On Wednesday morning, Kay woke up with a different kind of exhaustion. Not the physical fatigue from lack of sleep, but a weariness of the soul. She was tired of feeling sad, tired of feeling alone. Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she saw swollen eyes and a pale face. I can't keep living like this, she thought. If I stay like this, they win. With fragile determination, she made a decision: today, she would go back to being the usual Kay. A role she had to play perfectly.
When she arrived at the school gate, she spotted Sarah and Dinda from a distance. They saw her but didn't immediately run to greet her as they usually did. There was an awkwardness between them. Kay knew it was her fault. With heavy steps, she approached them.
"Morning," she greeted softly.
"Morning," Sarah and Dinda replied almost in unison, their voices hesitant.
An uncomfortable silence lingered for a few seconds.
"Hey, about yesterday..." Kay began, her voice barely above a whisper. "Sorry, okay? I was just... really bad PMS or something. Super sensitive."
A small lie. The most cliché, easily accepted excuse she could think of. Sarah and Dinda exchanged glances, then their tense expressions slowly softened.
"Ugh, we thought something was wrong," Dinda said, nudging Kay's arm lightly. "You should've told us sooner—we were worried."
"Yeah, I thought you were mad at us because of that video," Sarah added, now smiling in relief. "Forget those weird comments. What matters is your views are about to hit a million!"
Kay managed a faint smile. They accepted her excuse so easily, without digging deeper. Part of her was relieved, but another part felt a pang of sadness that they couldn't see the truth. But this was better. Normal was better.
"Yeah, forget it," Kay said, her voice steadier now as she slipped her mask back on. "C'mon, let's get to class."
They walked side by side through the crowded hallway. The sound of shoes tapping against the floor, the laughter of other students, the rustling of papers—it all blurred into background noise for Kay. Her fingers tightened around her bag strap, the books inside crammed together like the thoughts in her head.
When they entered the classroom, the scent of chalk and plastic erasers greeted them. Kay took her seat, setting her bag down mechanically. Her fingers tapped an irregular rhythm on the desk as her eyes stared blankly at the still-empty blackboard before class began.
But beneath this ordinary routine, something fundamental had shifted.
She had declared war on the comments section.
She never opened it again. Instead, she found a new, safer, colder, more intoxicating addiction: numbers.
Every hour, almost like a ritual, she would open her profile. Her eyes would dart past the glaring red notification bubbles, landing directly on the rows of digits beneath her videos.
4.2 Million Views. 312k Likes. 22k Shares.
Those numbers were her armor. They were objective proof of her success—cold, indisputable facts that the cynical voices in her head couldn't argue with, nor could Rafi's mocking stares at school. Numbers couldn't call her an attention-seeker or disgusting. Numbers only went up. And as long as they kept rising, she felt safe.
That fragile sense of security was tested on Friday afternoon. As she walked toward the school gate with Sarah and Dinda, a voice she recognized from hundreds of meters away called her name.
"Kay!"
She froze. Her heart seemed to stop for a second before hammering wildly in her chest. Slowly, she turned. Bima Adriansyah was walking toward her, towering tall, with two friends trailing behind him like bodyguards. All the noise in the schoolyard seemed to fade. Sarah and Dinda elbowed her excitedly, their faces brimming with anticipation.
"Uh, yeah?" Kay answered, her voice barely escaping. She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks.
"Damn, your video blew up," Bima said casually, but his eyes held a newfound curiosity. "That's sick. How many views now?"
The first question out of Bima's mouth wasn't How are you? or What grade are you in? It was about numbers.
A small part of Kay—the part recently touched by Bu Citra's red ink—felt disappointed. But the larger part of her, the part that had starved for validation for years, felt victorious. Her data armor was working. Those numbers were what brought him here.
"Uh... over four million," Kay answered, trying to sound casual, as if millions of views happened to her every day.
"No way, that's insane," Bima said, genuinely impressed. He hesitated for a second, glancing at his friends, who gave him encouraging nods. "Hey, you free later? Wanna grab boba at the mall?"
The offer hung in the air. This was the exact scenario she had replayed in her fantasies a thousand times.
Sarah elbowed her hard under the table. Kay's world seemed to stop spinning. This was the pinnacle of all her hopes. The ultimate validation.
"Sure," she answered quickly, afraid he'd change his mind.
"Cool. I'll DM you," Bima said before turning to leave with his friends, leaving Kay's table in stunned silence—which then erupted into frantic whispers from Sarah and Dinda. But Kay barely heard them. Her mind was fixated on one thing: she had won.
The date felt like a scene from a movie playing on the wrong reel. They sat in a crowded boba shop at the mall, the noise of shoppers and blaring pop music making intimate conversation impossible. Bima looked as perfect as ever in a gray hoodie and cargo pants. But their conversation never took off beyond the runway of superficiality.
"So... how'd you make your video go that viral?" Bima asked, stabbing his straw into his drink. "You use some trick or something?"
"Dunno. Just luck, I guess," Kay replied, her standard prepared answer.
"I post basketball clips sometimes, but they never take off," Bima complained, showing her his account. "I barely have any followers. Got any tips? What hashtags work best? Or what time should I post?"
And that's how the rest of their conversation went. Bima mostly asked about social media strategies. He never asked about her school beyond her grade. He didn't ask about her family, what she liked to do besides dancing, her dreams, or the sadness that sometimes flickered in her eyes.
He wasn't interested in Kaisya Anjani. He was interested in Kay the Viral Creator.
Kay tried hard. She played the girl she thought Bima wanted—cheerful, laid-back, full of laughter. She explained algorithms, the importance of trending sounds, how she edited her videos. She performed flawlessly. But the longer she sat there, the emptier she felt inside.
This wasn't the connection she had dreamed of. This was a job interview, a social transaction where she traded her viral status for Bima's time and attention.
The fantasy she had meticulously built in her head—of deep conversations and meaningful glances—shattered into pieces before the dull reality.
The date ended as awkwardly and abruptly as it began. Bima spotted some friends across the mall. "Oh, Kay, there's my crew. Gotta bounce," he said, standing up. "We'll chat later."
And just like that, he was gone. Leaving Kay alone at the sticky table, surrounded by the laughter of other teenagers who sounded so real, so happy.
Her boba was still half-full, but she already felt sick.
The hollowness was overwhelming, so real. She had gotten what she wanted—a date with Bima—so why did she feel emptier than before? Why did she feel more invisible sitting across from him?
Desperate for relief, she reached for the only solace she knew. She pulled out her phone, opened the app, ignored all notifications and messages. Her eyes locked onto one thing.
The number beneath the heart icon.
It kept climbing. 357.4k. 357.5k.
The phone screen cast a cold glow over her hollow gaze. Bu Citra's praise felt distant. The emptiness of her date with Bima felt close. Between them, only these numbers felt real.
Only these numbers never disappointed her.
Their ascent was the only pat on the back she could feel right now. But for the first time, even the relief of watching those digits rise felt shallow. Cold.
A horrifying realization crept in: if Bima and millions of views couldn't fill the void inside her, then what could?
Additional Narrative Development:
On the angkot ride home, Kay rested her head against the cold window. The bustling city of Jakarta blurred behind the fogged glass. Her mind wandered back to Bu Citra's words—the way you see the world is valuable. But how was she supposed to see the world when all she saw were numbers and hollow validation?
Back in her room, the cramped space felt stuffier than usual. Listlessly, she tossed her bag into the corner. Her gaze landed on the open black notebook on her desk, its pages still filled with the angry, confused scribbles from days before.
Slowly, she picked up a pen and turned to a fresh page. This time, her writing wasn't fueled by rage but by floating questions:
Why, when all my dreams came true, do I feel emptier than ever?
Was it never their attention I wanted, but proof that I exist?
And if so, why does validation from millions of strangers never feel like enough?
A drop of water fell onto the paper, causing the ink to bleed slightly. Kay only then realized she was crying. Tears she didn't understand—were they for Bima's disappointment, for herself, or for the entire hollow system of validation?
Outside her window, rain began to fall softly. The steady rhythm of droplets became the perfect soundtrack to the chaos inside her. She closed her eyes, trying to listen to her own heart beneath all the noise that had filled her head for so long.
Then, her phone buzzed. A notification from Bima: "Thanks for hanging out. You're really cool. Let's do it again sometime?"
Words that should have made her happy instead tasted bland. Kay stared at her screen, flooded with unread notifications—fan praise, collaboration offers, maybe even brand deals. All of it felt like shiny plastic, hollow inside.
She set her phone down gently and took a deep breath. For the first time in her life, Kaisya Anjani began to ask herself: Who do I want to be? And for whom?
The questions hung in the damp air of her room, unanswered. But for the first time, she felt closer to something real than she ever had with all those numbers and digital validation.