There was a line Ayana once read in a poem.
"When you think of someone in silence, the silence remembers."
She didn't know what it meant at the time, but tonight—curled up under her blanket, rereading the latest chapter—she thought maybe she finally understood. Because the moment she saw those words in Dimas's update, her heart recognized something.
Not the plot.
Not the twist.
But her.
A version of herself reflected in someone else's writing. A storm that didn't roar—but changed things anyway. Had he read her comment before writing that? Or was it just coincidence?
She wanted to believe it wasn't.
But how do you ask that without sounding crazy?
---
Dimas was staring at the sky. Again.
He did that sometimes when he didn't know what to write. But this time, the chapter was already done. And yet, he found himself restless. Fidgeting. As if waiting for something.
Or someone.
He refreshed the app. No new notifications yet. But he knew she'd be there. Eventually.
She always was.
There was something about anonymousbird that lingered in his mind longer than it should. Maybe because her words weren't just compliments—they felt like messages. Notes slipped between cracks in a world too loud for people like them.
He didn't know her name. Didn't know where she was from. But that didn't seem to matter anymore.
She got him.
That alone was terrifying.
---
Ayana stared at the blinking cursor in the comment box.
She'd typed, erased, retyped, and erased again. For ten minutes.
Was it weird to ask if the chapter was about her? No, that would be insane.
She ended up writing this:
> "This one felt… like a conversation. I don't know how to explain it. But thank you for writing storms the way you do."
She hit "Post" and immediately regretted it. But also didn't.
Her fingers trembled a little. She closed the app and tried to focus on her math homework.
Failed.
Then she opened the app again.
Still there. Still posted.
And deep inside her chest, something bloomed quietly—like light sneaking in through the cracks.
---
Dimas read her new comment while sitting in the back of a noisy warung, waiting for his fried rice.
He didn't smile. Not exactly.
But his breath caught for a moment.
> "This one felt… like a conversation."
He read it over and over.
What did she mean by that? That she recognized the line? That she knew he had read her previous comment?
He wanted to respond. Just this once.
But he didn't want to ruin whatever this was. Their silence was a safe space. Fragile. Naming it might make it disappear.
So instead, he opened the app's backend and added a sentence to the draft for tomorrow's upload.
> "Some readers don't just read. They answer back, even if they don't mean to."
A secret tucked into fiction.
Meant only for one person.
---
Ayana's days were starting to blur.
School. Home. Homework. Then the app.
She no longer told herself this was "just a story." Because it wasn't.
The chapters still came every few days like clockwork. But it was the waiting that began to change her. The way she noticed the world more. The way she listened more closely to her own thoughts, as if preparing for a silent exchange with someone she didn't know.
She didn't tell her friends about him. About the writer she only knew as DimAndWords. Not because it was shameful.
But because it was hers.
Something too sacred to explain.
---
Dimas had stopped checking his follower count.
He used to care about views and stats. Now? Just one comment. One reader. That was enough.
Sometimes, when the words didn't come easily, he'd scroll through their entire comment history—her short, poetic replies—and remind himself that someone out there needed these stories.
Not in a grand, save-the-world kind of way.
But in a quiet, "I'm still here" kind of way.
He didn't know how long this would last. Readers came and went all the time.
But she stayed.
And now, he found himself writing for her, even if he'd never admit that to anyone. Not even to himself.
---
Ayana watched raindrops race down her windowpane.
She imagined telling Dimas about it. How the sky in Tamil Nadu felt heavy but not cruel. How the air smelled like wet dust and jasmine.
Did he know what Tamil rain felt like?
Did he like the rain at all?
Stupid questions. She barely knew him. But her brain was already weaving images of him—his room, his window, maybe even the way he typed when he was tired.
She didn't know how it started.
Only that it had.
She opened the app again. No update yet. Just the last sentence from yesterday's chapter:
> "Some readers don't just read. They answer back, even if they don't mean to."
Her breath hitched.
He had read it.
This wasn't one-way anymore.
---
Dimas's cousin walked into the room with a teasing grin.
"Still writing your love story?"
Dimas looked up from his laptop. "It's not a love story."
"Uh-huh. Sure. That's why you stare at the screen like a lovesick poet."
He rolled his eyes. "It's just a story."
But as soon as his cousin left, he whispered under his breath:
"It's not just a story."
---
That night, Ayana couldn't sleep.
She stared at her ceiling, heart pounding for no good reason. She'd commented again, a little bolder this time:
> "This line stayed with me: 'Some readers don't just read...' I think I'm one of them."
And she signed it.
Just once.
Not her real name. But something closer to her heart.
> – A
It felt like peeling back a corner of a secret.
Just enough.
Just in case.
---
Dimas saw the comment the next morning.
He froze.
> – A
A name. A letter. A possibility.
He whispered it softly. "A..."
Was she ready to be known?
Or was this still just part of the game?
He didn't reply. But he saved the screenshot.
And when he opened his draft that day, he didn't write the next plot twist. He wrote a letter.
Not meant to be seen.
Not yet.
Just words.
> To the girl with silent storms and soft words—
I don't know who you are. But I know how you read.
And that, somehow, is enough.