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The rain had a rhythm tonight — not a downpour, not a drizzle, but a slow, patient tapping, like a stone dropped again and again into a deep silent well. One steady note, endless and dull, blurring the edges of everything it touched. Streetlamps wore halos; puddles reflected trembling cuts of neon; the whole city seemed to breathe in a long, cold sigh.
Akhil stood beneath one of those lamps with a black umbrella open above him, even though the rain had already stopped. It wasn't habit. It was defiance — a small shield against a city that had swallowed him whole and didn't intend to spit him back out. The umbrella had been open so long the fabric felt like an extension of his skin. He didn't close it. He couldn't.
Memories rose without permission. They always did. They came like thieves — soft, deliberate, cruel.
Her smile in the wind.
Her laughter breaking into the night like glass.
Her fingers slipping into his with the assurance of someone who belonged exactly there.
Akhil remembered the taxi — the blur of lights outside, her head against his shoulder, the way she hummed when thinking. He remembered telling the driver to take his time. He thought he had all the time in the world.
He didn't.
Tonight, somewhere between the exhaustion of a school-night and the ache of an unfinished life, he saw the same taxi again. The same headlights. The same yellowed bumper. The same number etched into his memory like a scar.
He walked toward it, umbrella angled like a shadow behind him. The driver saw him and stiffened immediately, fumbling with the keys as if guilt itself had hands.
"Solang," Akhil said. His voice wasn't loud, but it didn't need to be.
"₹3,000," the driver stammered. Money as small talk. Cowardice disguised as professionalism.
Akhil slid into the back seat. He didn't need to see the driver's face to know the fear sitting in his throat. The car climbed steadily — up the sloping road, through cold turns that cut into the mountainside. The air inside shifted, heavy and sharp.
"Don't you remember me?" Akhil asked quietly.
A beat. Then a lie.
"No, sir."
But fear has a sound. A taste. Metallic, raw, unmistakable.
When the car stopped, Akhil leaned forward slightly.
"If you don't remember me," he asked, "why are you scared?"
The driver broke. People always break in small, ugly ways. His voice cracked as he spat out the truth: the teenagers, the attack, the beating, the robbery. And her — the girl who tried to stop them, who shouted, who pulled them away, who didn't get up after the blow.
"She tried," the driver whispered, tears rolling like leftover rain. "She tried so hard."
Akhil listened with the calm of a man who already knew. He only needed confirmation. Not comfort.
"What did they look like?"
"Korean… maybe Japanese. Jackets. 'Tokyo Knights' on the back."
A gang of children with borrowed menace. Boys who thought violence was an accessory.
Akhil slid money forward — soft, steady, final. The driver blinked, confused, relieved. Akhil stepped out. The umbrella tilted slightly, like a moon going dark.
For a moment, a cold instinct whispered: Kill the witness. Silence the coward.
But Akhil turned instead. Mercy or disinterest — even he didn't know.
He walked until he spotted the teenagers huddled under a dim shop roof, smoking cheap cigarettes, laughing with the arrogance of boys who'd never seen consequences.
Akhil approached with the politeness of a wolf greeting sheep.
They looked up. One smirked. One opened his mouth to speak.
A flash.
A knife's whisper.
A breath cut short.
Two throats opened like red flowers in the dark.
No noise. Hardly any struggle.
Akhil just watched his hands, as if they belonged to a different animal.
He moved on.
The Internet café glowed weakly, humming with tired machines and flickering screens. Inside, Akhil paid for an hour and slipped into the city's camera grid. Footage spooled back like rewound memory — frames of buses, crossings, traffic, and finally, six months earlier, the taxi stand.
There they were.
Teenagers in matching jackets, laughing too loudly, shoving each other, riding off toward the airport. Akhil followed their digital trail — Bhuntar terminal, 3 PM departure, baggage scans, cheap sunglasses, bored expressions.
Names surfaced next.
Kamaguchi Isaki.
Bu Cheo San.
Kim Seong.
Ikasari Hegin.
Children.
Monsters.
Both at once.
He memorised everything — times, faces, flight logs — with the precision of someone shaping vengeance into mathematics.
Police sirens began swelling outside. Someone had reported something — a scream, a body, a shadow. Akhil left before the officers entered. They found only a half-drunk coffee and an empty chair.
The motorcycle shop was dim, cluttered with metal and the smell of oil. The owner had the casual greed of someone who'd sell his own shadow for a good price. Akhil asked for a bike. The man bragged about models, engines, torque. Akhil barely listened — until he saw it.
The Royal Enfield Himalayan.
Ugly. Heavy. Loyal.
Perfect.
When the man turned to check documents, Akhil's hands were already closing around his throat. Quick, clinical, quiet. No sound. No pain worth describing.
He rode out at midnight.
The Himalayan growled beneath him — a beast waking up. The road unfurled into the cold valley, the air biting at his clothes. Mountain wind carried the smell of pine and diesel. The umbrella lay across the seat like sleeping darkness.
He didn't blink for miles.
He didn't breathe properly either.
He only thought of her.
At Bhuntar, he parked and watched the departures hall silently. People moved like ghosts rehearsing new lives.
Tokyo Knights.
Tired.
Careless.
Smirking.
He disappeared into the terminal.
Inside the airport's white fluorescent belly, the world felt paused, suspended. Announcements echoed. People shuffled. Time dragged.
He checked the list.
He checked the gate.
He checked the clock.
Everything aligned.
Akhil booked a flight to Delhi — the only one.
Tonight, someone's future ends.
Not mine.