"He never believed in destiny, but every time She collided, he started doubting his logic."
Venue: Auditorium
Time: 3:27pm
The final beat faded, the lights dimmed, and the emcee's voice boomed again, declaring the winners.
Priya grabbed aradhya's wrist and yanked her into a bow. She stumbled, laughing, strands of her hair finally slipping free from the messy knot Priya had wrecked earlier. The thick, long brown waves tumbled down her shoulders, catching the stage lights.
A chorus of students from the back row whistled and whooped, some even calling out the duo's name. Aradhya froze, her grin faltering into wide-eyed surprise. She wasn't used to this kind of attention. Priya, still holding her hand, whispered something in her ear that made her giggle nervously. Together, they gave one last wave before rushing off stage.
The attention didn't surprise Aarav. She had lit up the entire auditorium - of course people noticed. Of course they cheered. But while the others saw the sudden sheen of her hair, the flushed color on her cheeks, the energy she radiated-he noticed something else.
He saw how her smile tightened when the cheers grew louder. How her eyes darted down as if searching for cover. How she practically hid behind Priya on the way out, tugging her sleeves nervously.
She hadn't wanted the spotlight. She never did.
And yet, when it came to her friends, she took it without hesitation.
Aarav leaned back in his chair, his face carefully unreadable, but his thoughts stubbornly fixed on one truth:
For all her chaos and clumsy resistance, Aradhya Tripathi had just conquered the stage without even trying.
But he wondered-did she even realize what she'd just done?
Scene change: outside the auditorium
The crowd was still buzzing as people poured out of the auditorium, retelling highlights, replaying clips on their phones. Aarav walked out slowly, with his friends messing around. his hands in his pockets, his face composed, But his mind wasn't.
He kept replaying the image of her - flustered smile in that half-bow, hair falling in loose brown waves under the stage lights. It wasn't her appearance that unsettled him, not really. It was the way she had looked both untouchable and unbearably human at once. Like she didn't even know what she had done to the room.
He exhaled, steadying himself, when it happened.
A blur of motion, the scent of sweat mixed faintly with vanilla shampoo, and then- thud.
Someone crashed into him hard enough to knock him off balance. He caught himself at the last second, his hand instinctively gripping her arm to steady them both.
Aradhya
Her hair was still down, wild and wavy, brushing against his sleeve as she stumbled forward. She blinked up at him, startled, her lips parting as if words had fled her. For a moment, neither moved. Both had almost fallen, yet somehow stood there, tethered by his grip on her arm.
"Oh-sorry! I wasn't-uh-looking-" she sputtered, her words tumbling out, cheeks flushed from the performance and now from the collision. She tried to tuck her hair back behind her ear, only for more strands to fall stubbornly forward.
Aarav didn't say a word. He didn't let go either. His dark eyes studied her quietly, unflinching, as if trying to decide whether this was real or another trick of his mind replaying her from the stage.
Aradhya, uncomfortable under the weight of his silence, laughed nervously - loud and unpolished as always. "I swear Priya almost murdered me on that stage, and now I'm about to take out innocent bystanders too. Great. Perfect. Just perfect."
She tugged her arm lightly, a silent request for him to let go.
Slowly, deliberately, he did.
She straightened almost immediately making her fall backwards on the ground.
"Ow what in the-" she tried to manage her balance but couldn't and aarav's hand shot out stabalizing her almost immediately.
She looked at him and quickly have three short bows mumbling apologies and thank yous and without waiting for reply with a quick, almost sheepish smile she hurried past him, her hair swaying with every step. In seconds, she was swallowed up by the crowd of friends waiting for her, already teasing her with shouts and laughter.
Aarav stayed rooted for a moment longer, his palm still faintly warm where her arm had been. Then, without expression, he slipped his hands back into his pockets and walked the other way.
But this time, no matter how he tried, the image didn't leave him.
Her laughter, her chaos, her hair falling against his arm.
Unforgettable.
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Above, the sky boiled with heavy thunderclouds, swollen and restless. Flashes of lightning tore through them like silver cracks, illuminating the jagged skyline of the city in the distance-the easier side, calm compared to the storm that raged overhead. Each flash was followed by a deafening roar of thunder, a sound so violent it seemed to rattle even the glass of the windshield.
The driver pressed harder on the accelerator, the car surging forward like a wild beast unleashed, tires hissing against the wet tar. The wind howled past, bending trees on the roadside and throwing leaves and debris into the air, as though the storm itself wanted to keep the car from reaching its destination.
Then came the sharp turn. The headlights swung wide, carving light against the metal guardrails, and for a moment the road beneath was nothing but a narrow thread between the abyss and the mountain wall. The car's tires screamed against the asphalt, the steering wheel trembling under the driver's grip.
A sudden clap of thunder cracked overhead, startling, splitting the silence of concentration. The slick surface betrayed the speed-rubber lost its hold. The car shuddered, fishtailed violently, and in an instant the sense of control vanished.
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He left the auditorium towards the parking with his usual even stride, but inside, Aarav was not as composed as he looked. His friends - classmates from law, loud and overconfident as always - caught up with him in the corridor.
"Man, that was insane!" one of them exclaimed. "Did you see Priya nail that flip? She's unstoppable."
Another smirked. "Forget Priya. That science girl with her? What's her name-tripathi? She stole the show. Who even knew she could dance?"
Aarav said nothing, hands in his pockets, eyes fixed straight ahead. But his silence wasn't his usual kind. He wasn't detached. He was... elsewhere.
One of his friends nudged him with an elbow. "Oye, Raichand . You alive? You've been walking around like you just got hit with a cricket bat."
The others laughed. Aarav didn't.
Instead, he blinked once, slow, as if pulled back to the present. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "it was fine something fresh was bought on stage" His tone was flat, but not sharp enough to shut them up.
"Yeah, but you looked-" one started, Rudra his best buddy,then grinned knowingly, "-lost. And trust me, Aarav never looks lost."
The group chuckled, but Aarav's face stayed impassive. Still, his friends weren't entirely wrong. For a man known for razor focus, his gaze had lingered too long, his expression softened for too many seconds. Enough to be noticed.
He let them banter, not bothering to deny or confirm. The best way to end speculation was to give nothing away.
And yet, as they walked back across campus, he caught himself once more - his mind replaying not the duel, not the win, not even the cheers.
Just the moment she'd crashed into him, hair falling in waves, laughter bubbling nervously out of her, her startled wide eyes.
His friends' words blurred into background noise.
Because for the first time in a long while, Aarav Raichand was lost.