Assalamu'Alaikum Love

Sultan's House

Fazas

“Faza.!” I hurriedly stopped my steps down the stairs when I heard someone calling me from behind. Makes me look up to find out who called me. “Where are you?” ask that person who is none other than Aruna, one of my friends at the campus Student Press Institute.

“Down to the bottom.” I replied briefly as I gave a smile and looked at the watch on my left wrist. Ten o'clock over twenty.

“Ke musolah?” asked Aruna so I lined my steps and followed down the stairs to the ground floor. He hesitated to answer the girl's question.

“What's up?”

“Your lecture today is finished what time?” and I think Aruna understood what it meant from my brief nod that the girl didn't look for me with questions about what I was doing at the campus museum at half-eleven. And I've always liked people like Aruna who let others with their own business and made her unimpressed so much to interfere in people's affairs.

“Jam two over twenty I guess.”

“Then come to the LPM room as soon as your lecture is over huh. There are discourses that we must language together.”

“Each commander.!” And Aruna laughed when she heard me call him commander. Clapping my shoulders slowly before the girl passed from before me and ran towards the faculty cafeteria as several girls waved at her. Aruna, a little girl who does not like law at all, but instead went to law school. Strange indeed, but that's how Aruna who at first always called me by the name ‘mbak ustadzah’ just because of my appearance like this.

“One more time I heard you call me ‘mbak ustadzah’ I'm happy to get out of LPM, Na.” It wasn't a bluff or just nonsense to make Aruna stop calling me that.

But I don't like it every time people call me that just because I'm in college with a long, broad-brimmed robe. Not not not wanting to be called that way, but in my mind, an ustadzah like Aruna said was a woman who truly understood the science of religion. And every time I hear someone mention ‘ustadzah’ my mind is always on Ummi Usammah or Ummi Haidar, and comparing myself to two great women is not something worth doing.

In fact, a Faza is still the same as other friends. I am no different from Aruna or Shinta who despite being veiled but still wearing jeans and a tight T-shirt. We are the same, only our dress and understanding of religion are slightly different. And again, I don't want to be judged on what I wear.

“That dress reflects your responsibility towards religion as well as yourself, dear. But that does not mean those who do not dress like you are not responsible for themselves and their religion,” I even remember my mother's advice when I said why many of my college friends are Muslim but don't wear the hijab.

True, in fact, everyone has a different understanding for every thing, including religion. And I'm not gonna yell at my friends to be like me and tell them what they're doing is wrong. Truly, I am not at all worthy to act as if I were the holiest human being in the world while there are still so many sins that I commit.

“Astaghfirullah, sorry.” I screamed involuntarily when I almost staggered because I almost hit someone at the exit of the campus because I was too rushed to see a watch. And that person also looked shocked before taking two steps back to give me a way. “Sorry sir. I was not accidentally.” My greetings hurriedly realized who the man standing before me was. The new lecturer who has since become the topic of conversation of students.

“It's okay.” and I don't have to ask why my student friends are so enthusiastic about talking about this new lecturer. He's handsome and very attractive, and that indicates that my student friends here are still normal.

“Close your sight, Faza.” And maybe I will also continue to stare at this new lecturer if only my heart content does not rebel and immediately remind me that staring at the opposite sex that is not mahram is something that is forbidden. Makes me rub my face and pass towards the musolah that I have been heading since.

Yes, in fact I am still a twenty-year-old girl who sometimes has difficulty controlling my feelings for the opposite sex even though I know very well that such a thing is not justified by religion.

“Wait, why do I feel like I've seen it somewhere?” I muttered while folding the face I just put on. For some reason suddenly the shadow of the new lecturer that I almost hit appeared in my head. A young man with glasses.

“Ah no, definitely just your imagination alone, Za.” I shook my head quickly to get rid of that stupid speculation. There are many young men with glasses in this world, and maybe I have met one of them. Whether it's on the street or anywhere I can't remember.

“Germimis again,” muttered as I sat on the terrace musolah while wearing socks and looked up when I realized the drizzle back down that afternoon.

Again, I don't know exactly what happened to me today. The drizzle coming back down was trying to wake up my melancholy side and memories of the past that I hadn't even remembered for a long time. The memory of my life in the cottage three years ago, also the memory of a young man in glasses that even I still haven't managed to remember.

“How's it going now?” ask myself when I realized that I was trying to remember it since. “Maybe sometime I have to play to the cottage and spend some time there.” And I don't know where that idea came from after three years I didn't even have the desire to visit the boarding school I grew up in.

Rain and longing. And, why are those two things like a pair of shoes that cannot be separated?

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