…" I muttered. "This… is about Rara."
"Rara?" she asked, frowning.
I nodded slowly, exhaling.
"Back in high school. Akmal had a crush on her. A girl from the next class." I leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on my knees, the letter still in my hand. "I knew her from basketball club. Akmal asked me to help him get close to her. Be the bridge."
I let out a short breath.
"I agreed. Of course I did. He was my best friend."
The memory surfaced clearly now. Too clearly.
"But things didn't go the way he expected," I continued. "Rara wasn't comfortable. The way he approached her… it was too much. Too fast. She told me that directly."
Cantika listened without interrupting, her attention fully on me.
"She asked me about him a lot," I said. "And I answered honestly. I tried to explain his good sides. I never tried to take her, Tik. I didn't even like her like that."
I clenched my jaw slightly.
"But from Akmal's perspective? All he saw was me talking to her. Often. Privately. He assumed the worst."
I laughed softly, without humor.
"He stopped talking to me for a week. Then Rara rejected him. And in his head… that confirmed everything."
Cantika's expression softened, but there was also concern there.
"So… that's the root of it?" she asked quietly. "A misunderstanding that never got resolved?"
"Yeah," I replied. "And he never moved on."
The wind grew stronger. The first drop of rain hit the ground between us.
"He carried that narrative forward," I continued. "And now he's applying it to you. He thinks I'm repeating the same thing. That I'm taking something from him again."
I hesitated for a second.
"He doesn't see reality. He sees patterns that match his past."
Silence settled between us for a moment, broken only by the increasing sound of rain tapping against leaves.
Cantika looked down at the envelope, then back at me.
"And you?" she asked softly. "What do you see?"
The question caught me off guard.
I looked at her. Really looked.
At her serious expression. The slight tension in her shoulders. The way she was trying to stay composed, even now.
"I see someone who's being dragged into something she didn't start," I said slowly. "And someone I don't want to hurt."
The words came out more honest than I expected.
She held my gaze for a second longer than usual.
Then the rain started falling harder.
Not a drizzle anymore.
A downpour.
She quickly slipped the letter back into the envelope, tucking it securely into her bag. The sound of rain intensified, hitting the ground, the bench, the leaves around us.
But neither of us moved immediately.
The world around us blurred slightly under the curtain of rain, isolating the space we were in.
And in that moment, everything felt suspended.
The past.
The gossip.
Akmal.
All of it still there. Still unresolved.
But also…
Something else.
Something that refused to be ignored any longer.
Cantika finally stood up, adjusting her bag.
"We should go," she said softly. "Before it gets worse."
I nodded, standing up beside her.
The storm had arrived.
And whether I liked it or not… this wasn't just about Akmal anymore.