That day began in the music class and the silence between them grew thick enough to taste.
He arrived earlier than usual.
Not for the lesson but for her.
Yet when she walked in, something was different. He wasn't his usual teasing, magnetic self. He didn't steal those small stolen glances that normally set her pulse dancing. He didn't tap his fingers on the piano lid in that rhythm he always used to get her attention.
Instead, he sat there, shoulders drawn in, as though carrying an invisible weight.
The students sang around them, voices scattering like feathers in the air, but his were the only eyes she noticed; quiet, tired, sinking into thoughts he couldn't escape.
He kept his distance.
Not physically but emotionally.
Every time she looked at him, his eyes darted away, soft and troubled, like he was afraid she would read the truth in them.
He was thinking about tomorrow.
About the day he had to spend with his girlfriend.
About how to tell her, the woman he wasn't supposed to love... hat he'd be unavailable, unreachable, and standing beside someone else.
He rehearsed the words in his mind over and over:
"Tomorrow she has plans… I have to go…"
But every version felt like betrayal dressed as duty. He knows that he shouldn't feel like this..
He knew she never asked for explanations.
He knew she was never jealous, never demanding, never the type to claw or compete.
But that's exactly what tore him apart; her quiet strength, her acceptance, her refusal to interfere.
She wouldn't question him. But she would be hurt. And he knew it.
His fingers brushed the strings of the guitar absently, but the melody was wrong. Chords slipping, rhythm uneven.
He couldn't focus. Couldn't breathe properly.
With every minute, his anxiety grew sharper.
He glanced at her once. Just once and her eyes caught his, offering a calm she didn't even know she possessed.
He swallowed hard.
How do you tell a woman who loves you silently that you're spending a day with someone who owns your name, your heart but not your soul?
He didn't know. So he said nothing.
When class ended, the turbulence followed them.
At first, he avoided her touch, her closeness, even her shadow.
Not because he didn't want her but because wanting her felt like treason against decisions he made long ago.
His silence, normally soft, became heavy.
Every rep, every set, every breath felt like it carried the weight of unspoken words.
But then something broke.
Maybe it was the way she adjusted her hair.
Maybe it was the quiet way she sat near him, showing she was there without asking anything.
Maybe it was the fact that tomorrow he'd have to pretend she didn't exist.
Whatever it was it shattered the distance he was trying so hard to keep.
He locked the doors. He walked to her, slow, like a man surrendering.
He caught her hands, spun her gently, pressing her back into his chest. His arms curved around her neck, protective, desperate, reverent.
The storm in him softened under her skin.
He kissed her neck.... light and trembling.
The kind of kiss that says everything he didn't dare to speak in the classroom.
He held her longer than usual.
Held her like he needed her heartbeat to steady his.
And she felt it. The ache in him, the conflict, the longing, the fear.
She let him kiss her, hug her, but she kept it tender, not hungry.
She matched his energy with the same softness.
When she whispered if she could say something in his left ear, he already knew.
He braced himself, heart pounding, almost wanting her to say it because tomorrow he would have to act like she wasn't the one he thought about last when he slept.
But the words stayed inside her, caught on the edge of courage and restraint.
Instead, she whispered,
"I'm in love… what should I do?"
The question tore him open.
He blushed first then the sadness leaked through the cracks.
He teased, asking if he should make her hate him. But his voice betrayed him.
And when she asked if he really wanted to, his "No… I don't," came out broken, like it had been waiting years to escape.
When she asked if he could ever make her hate him, he answered with a truth he never meant to reveal:
"No. I can't. You are in my heart and soul, but… you know…"
The "you know" carried everything he couldn't say. Everything he wanted to avoid saying. Everything tomorrow would force him to confront.
She silenced him with her finger, saving him from confessing the pain he wasn't ready to name.
"Some truths need to stay in the heart. Let's live in the moment. Don't remind me of the harsh reality. I know it already."
He wanted to collapse into her then.
Relief, guilt, love... a chaotic symphony tightening inside him.
He held her again. Long. Too long.
Tomorrow waited for him like a punishment.
But right now she was his escape, his softness, his sanity.
He delayed his departure for almost half an hour, holding her as though he needed that time to breathe. When his phone call finally came, she hugged him tightly and, without a word, slipped a folded note into his pocket.
It was her very first handwritten note for him.
As they left, there was a free health checkup camp outside, and they were invited. He agreed, and they checked. The doctor frowned slightly at his report; his BP was a little low.
"Is it always this low?" the doctor asked, looking at her as though she should know.
They shared a startled glance before turning away quickly.
"How would I know?" she murmured under her breath, but her cheeks were warm.
On the way out, he chuckled softly, "Maybe they mistook us for a couple. Or husband and wife." His smile was bittersweet.
She reminded him casually, "There's something in your pocket " and left without turning back."
Curious, he pulled out the folded note once he was alone. Slowly, he opened it, and his eyes traced the words:
"You're the only reason I smile during the hardest days. I crave your presence like breath itself. What you awaken in me can't be put into words. You are my secret sin, my sweetest obsession, my forbidden calm. And I don't want to stop falling into you. Keep this, because it's a piece of me that belongs only to you."
A lotus symbol was drawn at the bottom.
His throat tightened. For a long moment, he just held it, staring at the ink, feeling her presence in every curve of her handwriting. Something inside him softened, something dangerous yet beautiful.
When he reached home, he texted her. She video called, needing to see his face. The screen lit up, and there he was- holding something between his lips. She frowned. "What is that?"
Without a word, he raised it. Her note. Folded neatly, resting between his lips like a secret kiss.
Heat flushed through her as he blushed, rubbing the note against his lips softly, then pressing it to his eyes, then his forehead- as though it were a ritual, a prayer. Her heart thumped wildly, but she kept only a small smile, guarding the storm inside her.
When the call ended, doubt clawed at her. She messaged him, "Are you going to keep it or throw it away?" The risk was real- his girlfriend visited his house, what if she found it?
But his answer was firm: "I'm keeping it."
Her first note… he was going to keep.
That night, she sent him a picture of a dried lotus with a caption:
"Even when time dries it, I still keep it… because it's yours. And that makes it mine."
He wanted to see her earlier that night. His heart was restless, but an unexpected guest delayed him, and the very moment he finally got to his room, he called her- still in the same clothes, not even pausing to change. She looked at him through the screen, a soft smile resting on her lips. Her eyes lingered on his, then slipped away shyly with that same smile.
He noticed and said, "You kept that lotus. Your writing… it's something else."
She pressed her finger gently to her heart, smiling, and whispered, "It comes from here, naturally- for you."
A blush rose on his face as he murmured, "Dear, don't love me like this… I will love you too."
The way her eyes shone, the curve of her lips, said everything he tried to deny: "You are already in love, my dear. Your love for her never diminished, but how long will you go on denying the love you feel for me-the love I deserve?"
And in the silence that followed, his heart echoed her truth. He too no longer wanted to deny it. But the path he had chosen was carved too deep, and the future he walked toward could not be undone. If he surrendered, he knew, he would become a ship without anchor or captain- adrift in a storm of love and guilt, with no shore to call his own.
Yet beneath that weight, his heart ached with a quiet longing- for a future where he could choose her without fear, and anchor himself in the safe harbor of her love.
That night, he lay awake with the folded note pressed against his chest, as though it were stitched into his very skin. For him, it wasn't just paper-it was a fragment of her soul. And for her, knowing he chose to keep it meant that no matter the risks, no matter the silence that might come, her words had found a permanent home inside his heart.