His eyes alone spoke to her, and she turned away in response, ancitipating what was to happen. That pleading look. That desperate shimmer in his eyes. She knew she couldn’t bring herself to meet them.

“No,” she whispered. “Don’t… say anything you’ll regret later.”

“I won’t regret my words,” he said as calmly as possible. “I’ve rehearsed these lines so many times; I can’t just give up now.”

“Even though you already know my response?” She asked, her voice quiet.

“I’ve known since the start,” he said. “It was always an unrequited love. But this knowledge can’t flatten my feelings.”

She felt her heart skip a beat at his words, feeling an emotion resembling guilt and sorrow.

“Please,” he muttered softly. “Look me in the eyes, even if it’s for the last time.”

Slowly, she turned to face him, and with great difficulty, she looked him straight in the eyes.

“I must confess.” He said sincerely. “And you must reject me. Otherwise, I may never move on.”

“I’m sorry…” she began.

“I’ve loved you ever since the first year of high school. It wasn’t love at first sight. But after months of competing against you, I grew to feel something entirely different from jealousy and academic rivalry.” He said, his words carefully extracted from his lips.

“Perhaps it was only admiration,” she suggested, though not believing her own words.

“No, it can’t have been just that,” he replied confidently.

The two then stood in silence, the only sounds being their breathing and the faint voices of students passing by. They stood in the small cleaning supply cupboard, where they were supposedly gathering the supplies for their class duty routine.

“Why… why must you tell me this now in particular?” She whispered, barely breathing.

“We’re in our final year,” he said. “After our exams, there’s a prom…”

He faltered towards the end of his sentence, knowing the hopelessness of his words.

She shook her head gently, saying, “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

His face broke into a painful smile of partial relief and partial agony. Internally, he felt himself shatter into a million fragments of pathetic sadness. But externally, he remained composed.

“I see,” he said, smiling. “Thank you… for a clear answer.”

He walked away from the her, and left the cleaning cupboard promptly with the supplies in hand.

He just wanted to run. To run away from it all.

But that would leave her to do all the rest of their shared class cleaning duty.

He didn’t want to unfairly burden her with his own responsibilities.

He had always been like this through the years.

Hidden consideration.

He cleaned the classroom blackboard like he was cleaning his own thoughts.

“I’m free,” he thought to himself. “From the chains of this hopeless love…”

And so he smiled.

Secretly relieved.