The Name That Was Never Called

In the midst of the school’s usual noise and bustle, that classroom stood like a lonely island. The walls were covered with test results, sheets of numbers reflecting the struggles and hopevs of countless students.

Kaivan sat hunched over, his dark, empty eyes fixed on the wall where the names of the top scorers were displayed. His heart pounded furiously as his clenched fists rested on the desk.

At the front, the teacher, a middle-aged man with a deep, commanding voice, began to call out the names of those who had made it to the top list.

“Rina Ananda.”

A girl wearing glasses rose slowly from the front row. Her neatly tied black hair swayed softly as she stepped forward. A shy smile spread across her face, yet in her eyes flickered a confident light.

Kaivan swallowed hard. Every time Rina smiled, a tinge of envy pierced his chest… but mixed within it was a warmth he couldn’t understand. When she finished her brief self-introduction and returned to her seat, Kaivan lowered his gaze, anxiously twisting his fingers together. His heartbeat grew even more erratic.

The roll call continued, yet his name was never called.

Suddenly the world felt distant. The voices around him echoed hollow, stripped of meaning. He sat slumped, like a defeated warrior. Tears welled at the corners of his eyes, but never fell.

In the garden, he caught sight of Rina laughing with her friends. Her voice was gentle, her smile radiant. Kaivan only watched from afar, his lips parting as if to speak… but no sound came. At last, he turned away and walked off.

Back at his desk, Kaivan sat with a pencil trembling in his hand, scratching meaningless lines across the page. His notebook lay open before him, filled with formulas and notes that now seemed like foreign symbols.

“Even trying to be a good student… I failed at that too?”

Kaivan gazed at the evening sky framed by his bedroom window. In that silence, Rina’s smile surfaced in his mind once again. It wasn’t just her smile that warmed his heart, it was the way she always carried herself with such confidence, something that felt so far from him.

“Why can’t I be like her?” he asked himself silently. Reaching into his desk drawer, he pulled out a worn diary. Opening to a blank page, he began to write with trembling hands.

Outside, the sunset painted the world in shades of orange, the blue sky gently giving way to a tender dusk. Yet for Kaivan, that beauty felt meaningless. He kept staring out the window, his heart growing heavier as the night deepened.

On his day off, Kaivan met up with his friends at a cozy little café with a warm vintage design: Rina, Tania, and Dandi. The air was rich with the aroma of fresh coffee and pastries. Tania, cheerful as always, sipped her coffee with a wide grin.

“Kaivan, why do you always pick such plain places to eat? Take us somewhere fancy for once!” she teased.

Kaivan gave a small laugh, though a discomfort tugged at his chest. “Well, as long as we get to eat together, isn’t that what matters?” he said, lifting his glass of juice in a half-confident gesture.

“That’s true! What matters is that we’re together. And honestly, the cake here is amazing!” Rina chimed in with a playful nudge at his shoulder, her bright smile making his heart skip.

“Yeah, who cares about the place. As long as there’s good food, I’m happy!” Dandi added, already holding his spoon like he was ready to pounce on dessert.

Tania shot him a mischievous glance. “When it comes to food, Dandi’s always the first to dive in!”

They all laughed together.

“Hey, Rina,” Kaivan suddenly said, trying to stir the mood further. “If you were a superhero, what kind of power would you want?”

Rina paused to think, then broke into a wide grin. “Hmm, I’d want the power to fly! So I could go anywhere, without limits, free like a bird!”

Kaivan nodded slightly. “That’s awesome. So you could escape from problems whenever you wanted, huh?” he joked.

Rina giggled, replying, “More like I’d fly away on vacations all the time, straight to the fancy places!”

Dandi, sitting beside Kaivan, jumped in. “Escape from problems? If it’s Kaivan, his superpower would definitely be running fast, so he could run away from all his troubles! You’ve got plenty of those, Van!”

Tania smirked at Kaivan. “Or maybe the power to slow down time, so you could disappear whenever you’re embarrassed, haha!”

Kaivan forced a smile. “Maybe,” he answered briefly, trying to mask the sting in his chest. Deep down, he knew their jokes weren’t entirely just jokes.

That night, when they finally parted ways, Kaivan walked home alone. The empty sidewalk became his only companion, shadows stretching alongside him. The laughter and teasing still echoed in his ears, now transformed into reminders of how often he was seen as not enough.