The halls were quieter now, the afterglow of the festival fading into routine. Arka walked alone, backpack slung low, hands stuffed into his pockets. Laughter and chatter passed him by like a river he couldn't enter. Bayu had stopped walking beside him months ago, well, not stopped entirely, but the easy closeness they'd had thinned, stretched, and snapped somewhere between confessions unsaid and truths avoided.
Arka noticed everything now: the empty spaces where Bayu's presence used to be, the way people laughed but not with him, the way he no longer reached for his notebook without a pang of emptiness.
He found himself in the art room, the one space he'd always retreated to when the noise of life became too heavy. Paint-splattered aprons hung like trophies of unfinished chaos, and sunlight slanted through the high windows, cutting sharp lines across the floor. He dropped into a chair, letting the quiet swallow him.
"Hey."
The voice was gentle but firm. Lestari stepped inside, holding her sketchbook close, eyes wide with concern. "You've… you've been avoiding everyone."
Arka shrugged, forcing a grin. "I'm fine. Just… doing my own thing."
"Yeah, your thing," Lestari said softly, walking closer, "isn't writing anymore, is it?"
Arka blinked. He opened his mouth to deflect, to joke, but no words came. For once, he didn't want to hide behind laughter.
Then Citra entered, her presence warm and grounding. She leaned against a nearby table, arms crossed, watching him with quiet patience. "You've been carrying a lot," she said. "And hiding it behind jokes only works for so long."
Arka laughed lightly, but it was brittle. "It's… easier this way."
"Easier," Lestari repeated, shaking her head. "But not better. You've been letting yourself drift. Letting… him drift. And that's not you. You're… more than the mask."
Arka's gaze dropped to his closed notebook. His fingers traced the cover absently. "I don't know how to… fix it. Or if I even can."
Rani appeared quietly, leaning against the doorframe, calm and observant as always. "You don't have to fix it alone. You've got people who care about you. People who see all of you, even the parts you hide from yourself."
Arka let out a long breath. He felt something shift, small at first, like a single drop rippling in a still pond. All the chaos, all the jokes, all the masks he had used to survive—they had only been ways to stay distant from the things that mattered most. And Bayu mattered.
"But what if it's too late?" he asked, voice low, almost a whisper against the soft echo of the empty room.
"It's never too late," Citra said firmly, stepping closer. "You just… have to start. One step. One word. One truth."
Lestari offered a small, encouraging smile. "Even the smallest action matters. Even if it's just opening that notebook again, or saying something you've been keeping inside."
Arka's gaze lifted, meeting each of them in turn. For the first time in a long while, he felt something he hadn't allowed himself to feel in months: hope, fragile but real, threading its way through the emptiness he'd been carrying.
He let the silence stretch, letting their presence sink in, letting their words root themselves. The storm of his thoughts began to settle, just enough to see clearly: he had walls built high, but people were willing to climb them. People who didn't care about the storm outside, only the one inside him.
Arka finally opened the notebook. The pages were blank, waiting. Waiting for him to write. Waiting for him to reach for more than just jokes, waiting for him to let someone in.
He exhaled, letting the tension in his shoulders loosen. Maybe it wouldn't be easy. Maybe he'd stumble. Maybe he'd hurt, and maybe he'd fail. But for the first time, he realized he didn't have to do it alone.
And that… that was the first real step toward understanding himself, toward understanding what it meant to care, and to be cared for.
He smiled. Not the forced grin, not the mask, but a real one. Small, tentative, but undeniably his.
The storm outside still raged, but for the first time, Arka felt the possibility of calm.