Love or Just a Habit

📖 Diary Page - 1 Love or Just a Habit? Can school life really have "real love"? Or is it just a habit... of talking to someone every single day, replying without thinking, waiting for notifications that don't mean anything in the beginning-but slowly start becoming something you can't ignore, something that quietly becomes part of your routine without you even realizing it? I am a university student now. Life has changed, people have changed, priorities have changed... everything around me feels different from what it used to be. But still, some memories refuse to leave. They don't come loudly. They don't demand attention. They don't even try to remind me forcefully. They just stay quietly somewhere in the corner of my mind-like old photographs I don't open, but also don't have the courage to delete. Sometimes I think about how strange memory is. Why do some people stay so clearly in our thoughts, while others disappear completely? Why do some moments feel like they happened yesterday, while some parts of our own life feel like they never existed at all? Back then, everything felt simple. Or maybe... it only seemed simple because we didn't understand anything deeply. We didn't question emotions. We didn't analyze feelings. We just lived them, without knowing what they meant. This story is not just about love. It's about confusion. It's about missing memories that others clearly remember. It's about emotions we didn't understand back then. And maybe... it's about something we still don't understand even now. --- 🌿 The Beginning It all started in a Messenger group-just like almost every school friendship used to start back then. The group name was "Friends Forever." At that time, we didn't question names like that. We believed them without thinking twice. We thought friendships would actually last forever, that people would never change, and that nobody would slowly become a stranger over time. We were wrong... but we didn't know it yet. That's where I met him. Or maybe... "met" is not the right word to use here. Because according to him-I didn't actually meet him there. He said he already knew me. He told me that we used to study together in Class 5, at Miss Hassall's coaching. When he said that, I remember stopping for a moment. Not because something suddenly clicked in my memory... but because absolutely nothing did. No image appeared in my mind. No face. No classroom memory. No sound. Nothing at all. It felt strange, like someone was talking about a chapter from my life that I had completely missed. But what confused me even more was not just his confidence... it was the fact that when I asked others- they all confirmed it. Antor remembered him clearly. Pinky remembered him clearly. Everyone remembered him. Everyone... except me. And that silence inside my memory felt uncomfortable in a way I cannot properly describe. It was not just forgetting someone-it felt like forgetting something I was supposed to know about myself. How can everyone remember a person so clearly... while I remember absolutely nothing? Not even a tiny fragment? Not even a blurry feeling? That question stayed with me longer than I expected. Sometimes I even tried forcing myself to remember at night, lying on my bed, closing my eyes, thinking maybe if I try hard enough, something will return. But nothing ever did. It was just empty. Completely blank. And slowly, that emptiness started feeling strange... almost unsettling. --- 🌿 A Strange Start Our story didn't begin in a soft or emotional way. It began with a fight. Not a big fight. Not something serious. Not something worth remembering in detail. But still... it became the first connection between us. I don't even remember what we argued about. It must have been something very small, something meaningless-like most arguments during school days. But I clearly remember the moment right after that argument. Our mutual friend Antor got annoyed and said- "Rikto, just say sorry to Progga." There was a short silence. Then he replied- "...Sorry." A pause. "I got a little angry." I remember reading that message without any strong emotion. No anger. No happiness. No excitement. Just neutral. Like it didn't matter much. Still, I replied- "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have said those things." That was it. No drama. No emotional connection. No special feeling at all. Just a simple apology between two people who didn't know they were going to become part of each other's thoughts later. But somehow... that wasn't the end. It felt like something had quietly started without permission. Something small, something invisible, something I didn't notice at that time. --- 🌿 The Message Later that same day, my phone buzzed again. A message appeared. From Rikto. Rikto: "You really don't remember me? I'm Rikto. We studied together in Class 5." I stared at the screen for a few seconds. Not shocked... just confused. Because he sounded so certain. So sure. Like forgetting him was impossible. Like I was supposed to remember him immediately without thinking. But my mind stayed completely blank. I tried again to search my memory. Class 5. Coaching room. Benches. Teachers. Friends laughing. Noise of children. Morning sunlight. But nothing connected to him appeared. It felt like trying to open a locked room that had no key at all. Me: "I don't think I remember. Wait... I'll ask Antor and Pinky." Even while sending that message, I felt a little strange... like I was admitting something I should already know. --- 🌿 Searching for a Memory Antor replied almost instantly. "Yes, of course. He studied with us." So simple. So confident. Like I was asking something obvious that everyone already knew. Still unsure, I texted Pinky. "Do you remember Rikto?" Her reply came immediately. "Obviously! He was the only boy in our coaching class!" Only boy. That line stayed in my mind for a while. How could someone so noticeable... so unique... be completely missing from my memory? It didn't make sense. And the more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable it felt. It wasn't just about forgetting a person anymore. It started feeling like I was missing a piece of my own life story. And that feeling... was strange. --- 🌿 Back to Him I went back to his chat again. My fingers paused before typing. Me: "Everyone remembers you... I'm the only one who doesn't." There was a pause after that message. A long one. That silence between messages felt heavier than usual. Like something important was about to be said but wasn't ready yet. Then finally- Rikto: "Why don't you remember?" Such a simple question. But I had no answer. Me: "I don't know." And I truly didn't. Sometimes the most honest answer is also the most incomplete one. He tried to lighten the mood after that. He joked about being the only boy in a coaching full of girls. He even mentioned something funny about how my mother once joked that he should be dressed like a girl. I remember slightly smiling at that message. Not laughing properly... just a small reaction. But inside, I still felt distant. I replied with short messages. "Hmm." "Oh." Because honestly... I was getting annoyed. Why is he trying so hard? Why does he care so much? Doesn't he have anything else to do? At that time, I thought it was just irritation. Now I wonder if it was something else I didn't understand. --- 🌿 The Beginning of Something... Days passed like that. Same conversations. Same confusion. Same routine. But one thing was different. He didn't stop. He kept texting. Every single day. Even when my replies were short. Even when I showed no interest. Even when I responded coldly. He still came back. And that confused me. Because people usually leave when they feel unwanted. But he didn't. And strangely... I didn't stop him either. I could have ignored him. I could have blocked him. I could have ended everything in a moment. But I didn't. I don't know why. Maybe curiosity. Maybe boredom. Or maybe... something I didn't recognize back then. Something quiet. Something subtle. Something I ignored. --- 🌿 That One Day... Days slowly turned into routine. His messages became part of my daily life, even though I pretended they didn't matter. And then... one day arrived. A normal day. Nothing special. Same time. Same notification sound. Same name on the screen. But that day... he said something different. Something unexpected. Something that made my fingers stop instantly. Something that made my thoughts freeze for a moment longer than usual. For the first time... I didn't know what to reply. My usual indifference didn't work. My usual short answers didn't feel enough. It was like the conversation suddenly entered a space I was not prepared for. And I just stared at the screen... waiting for my mind to form words that didn't come immediately. What did Rikto say? Was it something simple... something casual? Or was it something that quietly changed everything between us without warning? I didn't know. But I knew one thing for sure- after that message... nothing stayed the same again. Even the silence felt different. Even the chat looked different. And somewhere inside me... something unfamiliar slowly began to form. Something I still cannot fully explain. --- 👉 To be continued...