Chapter 3 – The Summer of Distance

The last class before the summer break ended with the teacher’s voice echoing reminders about homework and upcoming tests. Chairs scraped against the floor, notebooks snapped shut, and students poured out of the tuition center with the easy laughter of freedom.

Irisa gathered her things carefully, slipping her pens into their case, stacking her notebooks one by one. Her friends chattered excitedly beside her about travel plans and family visits. She smiled faintly at their energy, though her own summer looked quieter — just her, her books, and the long afternoons ahead.

Behind her, Ren packed up more casually, slipping his notebook into his bag without much thought. As he stood, his eyes flickered toward the middle row where she sat. He wanted, just once, to say something before the long gap of the holidays stretched between them. But the words stuck somewhere in his throat. So instead, he simply watched her walk out of the room, the sunlight catching her hair for a moment before the door closed behind her.

And then she was gone.

---

Summer began.

For Irisa, the days fell into a rhythm of late mornings, quiet afternoons, and evenings spent at her desk. She revised lessons, wrote out neat notes, and read chapters that she thought she’d never have time for during tuition. She was content, mostly. But sometimes, when the house grew too quiet and the pages of her notebook seemed too blank, her mind drifted back to the classroom.

To the way her friends had giggled when they told her that someone liked her.

To the way she had felt that flutter in her chest, even though she had brushed it off.

And sometimes, unwillingly, her thoughts wandered further back — to the boy who sat a few rows behind.

Ren.

She hadn’t spoken to him, not once. But his presence had lingered with her, like a shadow she couldn’t quite shake off. She told herself it didn’t matter, that she was only curious because of what her friends had said. And yet, every time she sat down to study, she wondered — was he studying too? Was he thinking of her the way she was thinking of him?

---

For Ren, the summer felt longer than he expected. At first, he welcomed the break, imagining lazy mornings without alarm clocks and afternoons spent however he pleased. But after a few days, the absence grew noticeable.

He missed the steady rhythm of tuition — the scratch of chalk on the board, the quiet murmur of lessons. More than that, he missed the sight of her. The way she sat upright, listening carefully, her pen poised like she was ready to capture every word.

Sometimes, he caught himself staring at his phone, his hand itching to search her name, to find some way of reaching out. But he didn’t even know if she would want that. They had never spoken. He didn’t want to ruin whatever fragile thread was already there. So he stayed silent, carrying her image with him through the long summer afternoons.

---

Days turned into weeks. The heat deepened, the air heavy and still. And yet, both of them, in their separate worlds, found themselves thinking of each other more often than they admitted.

For Irisa, it was in the way she paused in the middle of a sentence, her pen hovering, her mind slipping away to a memory she shouldn’t be holding onto. For Ren, it was in the way he replayed her small expressions in his head, her quiet concentration, the smile she gave her friends when she thought no one was watching.

Neither of them spoke of it to anyone.

But the summer had left its mark — invisible, quiet, and undeniable.

---

When the holidays finally ended, Irisa packed her bag again for tuition, her heart beating faster than she expected. It wasn’t just about going back to studies. Somewhere inside her, she knew there was another reason her pulse quickened.

And when Ren walked back into the tuition room that first day after the break, his eyes searched almost immediately for her. He told himself it was only habit, but the truth was simpler than that. He had missed her — and now, seeing her again, he realized just how much.

What Irisa didn’t expect, though, was that the boy who had once looked at her so often would suddenly seem different. Distant. Almost as if the summer had erased something between them.

And that change — that quiet shift — was what left her heart unsettled as she sat down for the first class of the new term.

To be continued.....

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