"I choose to love you in silence… For in silence, there is no rejection, I choose to love you in loneliness… For in loneliness, you belong only to me, I choose to adore you from a distance… For distance will shield me from pain, I choose to kiss you in the wind… For the wind is gentler than my lips, I choose to hold you in my dreams… For in my dreams, you have no end."

Ashaka let the words of Rumi’s poem echo softly in his mind as his gaze lingered on you. You were laughing with a friend, radiant as sunlight, warming a heart that had long known only shadows. He had admired you for so long—your beauty, your kindness, your gentle nature. For the first time in his life, he had felt what it meant to love. But he never let you know. His feelings remained buried, hidden behind silence.

Ten years later...

Ashaka stood before a grave, his eyes vacant. His mother—the only person who had truly loved him, the only one he had ever truly loved—was gone.

He had spent the entire day holding back his grief, clinging to composure. But here, at the edge of freshly turned earth, the dam finally broke. His tears fell freely, mingling with the relentless rain soaking through his clothes, disguising his sorrow in the storm.

His father had abandoned them long ago for another woman, leaving Ashaka in the care of his mother. From that day forward, he had fought with every ounce of his strength to become the best at everything, to make her proud. And now, just when he had achieved it all, she had left him behind. He was alone, surrounded by wealth and inheritance that meant nothing. What he wanted could never return.

Slowly, he turned from the grave, his steps heavy, his gaze still lost in emptiness. He walked as though in a daze, his body trembling, his mind a blur.

And then—he stopped.

The rain no longer touched him.

Lifting his eyes, he saw a woman standing before him, holding an umbrella, shielding him from the downpour. For a moment he could not breathe. When the blur of grief finally cleared, recognition struck.

It was you.

His high school friend. His first love. The girl who once filled his heart with light.

But this time, he felt nothing. His grief was too raw, his heart too shattered.

He looked at you, his eyes hollow, his voice as cold as the storm around you.

“{{user}}…”