Sometimes I wonder if people can tell.
Not in a dramatic way. Not the kind of thing you confess over coffee or cry about at night.
Just… whether they can tell that I've been living most of my life on autopilot.
I wake up. I go to campus. I attend classes, organize things, handle problems, keep everything running. People think I'm reliable. Responsible. "Anak baik-baik," they said.
And maybe they're right.
But there's this quiet part of me that feels like it's been sitting in the passenger seat for years—awake, alert, but never allowed to touch the steering wheel.
I don't remember exactly when it started. Probably somewhere between high school and university, when life stopped being about wanting things and started being about not messing things up.
I learned early that expectations are heavier than they look.
My parents never asked for much. That was the problem. When people don't demand, you end up demanding from yourself. I didn't want to disappoint them. Didn't want to be the reason for worry. So I learned to be stable. Predictable. Safe.
That's how I became the guy people rely on.
The guy who organizes.
The guy who helps.
The guy who says, "I'll handle it."
Not the guy who takes risks.
Not the guy who follows impulses.
Not the guy who falls in love easily.
Or at least… that's what I kept telling myself.
People often assume that those who grow up with comfort live without pressure.They're wrong.
I was born into stability—yes. A good house. Parents who never argued loudly. Education that was planned years ahead of time. A future that had already been sketched before I was old enough to understand the lines.
But comfort has its own kind of weight.
Since I was a kid, everything I had came with an unspoken rule: prove you deserve it. Not with grades alone. Not with obedience. But with discipline. Control. Self-awareness.
My father never raised his voice. He didn't need to. His disappointment was quieter, more surgical. One raised eyebrow. One long silence. Enough to make me replay my actions over and over in my head until I corrected myself.
So I learned early: don't be impulsive. Don't ask for things you can't justify. Don't want too much.
If I wanted a new guitar, I had to earn it—win a competition, get good grades, finish a project. If I wanted freedom, I had to prove I could handle responsibility first.
I grew up disciplined, polite, and composed.
What I didn't realize back then was that I was also growing cautious. Calculating. Afraid of wanting the wrong thing.
By the time I entered university, restraint had become second nature.
I wasn't lonely. I had friends. People trusted me. They leaned on me. I was the guy who could be relied on—steady hands, calm mind, always thinking three steps ahead.
But desire? Impulse? Wanting something just because it made my chest feel lighter?
That part of me stayed quiet.
Until her.
I remember the exact second I noticed her—not because it was dramatic, but because it wasn't.
No thunder. No music. No slow motion.
Just a shift.
I was mid-thought, mid-task, and then suddenly… my focus slipped.
She stood a few steps away, not trying to be noticed, adjusting her bag strap with that absent-minded concentration people have when they're thinking too much. She didn't know anyone was looking. She wasn't performing.
And that's what caught me.
Something about her felt… unguarded.
I've spent years surrounded by people who knew how to present themselves. Who smiled the right way. Spoke at the right time. Chose the right angle. She didn't.
She existed.
And somehow that was enough to pull me out of myself.
I told myself not to stare. Told myself it meant nothing. That she was just another junior, another face in the crowd. But my attention kept drifting back to her like a needle drawn to a magnet.
When she finally spoke to me, I felt it before I understood it.
Her voice didn't demand attention. It invited it.
Soft, steady, slightly unsure—but honest. When she looked up at me, there was no calculation in her eyes. Just sincerity. A quiet openness that felt… dangerous.
Because I realized something then.
She wasn't just someone I found attractive.
She was someone who could see me if I let her.
And that scared the hell out of me.
I've spent years mastering the art of being composed. Of being the dependable one. The senior everyone trusts. The son who never causes trouble. The man who keeps his emotions folded neatly where no one can touch them.
But standing there, explaining something simple while my heart raced like I was doing something forbidden, I felt that structure crack.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn't thinking about expectations.
I was thinking about her smile.
About the way her eyebrows knit together when she focused.
About how her presence made the air feel… lighter.
That scared me more than anything else ever had.
Because desire is reckless.
And I had built my entire life around being careful.
I knew then—deep down—that if I let this continue, it wouldn't stay small. It wouldn't stay harmless.
She wasn't just someone I was interested in.
She was someone who could make me question the rules I'd lived by my entire life.
And once that door opens, it never really closes again.
I tried to keep my distance.
Tried to focus on my role, on the schedule, on my responsibilities. But every time she laughed at something someone said, my attention snapped back to her like a magnet.
I caught myself watching the way she listened.
The way she nodded when someone spoke.
The way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was thinking.
Little things. Insignificant things.
Except they weren't insignificant to me.
And that scared me.
Because attraction I could handle. That was easy. Predictable.
This felt like recognition.
And recognition is dangerous.
It makes you imagine things you shouldn't.
It makes you want more than what you're supposed to want.
When she looked at me—really looked at me, not as a senior or a facilitator but as a person—I felt exposed.
Like she saw past the role I was playing.
That night, I told myself to calm down. To stop being ridiculous. She was just a junior. I was overthinking. I always do that.
But when I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying her smile over and over, I knew something had shifted.
This wasn't just attraction.
This was the beginning of a problem.
And I had no idea yet how deep it would go.
I've tried to explain it to myself in simple terms.
Attraction. Curiosity. Timing.
But none of those words feel honest enough.
Because what I feel for Cantika isn't loud. It doesn't rush. It doesn't crash into me like a wave. It settles. Quietly. Deeply. Like something that was always meant to be there, just waiting for me to notice.
What draws me to her isn't something obvious. It's not beauty, though she is beautiful in a way that doesn't ask for attention. It's not charm, because she doesn't try to impress anyone.
It's something subtler.
She feels… real.
When she speaks, she doesn't perform. She doesn't adjust herself to the room. She doesn't measure every word to see how it will land. She just speaks — honestly, thoughtfully — as if the world around her isn't constantly watching and judging.
I envy that.
I've spent so much of my life calibrating myself to expectations that I sometimes forget what it feels like to simply exist without calculation. But when I watch her, I remember that version of myself — the one I buried somewhere between responsibility and expectation.
What gets me the most is how present she is.
When she listens, she actually listens. Not waiting for her turn to talk. Not pretending. Her eyes don't drift. Her attention doesn't fracture. For someone like me, who is used to being heard but rarely seen, that kind of attention feels disarming.
There are moments when she looks at me and I have the strange urge to look away — not because I'm shy, but because it feels like she might see too much.
She doesn't know how much weight I carry behind this calm expression. She doesn't know how carefully constructed my composure is. And yet somehow, without trying, she makes me feel like I don't have to maintain it so tightly.
That's dangerous.
Because once you feel that kind of ease with someone, you start imagining what it would be like to let your guard down completely.
And I can't afford that.
Not when my life has been built on control.
Not when I've spent years proving that discipline is strength.
What scares me most isn't that I like her.
It's that I like who I am when I'm around her.
I'm lighter. Less guarded. More present.
I catch myself wanting to make her laugh—not to impress her, but because her laughter feels like permission to breathe.
I notice the small things: the way she hesitates before speaking when she's unsure, the way she nods slowly when she's processing something, the way she smiles with her eyes first before her lips follow.
These are not things you notice about someone you're indifferent to.
And that's the problem.
Because liking her isn't simple admiration. It's not harmless curiosity.
It's the quiet realization that if I let this continue, she could matter to me in a way that changes things.
Changes me.
And I don't know if I'm ready to let go of the version of myself I've spent years building — the one who stays in control, who doesn't want too much, who never risks wanting the wrong thing.
Yet every time she's near, that resolve weakens.
Because for the first time in a long time, wanting something doesn't feel reckless.
It feels honest.
And that might be the most dangerous feeling of all.
I didn't plan to say anything.
That's the truth.
Then comes one day when we got opportunity to talk. It was supposed to be a normal conversation. Nothing heavy. Nothing dangerous. Just the two of us sitting a little apart from the others, the late afternoon air settling into that soft, orange stillness that makes everything feel slower than it really is.
She was talking about something small—something unimportant. A class. A thought she had earlier. I don't even remember the details anymore.
What I remember is the way she looked at me when she spoke.
Not expectant. Not guarded. Just… open.
And something in my chest tightened.
There was a moment—brief, terrifying—when I realized how quiet it was around us. No distractions. No one else listening. Just her voice, close enough that I could hear the change in her breathing when she laughed softly at herself.
I don't know what she saw in my expression, but she stopped talking.
"Kenapa?" she asked.
And that was it.
That one word cracked something open.
Because suddenly, every thought I'd been holding back rushed forward at once. All the things I'd practiced not feeling. All the things I'd convinced myself were better left unsaid.
I wanted to tell her that I liked how she listened.
That being around her made the world feel less rigid.
That she made me forget, just for a moment, who I was supposed to be.
The words were right there. Sitting behind my teeth. Pressing against my chest.
I could feel my heartbeat in my throat.
If I spoke now, everything would change.
I could already imagine it—the way her expression might shift, the brief silence that would follow, the weight of whatever came next. I imagined her surprise, her uncertainty, the possibility of rejection hanging quietly in the air between us.
But worse than that, I imagined her knowing.
Knowing that I wanted something I wasn't supposed to want.
That I was standing on the edge of a line I'd promised myself I wouldn't cross.
So I did what I've always done.
I smiled.
A small, careful smile. The kind that hides more than it shows.
"Nothing," I said. "I was just thinking."
She studied me for a second longer, like she sensed there was more. Like she almost reached for it.
Then she nodded.
And just like that, the moment passed.
But it didn't disappear.
It stayed with me, heavy and unresolved, long after we went our separate ways. Long after the air cooled and the light faded.
Because I knew then—absolutely, undeniably—that if I ever let myself speak the truth out loud, there would be no going back.
And I wasn't ready to lose the version of us that existed in that quiet, suspended moment.
Not yet.