INT. CLASSROOM B - MORNING
Sunlight, heavy and golden, streams into the classroom. It's a simple room: faded maps on the walls, the scent of old paper and wood polish, the low hum of ceiling fans doing battle with the heat. The students of Section B are a tapestry of casual familiarity, chatting and shuffling books.
SARAWAT enters with a quiet authority that needs no raised voice. The room settles.
SARAWAT
Good morning, class. Before we begin, we have an addition. A new student will be joining our Section B today.
A ripple of curiosity. New students from outside the province are rare.
SARAWAT
Please, come in.
NANA enters. She stands beside Sarawat at the front of the class, a stark silhouette against the bright windows. Her uniform is too crisp, her posture too perfect. She is an island of calculated poise in a sea of easygoing comfort.
SARAWAT
Please introduce yourself.
Nana offers a small, polished wai to the room. Her smile doesn't reach her eyes.
NANA
Sawasdee khrap, everyone. My name is Na-na. It's nice to meet you all.
Her tone is pleasant, but it carries the faint, unmistakable frequency of a recording. A line delivered a thousand times in a different world.
SARAWAT
As you're new, we'll have you sit at the front to help you settle. Peem…
He gestures to a friendly-looking boy with glasses, sitting at the second bench in the third row. The desks are shared, two students to one.
SARAWAT
If you don't mind, could you move to the back for now?
PEEM (grinning easily)
No problem, Khru Sarawat.
Peem gathers his things without fuss, offering Nana a quick, welcoming nod as he passes. The casual kindness seems to confuse her for a second.
SARAWAT
Nana, you can take Peem's seat.
NANA
Khapkun kha.
(She pauses, a slight, corrective edge entering her voice)
But, it's pronounced Na-na. Not Nana.
A beat of silence. It's a small thing, a pinprick.
Sarawat meets her gaze, unruffled.
SARAWAT ( keeping a smile on his face )
I'll keep that in mind.
Nana walks to the now-empty seat. Her new deskmate is already there, watching the whole exchange with undisguised, amused interest. It's IN. He gives her a bright, open smile - the human equivalent of a welcome mat.
Nana sits . She looks at the window, then at In, then at the window again. Her extroversion, born of a life where her voice was always expected to be heard, kicks in. She asks In
NANA
Can I sit closer to the window?
IN ( who was taking out things from his bag )
Huh?
NANA
The window seat. Can I have it?
It's not rude, exactly. It's direct. A transaction proposed by someone used to getting what they want through simple articulation.
In blinks, then his easy-going nature takes over. A window seat is not a hill he needs to die on.
IN
Oh. Okay!
They swiftly switch places. Now Nana is framed by the window, the endless green of the school's bordering mango grove filling her periphery. In is now on the aisle, perfectly positioned to observe this fascinating new creature.
Sarawat, who has watched this tiny power exchange without comment, turns to the whiteboard.
SARAWAT
Alright. Let's begin. English. Please open your books to page forty-two. Today, we're discussing the subjunctive mood. Used for hypotheticals, wishes, things that are not true… or not yet real.
He begins to write on the board. The class rustles into focus.
But Nana does not open her book. The subjunctive mood—If I were, I wish I could—holds no interest for her. Her reality is too immediate, too punitive.
Her gaze drifts past the chalk-dusted glass. She watches a gecko stalk a moth on the windowpane. She watches the wind move through the mango leaves in a slow, green wave. She watches a lone farmer in a distant field, moving with a patience that feels ancient.
Sarawat's voice continues, a steady drone about clauses and conditions.
Nana's mind, built for solving complex proofs and deconstructing philosophical arguments, is now utterly absorbed by a simple, silent truth: out there, life is happening without a syllabus. Without a grade. Without a point.
She is looking for an answer, but not the one on the board. She is looking at the world she's been sent to as a punishment, and for the first time, she isn't seeing a prison.
She's seeing a view.
And in the seat beside her, In steals a glance at her profile - the focused frown, the eyes taking in a landscape she can't yet understand and he smiles to himself. This is going to be much more interesting than the subjunctive mood.
...