Love Before Graduation-Chapter 74: chasing the nights( Arin’s pov)

Everyone had left.

Like a train that arrived and departed before you even knew it was there.

Nami was the first to go—laughing, like time didn't weigh on her shoulders,

like other people's screams never made it to her ears.

She rode off on her scooty like she'd just walked out of a climax she didn't care to finish.

I picked up my bike.

Rian was behind me. Or ahead.

Who really knows who's ahead or behind when everyone's just running?

He asked me, "We all left together, right?"

Like he'd forgotten something.

Or maybe, he was hiding it.

"Yeah. Why?" I said.

"Just like that," he replied.

And sped off like his house was on fire.

I could've left too.

But I didn't.

Aira...

She was in that empty space—

the one she was supposed to be standing in.

And she wasn't.

I turned my bike around.

Neither my brain nor my heart gave me permission.

I just did it.

She was still there.

Bent over her scooty,

muttering complaints—to who, I couldn't tell.

I said, "Still here?"

She jumped.

Scared.

Maybe the only time someone wasn't scared of me—just of seeing me.

"You idiot! It's you?"

Her eyes held anger,

but I could see the fear... and maybe, relief.

"Why'd you come back?"

I said, "Because someone has to.

Everyone else always leaves."

"My scooty's dead," she said,

like she was talking about a machine, not her heart.

I looked at it and laughed.

"Yeah, I'm no miracle worker. Can't bring that thing back to life tonight."

"Then why are you here?"

"To take you with me."

I said it like it was nothing.

But it wasn't.

"What if someone sees us?"

she asked,

more afraid of herself than of 'people.'

I said, "People stare when you break too. And they stay silent."

She didn't reply.

"Let's walk," I said.

She walked.

With me.

Not out of helplessness—more like habit.

We walked,

the road beneath, streetlights above,

and that silence in between—

thicker than any scream.

She kept glancing at me.

Again and again.

Like I was a question she couldn't answer.

But she didn't know how to read,

and I didn't know how to explain myself.

Then she said—

"Love broke him...

turned him into a monster, then a martyr.

Is that what love does?"

I said nothing.

Because I knew—

she wasn't talking about Subh.

She was talking about us.

I asked, "Do you believe in love?"

She said, "No... maybe yes... I don't know."

And I thought—that's love.

Not belief. Not denial.

Just a wound that doesn't show,

but keeps burning anyway.

We were walking together,

but going nowhere.

Not toward a destination—

just away from being alone.

And maybe,

that was enough.