The day after the festival, cleanup duty dragged on far too long. Everyone was exhausted, sweeping confetti off the gym floor or folding up stalls that seemed heavier than they had been yesterday.
Bayu had been looking for Arka, who had vanished halfway through the work with the excuse of "checking on something." He finally found him in the classroom, asleep at his desk, arms folded like a barricade. The giant pink rabbit plush slumped against his chair like a loyal bodyguard.
Bayu sighed. Typical.
He was about to wake him when a slim notebook slid half out of Arka's bag, pages bent from use. Bayu reached to tuck it back in, but his eyes caught the scribbles inside.
Curiosity won.
It wasn't homework. It wasn't notes. It was story after story, some only a paragraph, some sprawling with messy handwriting, crossed-out lines, and half-finished metaphors. Strange little allegories filled the pages: skies that hummed like violins, rivers that swallowed voices, people made of glass.
One page in particular held him still:
"A storm that never stops laughing, and the tree that bends but never breaks. They dance together endlessly. The storm swirls louder, the tree creaks under the weight, but still it stays rooted, never falling."
Bayu read it twice. Then a third time. Something in it rang too close, like a secret he hadn't known Arka had told.
"HEY!"
Arka's voice jolted him. He noticed the notebook in Bayu's hands. "What are you—?"
Bayu closed it gently. "You wrote this?"
Arka snatched it back, shoving it into his bag. "It's nothing. Just… fiction."
Bayu leaned on the desk, watching him. "That storm. The tree. That's us, isn't it?"
Arka froze for half a beat too long. Then he laughed, too loud, too quick. "Wow, Bayu, you really think you're a metaphor? You're not even a simile."
Bayu didn't laugh. His gaze stayed steady, quiet in the way that always cut through Arka's noise. "You write like you're trying to say something you won't say out loud."
Arka rolled his eyes, forcing a grin. "Or maybe I just like storms and trees. What's next, gonna tell me the pink rabbit plush is secretly a metaphor too?"
Bayu let it drop, at least out loud. But later, when Arka walked ahead of him down the hall, cracking jokes at anyone who passed, Bayu found himself replaying the words in his head: a storm that never stops laughing, and the tree that bends but never breaks.
And for the first time, he wondered if Arka's endless noise wasn't just a mask, but a storm hiding something deeper, something he wasn't sure how to reach.