Chapter 6:A Ripple Through Silence
785 Words
The day Noah disappeared was the day silence took a different form in Star Academy.
The news spread like wildfire—Noah, the pride of the second year, the fierce and brilliant alpha student, had vanished. No farewell. No explanation. Just an empty seat in class and a phone left behind on a hospital bench.
Lucas first heard the whispers during Chemistry. The teacher was midway through an equation when Ivan nudged him.
“Dude… did you hear?”
Lucas, eyes fixed on his notebook, barely reacted. “What?”
“Noah. He ran away.”
The pen in Lucas’s hand paused. Slowly, he lifted his gaze toward Ivan, whose silver hair glinted in the classroom light, face unusually serious. “What did you just say?”
“I’m not joking. Noah. He's gone. His family is looking everywhere. It’s on the school news feed now too.” Ivan’s voice dropped, his eyes scanning Lucas carefully. “They say he ran away during a hospital visit.”
Lucas stood up.
The teacher blinked in surprise. “Lucas? Is there a problem?”
But Lucas didn’t answer. He simply walked out.
Whispers erupted behind him like a wave breaking through still water. Some students gasped. Others stared in disbelief. Lucas had never disobeyed a teacher before. Never skipped class. Never reacted to anything with such intensity.
Rumors would later say that Lucas had gone straight to Noah’s house. That he banged on the gates, demanding to know where Noah went. That he shouted at the guards and made Noah’s mother cry.
No one knew what happened for sure. But after that day, something changed.
Lucas returned to school the next morning, but something about him felt wrong.
His eyes were still the same crystal gray, his face still achingly beautiful—but the light in him had dulled, like a painting left in the rain. He wasn’t just quiet now. He was haunted.
He didn’t talk much. Not even to Ivan. He simply sat in class, staring blankly out the window, his books untouched.
One lunch break, Ivan sat beside him and said carefully, “You okay, man?”
Lucas didn’t respond.
Ivan sighed. “You know... everyone thinks you’re just down because your rival vanished. But I’ve known you for years. This... this isn’t just about rivalry, is it?”
Lucas blinked slowly, as if surfacing from a dream. “I don’t know,” he whispered.
That was all he said.
A week later, he stopped coming to school altogether.
For months, Lucas disappeared from the academy, leaving behind only the lingering scent of his cologne in the classroom and a string of unanswered texts from Ivan.
And then, like thunder cracking through a calm sky—Lucas returned.
But he wasn’t the same.
Gone was the elegant school uniform. He now walked through the academy gates wearing sunglasses, a long coat, and an air of stardom. He had grown taller, his jaw sharper, voice deeper. His presence felt commanding—like someone untouchable.
In the school auditorium, during an announcement, he stepped up to the mic.
“I’ve decided to pursue acting,” he said. His tone was flat, emotionless. “I’ll be withdrawing from the academy after this semester and entering college early.”
The crowd erupted into murmurs.
Acting?
Lucas?
The perfect, elite Lucas—an actor?
But no one questioned him.
He had already debuted in a short film and stunned the nation. Within a year, he swept rookie awards across Asia. By the time he entered college, he was the No. 1 rising star in the film industry, praised not just for his god-like beauty but for his raw, emotional acting that left audiences breathless.
In his movies, Lucas often played tragic roles—characters who lost their way, who searched for something unnamed, who carried invisible pain.
Viewers praised him for his deep emotional range.
But Ivan… Ivan knew.
Ivan watched from afar and thought: He doesn’t act. He remembers pain he doesn’t even understand. That’s why it feels so real.
Still, Lucas never spoke Noah’s name again. Not once.
And even as he climbed the peaks of fame, even as fans screamed his name in every corner of the world, there were nights when he would lie in bed—awake, staring at the ceiling—and feel that something important was missing.
Something... or someone.
But no matter how hard he tried to remember, it was like chasing a shadow in the fog.
He would close his eyes and see fleeting images. A soft voice. A trembling hand. Tears he didn’t know the reason for.
And deep within his chest, a dull ache that refused to fade.
- Writer
