The dissection hall smelled of formalin — which is not a great smell on a regular basis, but even more so when you have to sit through yet another long explanation of skull foramina. It was even worse for Tara, considering anatomy was not her best subject — or, more accurately, it was the bane of her existence.
The white apron felt itchy on her skin. The layers she had worn in the morning felt unbearably hot now, at midday. She tried to focus. The instructor was saying something, shoving a wire into some minuscule, probably nonexistent structure with a name like lateral-medial superficial pterygoid of the hard palate anteromedial mandibular foramen.
"Now, this is not a must-know piece of information, but if your viva is going really well and the examiner wants to elevate the level of questions, they will ask you this, and if you answer correctly, you can certainly score excellent marks—" The professor started.
That was all she needed to tune the information out. She'd first rather worry about passing anatomy, thank you very much. Her gaze travelled to the far ends of the hall, zoning out. Her face was set in a focused expression, her head turned in the general direction of the professor — giving the illusion she was listening, while inside she was very much bored.
Her gaze stopped at the table opposite hers. In the DH, the students were divided among tables according to alphabetical roll numbers — each table having twenty-five people. Her roll number was pretty far back, and thus she was placed at Table 6, the very last table.
Opposite Table 6 was Table 1. She could feel her gaze drifting there. Dr. Alka, the table teacher assigned to Table 1, was nowhere to be seen. Isn't she on leave? Tara remembered with an internal sigh.
Her gaze locked with Anya — one of her close friends, who sat at Table 1. Anya gave her a slight smile. Tara smiled back. But it wasn't Anya her eyes were searching for.
*Where is he…* she thought with an internal sigh.
Anya rolled her eyes, as if hearing her thoughts from the forlorn expression and searching gaze alone. Tara ignored her. Her eyes finally locked on another figure — this time the one she was searching for.
There.
Dead eyes.
Well. Technically, his name was Aryan Garg. *Dead Eyes* was a pseudonym she had made for him with Anya when she did not know or care about his name, and the only vaguely interesting thing about the dude was the simple fact that made her notice him in the first place.
His eyes.
They're… dead.
Which intrigued her. Because normally, she thinks *her* eyes look dead. Then she saw him. And she remembers the first thing she thought was:
*Damn. Those are some dead eyes.*
And thus, Dead Eyes was born.
In the start, it was just Anya bitching about him — about how he's so idiotic, and how the sight of his face infuriates her. Tara, ever the man-hater and never one to back down from a good bitching session, had quite enthusiastically contributed. But then… something changed.
She could remember it like it was yesterday. (Mostly because it was only two weeks ago.)
It was… a physiology class. Something about neural control of respiration. She was sitting in the second row. That day, the ever-complacent Dr. Anupama — who honestly didn't care even if students slept in her class right in front of her face and continued teaching in her monotonous, robotic voice — had chosen violence.
See, it was a sort of tradition. The first row was always empty. So was most of the second. It was like the third row was the first one by relativity, because that was the one people really started sitting at. She didn't know why Dr. Anupama was not complacent that day. But she wasn't. And she decided the problem was the empty front rows.
Students from the back were called to sit in the front.
And Aryan was among them.
By some switch of fate, he ended up sitting on the seat beside her. And thus, it started.
The first thing she noticed was the warmth. It was like the aura around the man was safe and warm. Then her gaze fell on his hands — they were big, with tendons and veins.
Veins.
Those hands just laid on the paper, clutching the pen like it would gain sentience write the content of the class. Tara did not like slackers. But at that moment, she decided — those hands deserve a pass.
It wasn't an instant crush. She wasn't crushing on him after sitting beside him for one class and because his hand had veins. But it had definitely started. And it would only continue.
The second time she was in proximity with him was the day after that. It was — again — a physiology lecture. As expected of her favourite subject. Not only is physiology logical, actually something you will need the knowledge of as a doctor, but it also plays a central role in her one-sided love story.
This time, it was a CVS lecture.
The lecture… went.
Attendance was being taken. And Tara, who really had to choose the perfect moment to pick up the pen she dropped, missed her call. The teacher had moved on. As soon as the list was done, she stood up to say she missed her number — but the teacher had already walked out of the hall.
And so she rushed out after her — which was not an easy feat considering she was sitting in the middle seat and had to ask like four girls to give way so she could get out. But damn, she was not losing the attendance of one lecture that was basically the most important part of a lecture.
And then she noticed — out of the class of one hundred and fifty people, there was another person dumb enough and out of it enough who had also missed their call.
Her heart gave a little leap.
"You missed your number too?" she asked, breathless. A faint flush had covered her cheeks — no doubt from rushing there.
Aryan nodded quietly. His face conveyed nothing — no panic, no sense of hurry. It was as if he'd just rushed there for the sake of it, and whether he got the attendance or not didn't really matter that much to him.
Before Tara could stare any longer, Aryan started walking out.
Oh. They still had to get the damn attendance.
What followed was a rather harried chase down the hallway to catch up with the leaving teacher. She had gotten her attendance that day. He had too. But from that moment — it had solidified.
She liked him.
She liked him.
She liked the way his eyes were so… dead. So mysterious. So deep. He looked like he was simultaneously calculating the reason for existence and wondering about the metaphysical nature of being.
Though, the logical part of her mind told her he was probably thinking about what he would have for lunch.
*Shut up, logical brain.*
From that point on, she didn't notice when her eyes started finding him instinctively in a crowded room. She didn't notice when she memorised his roll number. She didn't notice when she started knowing his schedule better than her own — partly because it was also Anya's schedule, but shut up, let her yearn.
She'd told Anya early on, of course. Anya had made a face like she had simultaneously stepped on dog shit and been shat on by a pigeon. She had thought Tara was joking.
Tara was very much not joking.
"You like him? Dead Eyes?"
"…Yeah? He's cute, come on."
Anya's face turned sour, an expression of pure disbelief that was frankly a little insulting. "He's Dead Eyes," she said weakly.
"I know," Tara had sighed dreamily. "I mean — maybe we were wrong about him in the beginning? He seems really… nice."
"He's a bully! I told you that!"
Tara had rolled her eyes. That was slander, pure and simple. "He is not. I heard his voice. It was really… gentle."
"You're so far gone," Anya had groaned, running a hand over her face. She didn't know this yet — but this would mark the beginning of a crush her poor ears would be subjected to the details of for months to come, whether she liked it or not.