By the end of the week, midnight had stopped being a time.
It had become a habit.
Aarav didn't notice when it happened. There was no conscious decision, no moment where he told himself this matters. It crept in quietly, the way routines always do—subtle at first, then unquestionable.
By eleven-thirty every night, his body began preparing without instruction. He brushed his teeth earlier. Finished assignments faster. Let conversations trail off. The city outside his window grew familiar in its nightly transformation, as if Bengaluru itself knew when to lower its voice for him.
At 11:58, he checked his phone.
At 12:01, it buzzed.
Voice note — 0:22 seconds
"I think this is my favourite part of the day."
He smiled, the kind that arrived without effort.
"Mine too," he replied.
They didn't ask why.
Some truths didn't need defending.
Ira's nights unfolded slowly, like she was always careful not to wake the world around her. She spoke in half-lights and low tones, describing Delhi as if it were something alive but resting—balconies glowing faintly, the occasional bark of a dog, the hum of a generator somewhere far away.
"I sit on the terrace after everyone sleeps," she told him one night. "It feels like borrowing the city for a while."
Aarav imagined her there—cross-legged on concrete still warm from the day, phone held close, earphones in. He noticed how naturally his mind filled in details without ever demanding confirmation.
"What do you do up there?" he asked.
"Nothing," she said. "That's the point."
They talked about nothing and everything. About books they reread when they didn't know what else to do with themselves. About songs they associated with very specific emotions. About how cities made it easy to disappear while still being seen.
Aarav found himself talking more than he usually did. Not in long speeches, but in honest fragments.
"I don't feel behind," he said once. "I feel paused."
Ira didn't interrupt.
"Maybe you're just listening," she said.
"Most people never stop talking long enough to hear where they are."
Her words stayed with him the next day, echoing faintly during lectures, during lunch, during the walk back to his PG. He caught himself looking forward to the night not as an escape, but as a return.
That realization unsettled him.
He'd never been the kind of person who depended on others easily. He prided himself on being self-contained, emotionally economical. But something about Ira bypassed that instinct entirely.
She didn't ask him to be anything.
She just… waited.
One night, after a long pause between messages, she asked, "Do you ever feel like you're only real after everyone else sleeps?"
Aarav stared at the ceiling.
"Yes," he said quietly. "All the time."
There was a smile in her voice when she replied.
"Me too."
They never spoke during the day.
It wasn't a rule they set deliberately—it just happened. Messages sent in daylight went unanswered, suspended until night returned. Aarav noticed it one afternoon when he impulsively typed Are you free? during a boring lecture.
The message stayed unread.
At midnight, his phone buzzed.
Voice note — 0:18 seconds
"Sorry.
Daytime feels… crowded."
"I get that," he replied. And he did.
Night stripped away expectations. It softened people. It made honesty feel possible without consequence.
Slowly, Aarav began associating clarity with darkness.
That should have worried him.
Instead, it felt like relief.
One night, Ira spoke about her school.
"Everyone keeps asking what I want to do after this," she said. "Like it's something I should already know."
"What do you say?" Aarav asked.
"That I'll figure it out," she replied. "They don't like that answer."
He laughed softly. "They never do."
There was a hesitation in her next message. Not silence—hesitation.
"I don't think I want my life to be loud," she said eventually. "I don't think I'm built for that."
Aarav thought of crowded offices, constant ambition, the relentless forward motion everyone seemed to worship.
"I don't think that's a flaw," he said. "I think it's just… rare."
Her reply came slower than usual.
"You always say the right thing."
"No," he said. "I just say what I mean."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then, softly: "That's rarer."
Aarav didn't notice the first inconsistency when it appeared.
It slipped into conversation so naturally that it didn't register as strange at all.
They were talking about music when he mentioned a song that had been everywhere recently, playing in cafés, auto radios, Instagram reels.
"You know it," he said. "It's impossible not to."
There was a pause.
"I don't think I've heard it," Ira said.
He frowned, but shrugged it off.
"Lucky you," he joked. "You missed the overexposure."
She laughed, and the moment passed.
But the pause lingered.
That night, after they disconnected, Aarav lay staring at the ceiling fan again, listening to its familiar rattle. He told himself not to read too much into things. People missed trends all the time. Not everyone lived online.
Still, a small, quiet thought formed at the back of his mind.
Her world feels… still.
The thought didn't alarm him.
Not yet.