Chapter 4

The room is already alive when we reach it.

Chairs scrape against the floor. Bags hit desks with dull thuds. Someone laughs too loudly at something that wasn’t that funny, like they’re trying to prove a point. The air smells faintly of sweat and chalk and something fried from the canteen downstairs.

Arya steps in first, still talking, still moving like this is just another morning.

I stop at the doorway.

No one notices me right away. They’re busy with their own conversations, their own small dramas. That should make it easier.

It doesn’t.

My chest tightens anyway. The space feels smaller than it should, like the walls have leaned in a little while I wasn’t looking. Too many bodies. Too many angles. Too many places for eyes to land.

I could leave.

The thought comes uninvited, sharp and tempting. I could turn around, mumble something to Arya, say I forgot a form or took the wrong room. I could step back into the hallway where it’s quieter. Where no one is looking at me yet.

I could disappear before I exist here at all.

“Dev?”

Arya’s voice cuts through the noise, not loud, just surprised. She’s already a few steps inside, turning back when she realizes I’m not behind her.

I hate that she has to notice.

I nod once, too quick, like that fixes it. My fingers tighten around my bag strap. The door is still open behind me, the hallway stretching out like an escape route.

Then someone brushes past me, muttering an apology without looking, and the choice collapses.

I step in.

Not all at once. Just enough for the doorframe to leave my shoulder.

A few heads turn. Not everyone’s. Just one or two, curiosity flickering and moving on. Someone looks, registers new, then goes back to their phone. Someone else barely glances up at all.

No one gasps. No one whispers.

But my body doesn’t believe it.

My pulse spikes anyway. I keep my eyes down, counting steps between desks, tracking scuffed tiles and chair legs instead of faces.

Don’t rush. Don’t freeze. Just walk like a person who belongs somewhere.

Arya slows near the middle row. There’s an empty chair beside a boy who has his head resting on folded arms, sprawled across the desk like he’s already exhausted by life.

She taps the edge of the table lightly.

“Raj,” she says, almost sing-song. “New guy’s sitting here.”

No response.

She leans down a little. “Alive?”

The boy shifts just enough to confirm he is, in fact, human. One eye cracks open. He doesn’t lift his head.

Arya turns to me, gesturing casually at him. “This,” she says, lowering her voice theatrically, “is our prefect. Our proud class representative. Chosen by democracy and mild intimidation.”

The boy makes a faint sound that might be a sigh.

Arya looks back at me. “Sit. He won’t bite. Usually.”

I hesitate only a second before lowering myself into the chair beside him. The metal legs scrape softly against the floor. My hands hover awkwardly before settling on the edge of the desk.

Arya slides into the seat behind us, still talking, already digging through her backpack.

“Don’t worry,” she says lightly, like she can sense the tension radiating off me. “He’s almost bearable on good days.”

I manage a tight smile. It feels brittle. Forced.

She’s been nothing but kind. Loud, yes. But kind. Trying in ways that don’t feel performative.

I mouth a small thank you, but she’s already half inside her bag, searching for something, hair falling into her face as she mutters to herself about misplaced notes.

So I turn back to my own backpack.

I unzip it slowly.

And then… pause.

What exactly am I supposed to take out?

It’s my first day. Middle of the year. Everyone else already knows the rhythm of this place. I have a few notebooks. A pen. Old habits that don’t fit here.

I pull out a notebook anyway. Set it down. Open it to a blank page like that means something.

The bell rings.

The teacher walks in, carrying a stack of papers and the kind of presence that quiets a room without effort. The hum of conversation fades into something more structured.

“Class,” she begins. “We’re continuing the plant kingdom.”

She writes ALGAE in big capital letters across the board.

“Kingdom Plantae,” she says, tapping the chalk once for emphasis. “Though some classifications differ. Mostly aquatic. Mostly simple. But don’t mistake simple for insignificant.”

I try. I really do.

I focus on the board. On the shape of the letters. On the sound of her voice explaining characteristics. Thallus body. No true roots, stems, or leaves. Photosynthetic pigments. Cell wall composition varies.

I write down phrases even when they don’t land anywhere inside me.

“Cell wall primarily cellulose,” she says. “Some groups have additional polysaccharides depending on class.”

My hand freezes.

Polysaccharides.

The word looks wrong when I try to write it. I scratch it out. Write it again. It still feels foreign.

But months of staying home did something to my brain.

It feels… rusted.

Like the part of me that used to understand things quickly has stiffened from disuse. The words blur together. Definitions slide off without sticking.

I glance sideways. Everyone else is already writing confidently. Heads bent. Pens moving. Like they know where this is going.

They fit. Even in their own separate ways, they fit. Into desks. Into conversations. Into this routine.

I never had to learn that.

Fitting.

My place was always just… next to Him. Amit.

He’d talk. I’d listen. He’d argue. I’d roll my eyes. He’d pull me into conversations I didn’t start but ended up enjoying anyway.

He shaped the space. I just existed inside it.

He molded entire rooms around me without making it obvious.

I never had to figure out how to stand alone in one.

If he were here, seeing me like this, stiff and quiet and pretending to take notes I don’t understand, he’d lean in and whisper—

“Write chlorophyll a and b,” the boy beside me murmurs quietly.

I blink.

The boy next to me has lifted his head now. He’s not slouched anymore. He’s leaning slightly in my direction, careful, subtle. Not enough to draw attention.

Casual. Like this is normal.

His voice is low. Even. Weirdly steady.

I turn my head a fraction.

He’s looking at me.

Not staring. Just… looking. Like he’s been noticing.

I wonder how long.

“She’ll ask that in the test,” he adds. “Always does.”

He shifts his notebook slightly closer to me without making a big deal of it. Enough that I can see the headings clearly. The neat structure. The arrows linking ideas

“Also… thallus body means no differentiation. Don’t write ‘primitive.’ She hates that word.”

There’s a faint hint of amusement threads through his tone. Like it’s some ongoing joke in the class.

I nod, once. My throat feels tight for no reason I can name.

Has he been watching me this whole time? Watching the way my pen stalled. The way I kept glancing around like I was waiting for something to go wrong?

Heat creeps up my neck.

He leans back a little, just as the teacher turns from the board. Perfect timing.

“Don’t worry,” he says under his breath, quick and easy. “First days are always rough.”

The words are simple. Ordinary.

But something about the way he says them—like he actually means it, like he’s not just trying to make me feel good—lands softer than it should.

He finally gives me a proper look. A small smile curves at the corner of his mouth.

Then he tilts his head a fraction toward me and whispers, barely moving his lips, “I’m Raj.”

A beat.

“Raj Mehra.”

He says it like he expects the name to mean something. Like he’s used to occupying space without asking permission.

I swallow.

“I’m Dev,” I murmur back. My voice is softer than I intend. “Dev Sharma.”

He nods once, slow, like he’s committing it to memory.

“Nice to meet you,” he says, and then, after the smallest pause, “Sharma.”

And—

Sharma

It lands somewhere I wasn’t prepared for.

Somewhere familiar.

Sharma.

It’s the way he says it. Casual. Familiar. Like it fits in his mouth comfortably.

Just like it used to fit in Amit’s.

Half-annoyed, half-loving. Like it was a private joke. Like it meant something more than just a surname.

For a split second, I’m not in this classroom anymore. I’m on a roof under a sky that felt endless. I’m hearing it half-laughed into my ear. Sharma. Drawn out. Teased. Claimed.

My throat tightens before I can stop it.

Raj doesn’t notice. Or maybe he does and pretends he doesn’t.

His smile grows just slightly, like he’s amused by something private. It isn’t cocky exactly. It’s… assured. Like he knows the effect he has and doesn’t mind it.

God, his smile.

It’s bright without trying to be. It’s steady and warm in a way that makes something in my chest shift uncomfortably.

Too bright.

I look away first.

“Thanks,” I murmur, though I’m not sure what I’m thanking him for anymore.

For the notes. For the whisper. For saying my name like it isn’t heavy.

But it weighs down my shoulders anyway.

***

The bell rings. Chairs scrape back, voices rise, bodies shift and stretch. A break. Finally.

I exhale, stretching my arms, rolling my neck. The class slowly empties around me—groups forming, people moving, a quiet hum of conversations filling the air.

Raj is already gone.

I notice it immediately. His chair is empty, his bag on his chair as he walks out the door without a word.

I watch him leave, then sigh.

I should go too. Somewhere.

A strange restlessness crawls under my skin. I need to move.

I step outside the building

And for the first time today, I breathe.

The campus stretches out before me—open, endless, buzzing with life.

The sun is warm but not harsh, filtering through the tall trees that line the pathways. The garden ahead is bursting with color—bright flowers, deep green leaves, vines curling over wooden benches. A gentle breeze carries the scent of earth, the faint sweetness of something blooming.

Students wander in loose clusters, orbiting each other without effort. Some drag their feet like they’ve done this walk a thousand times. Some talk over each other. Someone’s playing music too loudly through half-broken headphones. It leaks into the air and disappears.

I walk.

Slow. Steady. Like if I control the pace, I can control the feeling.

The air is warm, thick with sun and grass and old stone that’s been holding heat all morning. A lazy breeze moves through the trees, rustling leaves in a way that sounds almost like whispering.

It’s beautiful.

That’s the strange part.

The pathways curve gently, leading toward buildings I don’t know yet. Archways throw long shadows across cobblestone. Windows catch slivers of light and send them scattering. Students pass by, laughing like nothing has ever fractured in their lives.

No one looks at me.

No one stares.

Good.

I pass the main courtyard. The low steps. A group sitting cross-legged on the grass, sharing chips from one packet. Someone tosses a bottle cap at someone else. It hits the ground and rolls.

Ahead, tucked between two wings of the building, there’s a small garden. Benches half-hidden under wide branches. The kind of place people choose when they don’t want to be fully seen.

I slow down without meaning to.

A flicker. A pull.

My old school wasn’t this big.

It didn’t have curved pathways or archways or stone that looked like it belonged in a postcard. It was smaller. Boxier. The paint chipped in places no one bothered to fix.

But it had a tree.

Not even a special one. Just near the back fence. Slightly crooked trunk. One branch that hung lower than the others like it had given up halfway through growing.

That was ours.

The first day I’d sat there, it wasn’t ours yet.

It was just the only place left that wasn’t claimed.

I’d taken my lunch and walked to the back because the cafeteria felt too loud, too full of people who already knew where they were supposed to sit. I remember staring at my food longer than necessary, pretending I had something important to think about.

“Are you planning to eat that or write poetry about it?”

I’d looked up.

Amit. Again.

Standing there like he’d always been there. Shirt untucked. Tie crooked. Smile already halfway to trouble.

I remember wondering why this guy was so hellbound to be my friend

He’d dropped down beside me without asking.

Like it was obvious.

Like the empty space next to me had been reserved.

I remember him talking the entire time. About teachers. About some guy who thought he was the king of the hallway. About how the canteen samosas are underrated and he would personally file a complaint if they didn’t promote them.

I remember trying not to smile.

I remember the sound of his laugh before I remember his face. Loud. Unbothered. The kind of laugh that didn’t check who was listening.

I remember thinking—

who does that?

And then thinking—

maybe I don’t have to sit alone anymore.

That tree saw the beginning.

It also saw blood.

The first time, it had felt almost cinematic. Stupid and dramatic and reckless. He’d been grinning through it, lip split, eyes bright like he’d just won something important.

I’d called him insane.

He’d looked proud of that.

The second time when it saw the blood—

The second time there wasn’t a grin.

The second time there was no joke to cushion it.

Just red.

And silence.

I made him silent.

I made us silent. I took away his grin.

And there was something in his eyes that I still can’t name without feeling like I’m swallowing glass.

I don’t let the memory complete itself. I don’t let it show me the whole picture. It doesn’t need to. The outline is enough to hurt me.

The tree here sways lightly in the breeze. Leaves brushing against each other with a soft, thoughtless sound..

The breeze lifts, warm against my face.

For a second, I almost hear it—

Moon

Said the way it was said. Loving. Hopeful. Close.

My throat burns.

The garden blurs at the edges.

I look away first.

Because some places are not just places.

They’re proof.

Of what you had.

Of what you lost.

Of how easily something can begin under shade and end there too.

I turn to see Raj is leaning against the stone wall of the opposite wing, one shoulder pressed back, a lunchbox dangling loosely from his fingers. He must’ve been there for a while. Watching. Not intrusively. Just… there.

The second our eyes meet, something in his expression shifts.

Softens.

It’s quick. Almost gone before I can name it.

“Stalking new kids part of the prefect job?”

His smug grin returns. The one he wears like it’s stitched to him.

“Nah,” he says, pushing off the wall and walking toward me. “Making sure the new ones don’t run away is.”

He gestures vaguely around the campus. “We don’t get them often.”

I arch a brow, folding my arms just to have something to do with them. “I wonder why. Can’t be the stalking policy.”

That makes him laugh. Not loud. Just real.

“Wow,” he says, dropping down under the tree like it’s already his. “He speaks.”

He pats the grass beside him.

I hesitate.

The shade here is cooler than I expected. The bark behind him rough, familiar in a way I don’t want to examine.

He waits. Not pushing.

I sit.

Not too close. Not too far.

“So,” he says casually, opening the lunchbox and resting it between us. “What were you thinking about?”

The question lands lightly. But it lands.

“Nothing,” I say too quickly. Then, softer, “Just… my old school.”

There it is.

The doorway.

The follow-up.

Why did you change?

What happened?

Was it bad?

I already feel the shape of it forming.

What am I supposed to say?

That I was filmed.

That it spread.

That faces blurred into screens and screens blurred into hallways and suddenly there was nowhere left to stand without being seen?

That I stayed home because walking through corridors felt like walking through evidence?

I swallow.

The memory tries to rise. I blink once, twice, forcing the edges back down.

Raj doesn’t ask.

He just looks at me.

Not searching. Not prying.

Observing.

His eyes don’t sharpen. They don’t widen with curiosity. They just… settle. Like he’s noticed the shift in the air and decided not to disturb it further.

“Cool,” he says after a second, like we were discussing weather. He pops open the lunchbox fully. “My dad made sandwiches.”

I glance down.

“They’re technically a bribe,” he adds. “He needed a ride to the airport this morning.”

I blink. “You drive?”

He winces. “Define drive.”

I narrow my eyes.

“Okay, fine. Not legally,” he admits. “But he had a flight at five and apparently being the responsible son means breaking traffic laws occasionally.”

“You live alone?” I ask before I can stop myself.

He shrugs one shoulder. “Mostly. Dad travels for work. I manage.”

It’s said lightly. But not carelessly.

He nudges the lunchbox toward me. “Bribe to not report me.”

I huff out a laugh despite myself.

“Tempting,” I say, picking up one of the sandwiches. “This bribe’s good. Still, I’d prefer your notes.”

He gasps dramatically, clutching his chest. “So that was your plan all along?”

“Guilty.”

He shakes his head, smiling.

We eat in silence after that.

It feels almost unfair how normal it all is.

No tension in the air.

No eyes watching too closely.

No phones lifted a little too high.

Just warmth. Just light. Just two boys sitting under a tree arguing about sandwiches and traffic laws.

I hadn’t realised how much normal I’d been missing.

How much it had started to feel like something other people were entitled to.

Normal used to be background noise. The space between important moments. The default setting. You don’t thank it. You don’t notice it. You just assume it’ll always be there.

Until it isn’t.

Until walking into a room feels like stepping onto a stage you didn’t audition for.

Until laughter sounds like it might be about you.

Until sitting under a tree feels like standing at the edge of something that once broke you.

And then suddenly, this—

sunlight.

grass.

a stupid joke about bribes—

feels almost extravagant.

Like a luxury item I’m not sure I’m allowed to touch for too long.

I shift slightly on the grass, letting my fingers press into the earth just to make sure it’s real. It gives under my palm, cool and solid.

Normal.

It’s such a small thing.

And somehow it feels like everything.

Raj leans back on his palms, looking up through the branches. “It’s nice out here,” he says.

I follow his gaze.

The sky between leaves is impossibly blue.

I shrug.

He chuckles softly, like he expected that response.

I finish the sandwich and brush crumbs from my fingers. He closes the lunchbox with a soft click.

I stand first, dusting off the back of my pants.

For a second I think that’s it.

But then he says it.

I brush the dust off the back of my pants. The grass leaves faint streaks against the fabric.

“Hey, Sharma.”

I glance at him.

He’s still sitting, one knee bent, forearm resting loosely over it. The sunlight catches in his hair, makes his eyes look lighter than they are.

He studies me for a second.

Then, almost lazily, he says, “You know, if you keep staring at the rearview mirror, you’re going to miss the road in front of you.”

I blink.

He shrugs one shoulder like it’s nothing. “And this school has a fragile ego. It might start thinking you don’t like it.”

There’s a faint smirk at the corner of his mouth. But his eyes don’t match it.

They’re softer.

The breeze moves through the leaves above us. I feel something shift in my chest. Small. Precise.

He doesn’t know.

But somehow it feels like he knows enough.

I hold his gaze a second too long before looking away.

“Noted,” I say quietly.

He stands, brushing off his hands, slipping the lunchbox back into his bag.

We walk back toward the building side by side.

Not saying much.

But somehow already said enough.