Assalamu'Alaikum Love

Suddenly Ustadz

Fazas

Because you're nothing special

That's why you forget so easily

I took one more breath before giving up and placed the blue ballpoint pen I had been playing with as I occasionally used to write on the blocknote before me.

Giving up on going back to writing and glancing at the wall clock only to return an upset sigh. Eleven o'clock and ten, and drowsiness like a reluctance to greet me as if this was the morning and I had to do a lot of activities. Insomnia is something I hate and always avoid.

“That's right, Za. You can't sleep just because of such a trivial thing?”

True, in fact the insomnia that took place tonight is not without reason, and if only someone knew the reason that made me insomnia, they would have laughed at me with pleasure. Well, I admit that I'm insomnia because I keep thinking about what I did this afternoon. When I confidently offered an umbrella to Mr. Gibran Wibisana the new lecturer in my campus who looked rushed and ended up making us have to share an umbrella until we arrived at the parking lot of building one.

“You just did something called courtesy, Za. What's wrong anyway?”

It's true that I did it just to carry out my duties as a girl who has manners. But still this slightly naive Faza Aulia could not take such a simple thought for granted.

I who for seven years lived life in a boarding school can not underestimate such a thing. Both with the opposite sex. I know that Mr. Gibran is my own lecturer, but still he is a man and a girl like me does not deserve to be alone with a man who is not his mahram. Let alone to be alone as I did with Mr. Gibran this afternoon, to just say hello and chat with the opposite sex almost never did I.

“See the male santri, Za.” Back then, when Ainun and I were second grade High School and the feeling within us was still very difficult for us to control, the two of us only dared to steal a glance at the male santri through the window of our room on the fourth floor. Hiding behind the window curtain when we realized that the male santri we were looking at suddenly looked up to see what was happening.

“If only interacting with the male santri was not prohibited, I would definitely invite him to meet, Nun.” My joke at that time. But of course it was just a naughty joke that I told Ainun when I was sixteen. When I was so young and did not understand the foreign feelings that I began to feel.

“Huss, it can't be like that, Za. Sin later you.”

Faza Aulia and Ainun Nisa, two young santri who have somehow done mischief and made the babysitter poke chest.

“One moment, Za. When you and I are no longer roommates, and when we live outside the cottage, I am sure a lot of things will change in us.” And that's the line Ainun told me the last year I went down. Three years ago. When I was seventeen and Ainun eighteen. When we chose to sit on the terrace of the room on the fourth floor after the evening prayer and wait for the morning adhan.

“But, I will continue to pray Za, hopefully things that change are not something that makes us both negligent with everything we have got here.” I never said it, indeed, but in fact Ainun Nisa was like a sister to me.

At that time I just fell silent without replying to Ainun in the slightest and let the boy speak at length. But I listened to him, every word Ainun said, and then I remembered until now.

And remembering what Ainun told me three years ago made my eyes heat up. Not until transformed into a cry indeed, but still the heat in my eyes made my chest tight.

“Sorry, Nun.”

I realized that this afternoon I had betrayed the advice Ainun had given me. I shamelessly smiled and conversed with Mr. Gibran who was clearly not my mahram. In the past, when I was still together with Ainun, the boy always asked me to keep my distance from the men and lower my gaze.

“Keeping distance with the opposite sex, does sound unfair. But really, keeping distance does not mean distancing, but it aims to glorify you, the Muslims. Because you are very precious pearls.”

It was as if what Ainun told me three years ago was not enough to give judgment to what I did this afternoon. At this time I even suddenly woke up with a feeling of not being careless when the sentence that Ummi Usammah had told us just twisted inside my head without command.

“Keeping distance, yes?”

It's too early to conclude that I should keep my distance from Mr. Gibran just because of what we did this afternoon. There is nothing wrong with sharing an umbrella with a teacher in need. It's just that the feelings that arise afterwards are what make that simple thing go wrong.

Again such a thought would make me sound like a 20-year-old girl with old-fashioned, old-fashioned thinking. And unfortunately I don't care because such an understanding has been ingrained in my head since I was very young.

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