Nysa's POV

It’s only been seven days.

Just seven days since that green checkmark appeared on my screen — his quiet acceptance, his small nod across the digital void.

But in those seven days, a universe has shifted inside me.

And around me, the voices never stop.

“He’s the kind who slides into every girl’s DMs, don’t take it seriously.”

“Kritika once saw him flirt with a second-year while his supposed girlfriend was waiting outside.”

“Trust me, Naysa, he’s charming but cold. He doesn’t do feelings.”

“Why are you so quiet these days? Don’t tell me you're thinking about him again?”

They don’t get it.

Maybe because I don’t talk about him the way I used to.

Maybe because I don’t defend him anymore.

I just listen. Absorb. Let it sit. Let it hurt.

But still… I watch.

Seven days. And he hasn’t texted.

Hasn’t liked any stories.

Hasn’t reacted. Slid. Stumbled. Nothing.

And weirdly, that silence says more than any DM ever could.

He didn’t treat me like a girl to entertain.

Didn’t throw a “hey” into my inbox at midnight like others assumed he would.

He didn’t play the part they wrote for him.

And that… that matters.

Because it makes me question:

What if they’re wrong about him?

What if all these stories people spin around him are stitched together from jealousy, misunderstanding, fragments of moments they never truly lived?

Yes, he’s good-looking.

Yes, he has presence — that quiet, infuriating kind that pulls attention without even trying.

Yes, girls look. Yes, he knows. But does that mean he acts?

No.

Not to me.

Not in seven days.

And that silence — that very lack of attention — somehow feels like a strange kind of respect.

He could’ve sent something flirty, careless, half-hearted.

He could’ve played the boy everyone claims he is.

But he didn’t.

He let me in quietly — just enough to see, not enough to touch.

And now I scroll through his profile more like a reader of a book, not the heroine anymore — just a girl trying to understand the story written between the lines.

There’s one photo of him looking away, a sunset behind him, wind pushing through his hair. No caption. Just the date.

I stared at it longer than I should have.

Because it looked like someone who knows how to be alone without being lonely.

Someone who doesn’t chase noise.

Someone who doesn’t prove anything to anyone.

And maybe that’s why people don’t understand him —

He doesn’t try to be liked.

He just is.

And that mystery? That silence? That absence of performative affection?

It hurts. But it also… calms me.

Because maybe — just maybe — not every story is meant to explode into romance.

Some are meant to exist quietly in the shadows of what could’ve been.

So tonight, I open his profile again.

No expectations. No fantasies.

Just this strange, aching peace of knowing he’s there —

and knowing that even in silence, he has never been the boy they said he was.

And maybe that’s enough for now.

Maybe I’ll learn to breathe in this ache —

until one day, it fades.

Or until he turns around.

Whichever comes first.