The night hung still, as if the world had run out of things to say.
The soft hum of the ceiling fan was the only rhythm left in Issra's room, slow, unbothered, and tired, like her. The screen of her phone glowed pale blue against her face, throwing faint shadows across the posters of molecular models and half-scribbled notes taped to her wall.
She wasn't waiting for a message. She'd stopped waiting for anything long ago.
At twenty, Issra had mastered the art of invisibility. She walked through the university corridors like a ghost wrapped in a grey scarf, quiet, precise, and always on time. People noticed her beauty, the kind that didn't ask to be seen: her almond-shaped eyes that looked as though they carried an old sadness, the effortless neatness in her uniform, the stillness in her voice. But the moment anyone tried to get close, her walls rose faster than a heartbeat.
It wasn't arrogance. It was defense, the kind that grows from too many disappointments.
She had once dreamed of being a doctor, the perfect child's dream: noble, promising, respected. But fate had its own cruel humor. The entrance test had gone wrong, not terribly, but just enough. The rejection letter still lay folded inside her drawer, like a scar she couldn't throw away. Now she studied science, not medicine, but chemistry and biology, the second option, the compromise.
"Miss Issra, are you even listening?"
The voice of her professor sliced through her thoughts. Dr. Naila, a sharp-eyed woman in her forties, stood at the front of the lab with a beaker in one hand and authority in the other.
Issra blinked back to the present, standing over her workstation. "Yes, ma'am. Sorry."
"Then explain the observation for the reaction between copper sulfate and sodium hydroxide."
Her classmates glanced sideways, waiting for her to falter. She didn't. "A light blue precipitate of copper hydroxide forms, insoluble in excess NaOH," she answered, voice steady.
Dr. Naila nodded, almost disappointed that Issra hadn't stumbled. "Good. Try to stay with us next time."
A few giggles echoed from the back. The same girls who whispered about her every day, Areeba and Sana, exchanged smirks. "Maybe she's daydreaming about her imaginary boyfriend," Areeba muttered loud enough to be heard.
Issra ignored it. She'd grown immune to petty words; they bounced off her silence like stones on steel. But still, something deep inside her chest clenched, the place that still remembered what it felt like to belong.
At lunch, she sat alone on the far edge of the canteen, a book open in front of her though her eyes barely moved across the lines. Laughter spilled across the room, clusters of students talking about movies, memes, plans, futures.
Her world was smaller: lectures, labs, and the tiny universe inside her phone where she sometimes escaped, not to talk, but to not think.
When she wasn't studying, she played Free Fire. It wasn't about winning, it was about control. In that digital world, her silence was power. No one mocked her, no one compared her. She could just be "Issra_17", faceless, precise, dangerous.
That evening, she left the university early. The clouds had gathered low, and the smell of rain mixed with exhaust fumes in the air. Her small apartment was barely a few streets away, a rented space near the corner, with one narrow balcony overlooking a busy road.
She brewed tea for herself, the way she always did: one and a half teaspoons, no sugar. Routine was her religion; it made the world predictable.
Her phone buzzed once, a message in the class group chat. Someone was mocking her again for being "too serious." She muted the chat without reading further.
Another buzz, this time from Free Fire.
[Friend Request: Hikaru_07]
She frowned. Probably another random gamer. She had stopped accepting requests, too many creeps, too many conversations that started with fake charm and ended with irritation.
Still, something about the username made her pause. "Hikaru." The name felt unfamiliar, soft yet strange on her tongue. Maybe Japanese? Or Korean? Hard to tell.
She tapped on the profile.
Level 73. High rank. A custom avatar, black hoodie, silver mask. No description. No posts. Just an empty corner of the internet.
She locked her phone and sipped her tea.
She didn't accept.
By 10 p.m., the city outside was murmuring itself to sleep. Issra sat cross-legged on her bed, her laptop open beside her, half-distractedly typing an assignment. Her mind kept drifting. To her past. To the rejection letter. To the feeling that life had pressed pause somewhere, and she was just living on replay.
Her phone blinked again.
Notification: 1 new message request.
She sighed. Curiosity won.
Hikaru_07: You're terrible at Free Fire, but your aim is weirdly poetic.
She stared at it, eyebrows drawn. What kind of message was that? Half-insult, half compliment? She almost laughed. Almost.
She didn't reply.
The next morning at university, the sky had cleared, but her mood hadn't.
"Hey, ice queen!" Areeba's voice came from behind as Issra walked toward the lecture hall. "You'll freeze the entire class with that expression!"
Issra didn't turn. "Maybe that'll shut you up," she muttered under her breath.
"Excuse me?"
"I said good luck on your quiz," Issra replied coolly, sliding into the front seat of the lecture hall.
The girls behind her whispered something, but Issra focused on her notes. The class began, biochemistry, her favorite. Dr. Sameer, an easygoing lecturer with a soft voice, explained enzyme kinetics with such clarity that even silence felt attentive.
Midway through, he said, "You know, life's a bit like an enzyme, works best under the right conditions. Change the temperature, the pH, and everything collapses."
The class chuckled lightly. Issra smiled faintly.
Then what about those of us who never found the right conditions? she wondered.
After class, she went to the library. It was her sanctuary, the smell of paper, the distant ticking clock, the comfort of silence. She sat by the window, scribbling notes, trying to stay busy enough not to feel.
But her phone lay beside her, screen-down. And every few minutes, she found herself glancing at it.
He won't message again, she thought. Good.
Still, a part of her, the human, curious part, almost wanted him to.
Evening came again. Her roommate, Zara, wasn't home yet, she usually hung out with her friends till late. Issra didn't mind; solitude had become her company. She lay on her bed scrolling through reels of music and random game clips.
Then, another notification blinked.
[Message request from Hikaru_07]
She exhaled. Again?
This time the preview only showed a few words:
"You don't talk much, do you?"
Her finger hovered over the message. She told herself to ignore it. But she tapped it open anyway.
The chat window opened, simple and sterile. Only two lines from him:
You're terrible at Free Fire, but your aim is weirdly poetic.
You don't talk much, do you?
She typed, Maybe I just don't talk to strangers. Then erased it.
Typed again, Maybe silence is better than nonsense. Erased it too.
Finally, she locked her phone, tossed it aside, and lay back staring at the ceiling. The fan spun slow circles above, humming like an unfinished thought.
Somewhere between consciousness and the pull of sleep, her phone buzzed again.
She didn't check immediately. But when she finally picked it up, the screen showed his message, just three words that would linger in her mind longer than they should have:
"Still, I noticed."
Issra stared at it, her pulse quickening for reasons she couldn't explain.
She didn't reply. Not yet.
The next morning unfolded like every other, cold, rushed, and ordinary. The alarm went off at 6:45, a sound Issra hated yet depended on. She washed her face, tied her hair, and stared into the mirror for a moment too long. There was something sharp in her reflection, like she was both present and distant at once.
Zara shuffled into the room, half-asleep, clutching her phone. "You're up early again," she murmured.
"I always am," Issra replied, slipping her notebooks into her bag.
"You need to relax sometimes, you know. There's more to life than assignments."
Issra gave her a faint smile. "Like what? Boys and heartbreaks?"
Zara rolled her eyes. "Like living, Issra."
Issra didn't answer. She didn't know what living meant anymore, she was just existing, moving through days like ticking boxes on a checklist.
Classes passed in a blur, enzyme mechanisms, reaction rates, endless graphs. Her professors spoke, students scribbled, and somewhere between it all, her mind wandered.
When she checked her phone at lunch, the message was still there:
Hikaru_07: Still, I noticed.
She hadn't replied, but the words stayed in her head, looping quietly like background music she couldn't turn off.
By evening, the exhaustion hit. She dropped her bag onto the chair and powered up her phone, not for calls, not for social media, but for a round of Free Fire.
The familiar loading screen appeared, flashing lights, gunfire, chaos. A world where rules made sense.
As soon as she joined the lobby, a notification popped up:
Hikaru_07 has invited you to join a squad.
Issra hesitated. He found me in-game? She hadn't accepted his friend request, had she? Wait, maybe she did accidentally last night when she was half-asleep.
Against her usual logic, she clicked Accept.
The match began. The virtual island flickered into view, parachutes, wind, silence before the storm.
Hikaru_07: You finally joined. Thought you were allergic to people.
She smirked. Voice chat's on. She didn't speak, though.
Hikaru_07: Silent treatment, huh? Fine. Let your gun do the talking.
Issra landed near a factory, looted fast, and sniped two enemies before he even found a weapon.
Hikaru_07: …Okay, maybe I was wrong. You're not terrible. You're terrifying.
A small, involuntary laugh escaped her lips, the first in days.
They played until midnight. Hikaru kept up a steady stream of light banter: about the game, music, how his squadmates once betrayed him mid-match. Issra didn't say much, but she didn't log off either. His voice, smooth, low, slightly accented, filled the quiet corners of her mind she thought were permanently locked.
When the final match ended, he said,
"You play like you're trying to outrun something."
Issra froze.
"What makes you think that?" she finally typed.
Hikaru_07: Because I do the same.
For a moment, the air between them, though separated by screens, felt real, heavy, almost touchable.
Days turned into a quiet rhythm. Morning lectures, lab work, and nights filled with digital gunfire and unexpected conversations. Issra found herself looking forward to that little "online" dot next to his name.
He talked more than she did, about his music, his half-broken guitar, his online gigs that barely paid, his love for night skies. He said he liked the stars because "they don't need to speak to be noticed."
Issra rarely opened up. She'd reply in fragments:
"Nice."
"Hmm."
"Must be hard."
But Hikaru never pushed her. He seemed to understand her silence better than words.
Sometimes, when he'd sing a few lines over voice chat, deep and haunting, Issra would close her eyes and forget for a moment where she was.
Yet the world outside her screen remained cruel.
One afternoon in the cafeteria, Areeba and her group passed by her table.
"Look who's busy playing soldier again," Areeba sneered. "No wonder she doesn't have friends, who'd want to talk to a mute scientist?"
Zara shot back, "At least she's not wasting her life gossiping."
Areeba smirked. "Defending your roommate again? Careful, you'll catch her coldness."
Issra said nothing, but her grip on her fork tightened.
That evening, she played with Hikaru again, unusually quiet even for her.
Hikaru_07: Bad day?
Issra_17: Something like that.
Hikaru_07: Want to talk about it?
Issra_17: No.
A pause.
Hikaru_07: Then play. Let's shoot it out of your system.
And they did. Match after match, till her tension melted into focus. For the first time, she realized, he wasn't just playing with her. He was listening without asking.
Late that night, when she finally set her phone aside, her mind wouldn't rest. She opened her drawer and looked at the folded rejection letter. Her fingers brushed against it gently.
Maybe some failures aren't meant to be fixed, maybe they're meant to redirect you, she thought.
Her phone buzzed again.
Hikaru_07: If silence was a person, it'd look like you.
Issra_17: That's not a compliment.
Hikaru_07: It is when silence speaks louder than everyone else.
Issra smiled, a real and fleeting smile.
Issra_17: You talk too much.
Hikaru_07: And you listen too deeply. Bad combination.
Issra_17: Maybe.
Hikaru_07: Goodnight, Doctor-Who-Never-Was.
She blinked, startled. How did he—
Then she remembered, she'd once mentioned it accidentally, maybe a sentence lost in their long chats. He remembered.
She stared at the screen, unsure whether to be irritated or touched.
Just as she was about to lock the phone, another message appeared, one that would echo in her thoughts long after she slept:
Hikaru_07: You failed the dream, not the purpose. I can see that.
Issra's throat tightened. No one had ever said that to her.
For the first time in years, she didn't feel invisible. She didn't reply.
But deep inside, something fragile shifted, the beginning of warmth she didn't want but maybe needed.