six minutes left.

i bumped into him while waiting for the bus.

we’re not close, but we share an unchangeable connection — one of those connections you don’t really get to choose. there was no way i could just walk past him and pretend i didn’t see him. this was one of those situations where conversation feels inevitable — almost forced.

now that i think about it, i’m not even sure if we’ve ever had a full one-on-one conversation. we’ve always spoken in group settings, never really directly to each other — only short phrases, fragments.

the thing with him is that i can’t read him. at all. i find it hard to understand how he thinks, what goes on in his head.

we started talking about school — current things, surface-level updates, the team, maybe a few other things, i’m not even sure — and then the conversation ended.

two minutes left.

two minutes suddenly felt like hours.

it was almost funny how we stood there next to each other in silence. at some point, he sat down on the bench and watched me. maybe he was also trying to come up with something to say. maybe not.

in those minutes, i think i ran through every possible topic in my head. i searched desperately for something — anything — to talk about. not because the silence itself was awkward, but because there was something else. an energy. a tension.

something had changed since that last trip. maybe not for him, but definitely for me.

and maybe the nothingness was fine — but i couldn’t stop trying to fill it.

zero minutes left.

my plan was simple — enter the bus first, so i wouldn’t have to decide whether or not to sit next to him.

plan failed.

i took my usual seat — the one right behind the bus driver — and silently hoped he wouldn’t sit next to me. i guess i should’ve been relieved when he didn’t, but instead he chose the seat across the aisle.

i don’t think i’ve ever experienced this kind of tension before. i didn’t know how to behave. he didn’t try to start a conversation either.

the bus ride felt stretched — heavy, unreal.

moments before we reached his stop, he looked over at me. we just stared. no smile. no words.

we awkwardly said goodbye.

and i was left with this confusing, lingering feeling — something unresolved, something unnamed.

…

later, i tried to make sense of it. to analyze our behavior, like i always do.

one thing i keep coming back to is how opposite we are. i don’t like reducing people to labels, but the easiest way to explain it is mbti. i’m an enfp, and i just know he’s an istj — completely different worlds. maybe that’s where the tension comes from — the not knowing, the curiosity, the distance.

what you should know is that there was a time when we were close.

not close in the way where you know everything about each other — close in the way where you stick together, where there’s a quiet understanding, a connection.

it was fleeting, but it stayed.

afterwards, everything went back to how it was — except now there were new feelings layered underneath.

something passed between us once, and it was never named. never spoken of. and i’m not even sure he experienced it the same way i did.

i was in a very vulnerable place back then. sticking close to him on that trip gave me a strange sense of comfort. i was young — five or six years ago, i think. we might have liked each other. or maybe not. it doesn’t really matter.

what matters is that something shifted.

i think the others noticed it too, but no one ever asked. and after the trip, nothing seemed to change — as if it never happened, as if it never existed.

when i think back on it now, i realize i might have liked him — in some way.

seeing him again made me aware of the distance between us — not just in time, but in who we’ve become.

we barely see each other now, and after that bus ride, it felt complete in its own way.

this feeling is so specific, so particular, that it feels confusing — a feeling that belongs to then.

bittersweet.