By the time Aarya reached home that night, it was already past eight. The living room light was on, and her father was pacing near the dining table.
"You're late," he said the second she stepped inside. "Do you know what time it is? Eight o'clock, Aaru. You can't just wander back like this without telling anyone."
She dropped her bag on the sofa. "Papa, I .."
"You always have an excuse. You think I don't worry? What if…"
"I'm not hungry," she cut in quietly, moving past him toward her room.
Her father sighed but didn't follow. She lay on her bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling, trying to push away the image of Mohan's satchel and that locked grey door.
About an hour later, the door creaked open. "Aaru," her father's voice was softer now, "papa's sorry. I shouldn't have snapped. Come eat something, then you can sleep."
They sat at the dining table, the overhead fan ticking slowly above them. Aarya slid an extra roti onto her father's plate and smiled. "The kurkuri bhindi is yum, Papa. You make it just right crispy and good."
He also add some extra bhindi to Aarya's plate and smiled faintly. Her father chuckled, shaking his head. "Your mum's the real cook. But with her on night shift again at the hospital, you're stuck with my experiments."
"She loves her work," Aarya said softly, tearing a piece of roti.
Her father grumbled, "I keep telling her this work is exhausting, but she loves it. Can't stop her."
Aarya hesitated. She wanted to ask why her parents had been fighting so often lately, but instead she just said, "Goodnight, papa. Don't stress too much."
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The next few days passed without much change. Exams were closing in, and she'd pulled back from creative writing classes to focus. Still, she couldn't forget the embarrassment of Ms. Dutta reading her "cringe-worthy" romance aloud to the whole class-
It was one of those tired, recycled romances , the kind where a rich heiress with her perfection loses her earring during a spat with a poor pizza delivery guy carrying nothing but his battered old Nokia. Somehow, he stumbles into her life, they bicker, then bond over her pet parrot, Mimi… only to discover Mimi is the offspring of his own parrot. Cue an absurd pet custody battle, declarations of love, and a happy ending. Aarya still couldn't figure out what Ms. Dutta found so special about it.
When she next saw Mohan Sharma at the centre a man she now found far more unnerving than charming she told herself to let it go. Sid was buried in preparations for his college entrance exams, and maybe she should also mind her own business.
But then, one late afternoon, she found herself back in the library, exams or not. The air smelled faintly of dust and old paper. She'd lingered after class, pretending to work in a corner while her thoughts kept drifting to Mohan.
Well, well, well… I don't blame Ms. Iqbal for falling for him he's got that quiet, magnetic charm, the kind that makes you want to lean in without even realizing it. Handsome in an unpolished way, too. But now that I've seen that other side of him, that flicker in his eyes that feels… dangerous, it's hard to imagine it as anything close to romantic. If anything, it's the kind of presence that makes you instinctively take half a step back, even when you want to move closer.
Through the window, she saw him moving toward the south gate again, satchel at his side.
She slipped her notebook away, tucking it into the crook of her arm as if holding onto something solid could keep her nerves steady. The corridor outside the classroom was almost too quiet, every sound magnified, the soft squeak of her shoes, the slow draw of her own breath. She followed him, careful to keep the distance between them wide enough to vanish if he turned suddenly.
Outside, the day was dying fast. Streetlights hummed awake in the fog, casting little islands of orange in the mist. The air had that damp, metallic smell, as if rain had been threatening all afternoon and only now decided to commit. His figure ahead was a dark silhouette, shoulders square, the line of his coat cutting against the pale haze. Every few steps, his hand would brush the satchel at his side not in a casual way, but like he was making sure it was still there. Still safe.
Aarya's footsteps matched his, slower now, almost soundless.
Then he slowed near an alley. Not just slowed hesitated, the way someone does when they're listening for something you can't hear. Her pulse spiked. She slipped behind the rough curve of a gatepost, pressing herself into its shadow, her cheek brushing cold stone.
He scanned the street once, then turned to a section of wall that looked unremarkable until he reached into his coat pocket. She caught the faint metallic jingle of keys. The satchel shifted against his hip as he knelt, unlocking a dull-grey metal door she hadn't even noticed before. It yawned open, swallowing him.
She held her breath, counting. One… two… three…
He stepped back out. The satchel looked lighter now, almost slack in his grip.
And then without warning he turned.
For a fraction of a second, their eyes locked across the mist. She couldn't tell if she'd moved, or if the night itself had betrayed her.
The air between them stretched tight.
"Do you need something?" His voice cut cleanly through the quiet, not loud, but edged in steel.
Her mouth worked, her mind emptying like someone had tipped it over. "I uh was just… passing by."
He didn't blink. That gaze stayed fixed, sharp enough to shave the air around her. She felt it not just in her chest but down to her fingertips, a prickle of instinct whispering that she was too close to something she shouldn't touch.
"Then you should keep going."
The words weren't a suggestion.
She nodded too fast, muttered "Right," and pulled herself out of the shadow, forcing her feet to walk casual, casual until the corner swallowed him from sight.
But she didn't dare glance back. Not once. Not until the centre's soft yellow lights flickered through the fog ahead, a beacon pulling her toward something familiar. Even then, her heartbeat hadn't slowed.
That night, sitting cross-legged on her bed, the page before her was half-filled with the scattered fragments of her thoughts. She added one more line to the bottom, pressing the pen harder than she meant to:
He knows I'm watching.