Wardha watched Dakshin from her usual spot in the library carrel, her sharp eyes missing nothing. She wasn't part of the core trio of Dakshin, Rohan, and Leo, but she existed on its periphery—a quiet, intelligent presence in their shared engineering classes. While the others saw Dakshin as the "reliable, quiet one," Wardha saw the patterns.
He arrives exactly seven minutes early to every lecture, she noted, sipping her coffee. He always sits in the third row, left aisle. He takes notes methodically, but his pen sometimes stops moving for full minutes while he just... stares.
She had been the one to suggest asking him for help with the complex thermodynamics assignment, not because she needed it—her grades were, in fact, slightly better than his—but because she was curious. She had watched him patiently explain the concepts to Rohan and Leo, his voice calm, his logic impeccable. But she also saw the way his shoulders slumped with a profound exhaustion the moment he thought no one was looking.
At the New Year's party, her hypothesis had been confirmed. She had been watching him when his eyes met that girl's across the room. Wardha didn't know her name, only that her presence acted like a switch on Dakshin. The careful, constructed calm he wore like armor had vaporized in an instant, replaced by a raw, devastating pain that was painful to witness.
So that's the ghost, she thought, not with jealousy, but with a clinical sort of pity. He's not just quiet; he's haunted.
The day after the party, their friend group was subdued at the cafe. Rohan was trying to lighten the mood with a stupid joke. Leo was half-listening. Dakshin was just stirring his tea, looking as if he hadn't slept.
"He's been like that since last night," Leo murmured to Wardha, nodding toward Dakshin. "Did you see him at the countdown? It was like he wasn't even there."
"I saw," Wardha said quietly.
Rohan leaned in. "Do you think it's about a girl? Maybe that Warda girl from his other group? Did something happen?"
Wardha almost smiled at the irony. They were so oblivious. They saw a friend acting off and assumed it was a simple, solvable problem. They didn't understand they were witnessing a slow-motion collapse.
"No," Wardha said, her voice low so only they could hear. She glanced at Dakshin, who was completely oblivious to their conversation, lost in his own world. "It's not about a new girl. It's about an old one. And I don't think it's something he's getting over."
She felt a pang of concern, sharp and unexpected. It wasn't romantic. It was the feeling you get when you see a strong structure with a deep, hidden fissure. You know it's only a matter of time before it gives way. She wondered what would happen to the quiet, reliable Dakshin when it finally did. And a small, analytical part of her mind, the part that loved solving complex problems, wondered if there was any possible solution to an equation that was so fundamentally broken.