The ceiling fan hummed a rhythmic, mocking tune, its blades slicing through the stagnant air of the classroom. Veer's world had shrunk to a single point of focus: a golden lock of hair dancing in that artificial breeze. Behind it lay the silhouette of Priya—sun-kissed skin and eyes that seemed to hold a universe he wasn't invited to.
In the middle of a crowded classroom, the roar of sixty teenagers had faded into a dull, underwater murmur. Veer sat so rigidly his knuckles were white, gripping the edges of his seat as if he were strapped into a roller coaster about to plunge. His heart wasn't just beating; it was sprinting, moving with the frantic energy of a high-stakes disclaimer on a mutual fund ad.
Romantic relationships are subject to social risks, his brain whispered. Please read the girl carefully before proposing.
But the heart is a terrible listener.
Veer stood. The movement felt heavy, like wading through molasses. He pulled a single red rose and a soft pink card from his bag—items that felt like holy relics in his trembling hands. As he approached her desk, a vacuum of silence swallowed the room. It was the kind of silence that usually preceded a natural disaster or the arrival of a particularly vengeful teacher.
He extended the rose. "I love you, Priya."
Priya didn't look touched. She didn't even look surprised. Her eyes narrowed, darting toward the space behind him.
"Shut up," she hissed, her voice a low, jagged blade. "Look behind you."
Veer's romantic fog didn't just lift; it evaporated. A heavy, gravelly voice shattered the moment. "Oh, Hero. Aashika Awara. Get to your seat. I have results to announce."
The classroom didn't just laugh; they erupted. The silence hadn't been for Veer's bravery; it was for the predator standing in the doorway.
The humiliation didn't end with the bell. It lingered in the air, thick and suffocating.
"Failed in Math. Again," the teacher barked, tossing the report card onto Veer's desk like a piece of trash. "I need your parents' signature. Understood, you Lanth (useless)?"
The word Lanth rippled through the room, but only one laugh mattered. Priya. The same laugh that used to feel like a spring garden in Veer's mind now felt like a torch being dropped onto a dry haystack.
Veer didn't wait. He couldn't. He gathered his things and walked out, the laughter echoing down the hallway like a physical weight on his shoulders.
Mathematics and love—he'd realized—weren't that different. Both were needlessly complicated, and Veer had managed to fail both in a single afternoon.
The walk home offered no sanctuary. His father was gone—a victim of a cold-blooded murder sparked by business rivalries that Veer still didn't fully understand. Since that day, the numbers in his textbooks had stopped making sense, replaced by the crushing reality of a house held together by his mother and sister.
He stepped through the front door, hoping for a quiet corner to hide his shame.
"You're home early," his mother's voice rang out, sharp as a gunshot. She didn't look up from her work, but Veer felt the scrutiny anyway. It was like crossing a national border without a passport.
He retreated to his room, a space that looked like World War II had been fought exclusively on his carpet. He collapsed onto the bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the next disaster.
It arrived in the form of a flickering blue light. A hologram projected into the center of the room. Dr. Khurana.
"Veer, I know school isn't your strong suit," the doctor's image said, his voice digital and thin. "But I have a proposition. I need someone in the lab. Someone who wants freedom, not just knowledge. You want to earn money? You want to see things no one else has seen?"
The hologram flickered, showing a glimpse of something impossible. A landscape that wasn't Earth.
"Our world isn't the only one, Veer. There's a place called Titan. And it needs someone like you."