Chapter 5 - Like Clockwork
Chapter 5: Like Clockwork
Isabelle never expected much from PE modules.
She signed up for badminton because it fit her timetable — not too early, not too late. Just convenient. Predictable.
She liked predictable.
The kind of girl who rewrote her to-do lists just to keep the handwriting neat, who annotated her readings with color-coded tabs. Feelings? She processed those on paper before sharing them out loud. Friendships came naturally to her, but romance?
Romance required courage she wasn’t sure she had.
Until him.
He didn’t stand out at first.
He was just another classmate. Not particularly loud or funny. Always brought his own shuttlecocks. Always early. Wore the same grey sports tee every week. But he noticed things.
When she looked a little out of breath after warm-ups, he offered to refill her bottle without asking. When she stayed back to help the instructor collect the rackets, he lingered too, wordlessly returning a stray one she missed. He never forced conversation. Just filled the silences with gentle presence.
Week after week, he became a rhythm. A calm, clockwork presence in a chaotic world.
It was after their fourth class that he first walked her back to the bus stop.
“Where’s your hall?” he had asked, brushing sweat off his forehead.
“North Hill.”
“Oh. Same. I’m in Binjai.”
She smiled. “That’s technically far, but… close enough.”
They didn’t talk much on the walk. But it wasn’t awkward. Just… quiet. The good kind. She liked that.
The next week, he waited again.
And the next.
And the next.
Until it wasn’t a coincidence anymore.
She told Crystal about him once, during a night study break.
“He’s just… very kind,” Isabelle said, stirring her cereal. “Not in the grand gesture kind of way. Just… present. Like he sees things even when I don’t say them.”
Crystal raised a brow. “Do you see him?”
Isabelle paused. “I think I’m starting to.”
The shift was subtle.
He started texting her — never too much. Just thoughtful check-ins.
Saw this café you mentioned. Their waffles look solid.
Is your throat better? You were a bit hoarse last class.
Wanna warm up together this Thursday?
And she replied — always, always replied. Because when she read his messages, they didn’t make her anxious. They made her feel understood.
The turning point came after a particularly rough week. A bad tutoring session, a difficult conversation at home, and a mounting sense of burnout. She showed up to badminton looking tired, and tried to hide it.
He didn’t pry. Just handed her an unopened isotonic drink before warm-up.
“You looked like you could use this.”
That was it. No expectations. No need for explanation.
And that’s when Isabelle knew.
She didn’t need fireworks. She needed peace. And somehow, this boy — this quiet, constant boy — had been giving her that from the start.
They never had a dramatic confession. No love declarations under the rain. It was after class, near the vending machines.
He asked, almost shyly, “Do you want to hang out sometime? Like, outside of badminton?”
She smiled — soft, warm, certain.
“I’d like that.”
And just like that, it began.
Not loudly. Not quickly.
But in a way that made sense to her heart.