The After The Rain
Would You Like To Stay?

The next day, Kinara was astonished to find Dahayu already at the desk in front of the classroom. Though the first class was only about to start in an hour and a half and in a lifetime, the girl never came to campus before than she did. Kinara himself deliberately came early to be able to ride using WiFi to do something.

"Tumben, Ay?" tanyanya after sitting next to Dahayu.

"Biasalah, someone wants to make the image of family man, so I was ushered until the front of the campus gate." Sahut Dahayu's.

It does not take much thought to know what Dahayu said. Because when the girl mentions the keyword family man, it means referring to only one person, namely Om Haris.

"Who do you want imaging in front of? Is anyone gonna squirm you this early?" ask Kinara again while taking out the laptop from inside the bag.

"One of his colleagues is teaching at this campus." Dahayu still answered even though she was very lazy to talk about her father. "What do you want to do?" ask her then to divert the conversation. He tilted his head to peek at the laptop screen on Kinara's lap.

"Novels." Kinara answered briefly. Because now he had started to enter into the world he had created himself. His fingers danced on the keyboard and his lips occasionally muttered silently.

Next to her, Dahayu was just a beard before pulling her head back away from the laptop screen. His gaze was then anchored upwards, on a stretch of white sky that seemed to want to show the world how holy he was.

"Gue peg quit college."

Kinara's finger movement on the reflex keyboard stopped when he heard the sentence glide from Dahayu's lips. For a moment he was silent, trying to digest what he heard a little longer to make sure that his brain was still working normally.

Then, with super slow motion similar in the action films he often watched, Kinara turned to Dahayu. Only to find the girl looking up at the sky above with a smile on her back adorning her beautiful face.

"Gue's tired of hanging my life with both of them." Said Dahayu with a gaze that still did not switch. "Gue wants to try to live independently, Ra." Reciprocity.

When Dahayu finally pulled the gaze from the sky and turned it to Kinara, she found the girl looking at her with a gaze that was too difficult to translate.

"Living independently is not that easy, Ay." Kinara said in a super slow voice. It was as if the spirit and all the energy he had evaporated just like that after hearing Dahayu's words.

"Gue knows." Sahut Dahayu's. "But, if we never try, how we will know?"

What could Kinara do other than sigh at hearing that? He knows how stubborn Dahayu is if he already wants something. So after a deep breath she took to fill her chest cavity which suddenly felt pain, Kinara turned her attention to the laptop screen and continued her work.

Long silence covered both. Until Kinara got to the last sentence at the end of the paragraph he wrote for the 5th chapter of the novel he was working on.

Before closing the laptop screen, Kinara paused for a moment to choose which diction was right for her to realize in a speech. Then when the choice was steady, he turned to Dahayu and looked at the girl fixedly.

"Whatever decisions you make, I as a friend can only be supportive. But promise me, whenever you find trouble, you should look for me."

Because Kinara felt it was time for her to repay all of Dahayu's kindness. It was time for them to change positions so that not only Dahayu always stood up to defend himself, but he could also do the same.

Along with Kinara's laptop which was finally shut down, their chatter that morning also ended.

...****************...

Classes are not conducive because most students who are following the course of teaching and learning activities are busy gossiping with friends on the right and left of their seats. The lecturer had to reprimand them many times and threatened to dismiss the class, but the threat only managed to scare them for a few minutes before the commotion resumed.

Kinara who was sitting on the middle bench snorted many times. Besides because he does not like commotion, this course is also his favorite course. So at least he wants to absorb all the material conveyed by the lecturer well.

Beside him, Dahayu did not react much. When Kinara turned to check on her condition, she found the boy was staring straight at the projector screen while occasionally scraping pen ink onto the notebook. There were no protests or harsh words that Dahayu made to these noisy students, either because he was tired or his world was separated far enough that he did not have time to go back and scold them one by one like the other day.

"Today I can still understand, but once again I find a classroom atmosphere like this, I will no longer want to teach in your class." Threaten Bu Larasati, a beautiful lecturer in his late thirties who always looks beautiful and elegant before breezing away from class.

After the departure of Bu Larasati, the classroom atmosphere certainly became more noisy. The subtle whispers that could only be heard up to a table or two next to it, now began to turn into screeches that cared for the ears.

Kinara felt her head throb, her ears were penniless and she began to twitch. This is also the effect because last night he was only able to sleep after almost two and a half hours in the morning.

"Lo has to get used to the hustle of kayak gini." Said Dahayu suddenly amidst the noisy atmosphere around them.

Kinara turned her head, only to find the girl still struggling with the pen and notebook.

For a few seconds, Dahayu did not continue his sentence. Though Kinara knew the girl had more to say.

Until finally, Dahayu put the pen on the table and then turned his head. The girl smiled. The kind of smile that Kinara herself had just seen and she really did not know how to interpret it.

"Later, if I hadn't gone to college here, there wouldn't have been anything they'd want to stop making noise. I also knew you wouldn't have the guts to do that. So, all you can do now is just try to get used to the same situation."

From that series of sentences, Kinara finally knew that what Dahayu had been doing was solely because the girl knew she did not like the commotion. Though all this time Kinara thought Dahayu did it because it was the girl who likes to get angry and do not like when her activities are disrupted. Apparently, after a long time friends, Kinara still misunderstood every action that Dahayu showed.

That fact made Kinara feel guilty. So instead of focusing on the growing pain in the head, Kinara inched closer towards Dahayu. He hugged the girl tightly as if he did not want anything to separate them at this moment.

"If I asked you to stay, would you like to stay here with me?" asked Kinara with a trembling voice.

All this time, he had never asked Dahayu anything. But if he was allowed to ask for something, he would ask that the girl could last a little longer here with him. So that he could at least give as much as Dahayu had ever given him. Or even more.

The noise around them was no longer heard. Because right now, the only thing that filled Kinara's ears was the soft sound of Dahayu when the girl said, "I'll try."

Seriate.