The glow of the laptop screen was the only light in Thana's room.
Outside, Bangkok hummed with late-night life — distant traffic, the occasional bark of a street dog, the soft buzz of cicadas hiding somewhere near his window. But inside, there was only silence — the kind that came when you were alone with something important.
He scrolled slowly through the page, fingers still from habit, eyes scanning each post like he was searching for something he couldn't name.
@midnight_poet posted 4 hours ago:
"There are people who speak without words. Who draw their truths instead of saying them."
It was one of his poems — short, unassuming, written during a sleepless night after another lecture about "practical careers."
But what caught his eye wasn't his own post.
It was the comment beneath it.
@ink_and_moonlight replied 3 hours ago:
"Then maybe I'm not afraid of drawing. Maybe I'm afraid of being understood."_
Thana blinked.
He'd seen that username before.
Not just once or twice.
Over the past few months, he'd come across posts from ink_and_moonlight scattered across different corners of the internet — art forums, poetry threads, even tucked into replies on obscure literary blogs. The style was unmistakable: soft lines, shadowed eyes, figures drawn in quiet moments — never faces fully visible, always slightly turned away, as if hiding.
He didn't know who they were.
Didn't know their age, their gender, their school.
All he knew was that every time he saw their work, it felt like someone had reached into his chest and drawn out something he hadn't known he was feeling.
Tonight was no different.
A new image had been posted just minutes ago.
It showed a boy standing beneath a rain tree.
Drawn in soft lines and shadowed eyes.
Thana stared at it for a long time.
Too long.
He wanted to say something. To reply. To ask who they were, why they drew like this, how they knew exactly how he felt.
But he didn't.
Instead, he did what he always did.
He opened a new tab.
Saved the image to a folder labeled "Art That Feels Like Me."
And then, almost without thinking, he began to write.
"To the one who draws in silence,
I think I've seen you before.
Maybe not in person,
But in the way your lines curl like hesitation,
In the way your shadows hold secrets.
You don't have to speak.
Your ink already says everything."
He typed it quickly, without overthinking.
Then, with a final click, he posted it under his pen name:
@midnight_poet
Shared to followers · 1 min ago
Thana leaned back in his chair, exhaling slowly.
It was strange, really.
How someone could feel so close, even when they were completely unknown.
He closed the tab, but not before glancing back at the image one last time.
Rain tree.
Boy standing alone.
Silence drawn in ink.
He didn't know it yet.
But he would soon.
That boy?
Was sitting just two seats away from him in class.