The next morning feels quieter than usual. I walk to classroom with Aashi, our bags heavy and our conversation full of small silences. The notice board still hangs there, the same paper pinned to it: Section B. I read the letters again, as if something different might appear if I stare long enough.
"Let's try one more time," Aashi says. Her voice is steady, the way it always is when she plans our next rescue mission.
"One last time," I answer.
We go to our class teacher together, the corridor smelling of old books and cleaning fluid. He's arranging registers when we knock at his door.
"Sir," Aashi begins, "can we please be in Section A? We worked together last year — it'll help us." Her words tumble out quick, hopeful.
He keeps his head down, pen moving across a paper. "No, not possible. The list is final," he says without looking up.
"Please, sir…" I try, but his expression doesn't change. "No discussion. Go to your class." The words are gentle but firm, and that's all there is.
We leave the room with our hopes folded small. For a second we just stand in the corridor, the noise of other students muffled behind us.
"That's it," Aashi says finally.
"Yeah," I whisper.
Later, we overhear from Arnav and Rayan that Section A's teacher might have been willing — if only our teacher agreed. It's a small, silly detail, but it stings because it felt so close.
"So she could've allowed it?" Aashi asks when we meet the boys by the stairwell.
Rayan shrugs, trying to make light of it. "Maybe. But she didn't. Nothing else we can do."
Arnav cracks a joke, as usual — anything to ease the awkwardness. "Bribe her with our combined charm?" He winks and half the tension behind us dissolves into a laugh.
We try once more to ask, and once more it's the same answer. Finally, we stop pushing. The map of our days has shifted and there's nothing to do but fold ourselves into the new shapes.
---
After that, routine builds like a tide. We settle into Section B. Aashi and I take our place on the second bench near the window — the light falls there perfectly in the morning and makes the pages of our notebooks warm. It becomes ours by habit.
The first bench in front belongs to someone else now — but on breaks, two familiar faces still come. Arnav slips in first, loud and confident, then Rayan follows, carrying something from the canteen or just his hands in his pockets. They sit in front of us, as if their walk from Section A to Section B is the shortest walk in the world.
"You two again?" I say one afternoon, holding my sandwich like it's a treaty.
Arnav grins. "We have rights. This corner is too nice to be left unused."
Rayan plops down, the corner of his mouth lifting in that half-smile that always makes something warm in my chest loosen. He never brings a lunchbox; he just watches and talks.
"You will get caught one day for " bossy" around," Aashi warns, mock stern.
"We'll blame you," Arnav says, dramatically accusing.
I think that even after this much we all are still together...we're fine — we meet every break, we trade jokes, we are close.
---
"Your corner has better light," Rayan says one day, like it's an excuse to be here.
"You just like disturbing our class and our classroom is better than yours," I reply, but my voice is softer than I intend.
He shrugs. "Maybe."
The weeks push forward. We learn the new bell schedule, the new seating charts. The separation becomes one of those things that is there but not powerful. We find ways around it: they come to our room at break; we walk to their classroom when the lesson ends early; we swap notes and send memes in the group chat. Nothing dramatic, but everything that matters is held in these small rituals.
When the bell rings, we split again — Section A to the right, Section B to the left — but our laughter keeps bouncing across the hallway. Once, walking past their classroom door, I hear them laugh the way they always have. Rayan's voice drops low, calm, and something in me relaxes without my permission.
Aashi nudges me. "See? Nothing's changed." She's trying to convince me, but also herself. I smile because she's right in the way she usually is: lovly and mature.
At night I lie awake and think of the window near our desk. The wind that used to carry their jokes now carries them the same way — just from a slightly different angle. Maybe growing up is learning not to measure closeness by distance. Maybe it's learning how to make room.
And every break, every period, we meet — Arnav and Rayan in front, Aashi and I behind, light falling on the notebooks. The corner becomes ours again, in a different way: not because we share the same classroom, but because we keep sharing the same space in each other's days.
Some things rearrange. Some stay exactly the same. In the quiet between classes, laughter still finds its path through the corridor, and the wind at my window keeps carrying it back.
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