Arts Wing
The art room always smelled like old paper, paint water and sunlight.
Aditi sat cross-legged on the floor, sketchbook open, pencil gliding across the page. The updated layout of the Gate Zone took shape in clean lines—fences shifted inward, paths widened, the vendor stalls tucked just beside the boundary, not on it.
"See?" she said, shading a corner gently. "If we push the stalls this much inside, we're technically not touching the Gate Zone. It becomes… support area. Not gate area."
Aryan crouched beside her, one knee on the ground, one elbow resting on it. He studied the drawing silently.
"You're sure?" he asked.
"No," she said honestly. "But it looks correct. And sometimes looking correct is half the battle."
He almost smiled.
Aditi watched his face for a moment. There was always a tightness around his eyes now, like his thoughts had nowhere to go. He never said it, but she could feel the pressure hanging around him like humidity before rain.
"You know," she added casually, "most people would've dropped this by now."
"Most people don't have a leaking roof," Aryan replied.
The words came out flat, but not bitter. Just true.
Aditi's hand paused.
She'd never been to his house. She'd only heard snatches—repairs delayed, buckets under the ceiling when it rained. She shifted slightly, closing the gap between them.
"Then let's go get this permit," she said, lifting the sketch carefully. "Before the roof and your brain both crack."
He huffed a small breath that almost counted as a laugh.
They packed up. Aditi slid her sketchbook into her bag like it was something fragile. It was, in a way. Her drawings were the only places where things were clean and controllable.
Administrative Office
The administrative corridor was a different world from the rest of school office. The noise outside felt like it dimmed the moment they stepped inside.
Aditi pushed the office door open lightly.
Behind the desk, Harish Patil, mid-forties with thinning hair and an always-half-buttoned shirt, didn't look up from sorting registers. His routine was mechanical, bored, indifferent—years of doing the bare minimum wrapped in a body that had forgotten ambition.
"Sir," Aditi said politely, "we're here for the gate project permit."
Harish blinked once, slow, like waking from a nap, then waved his hand in a loose circle.
"No need, no need. These things… unnecessary. You're small kids. No permission for this."
Aryan stepped forward.
"Sir, it's part of our assessment—"
Harish cut him off without lifting his eyes.
"If something happens outside the gate, parents blame us. I'll not take headache. Go ask teacher. Next."
It wasn't rude.
It wasn't angry.
It was worse.
It was careless.
Aditi's face tightened—not hurt, not embarrassed, but… disappointed. She had put days into the layout. Hours into the drawing. Seeing it brushed aside like dust stung her more than she expected.
Aryan opened his mouth to argue, but Harish waved again.
"Finished. Door is open. Next student."
They walked out silently.
In the hallway, Aditi stopped, exhaling slowly.
"I don't get it," she muttered. "We're trying to help. At least he could pretend to listen."
Aryan didn't respond.
He stood very still.
Too still.
Aditi touched his arm lightly.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," he whispered. "I'll… see you in class."
"Aryan—"
But he was already turning away.
She didn't push further. But her eyes followed him with a quiet, growing worry she couldn't explain.
Stairwell
Aryan sat on the cold concrete step, breathing slowly, the faint hum of school fading until it sounded like it was behind a thick wall.
The pain behind his eye wasn't a pulse anymore.
It was a knife.
Every inhale sharpened it.
Every exhale pushed it deeper.
He pressed his fingers against his forehead, but it did nothing.
If I don't get that permit, he thought, the pitch dies. Aditi's work dies. The roof stays broken. DHARA logs me as failure. And I lose this chance.
The thought snapped clean and cold.
And something inside him — something he had sealed for two years — shivered awake, like a locked muscle finally stretching.
His breath hitched.
His vision flickered.
The stairwell walls bent slightly, edges warping, and every sound sharpened until he could separate them — a distant chair scraping, a pencil dropping three floors above, the faint flicker of tube light behind him.
Each sound carved itself into his mind like a line of code.
His senses began rearranging the world into parts.
Movements. Intentions. Weaknesses. Patterns.
The way they had done that day.
No.
Not again.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
But the door in his mind — the one he'd nailed shut after that fight with her — cracked open.
Cold, analytical clarity flooded in.
His heartbeat slowed.
His body relaxed.
His mind did not.
The chaos sharpened into a blade.
He stood.
Not quickly.
Not slowly.
Just with absolute precision.
His posture straightened.
His shoulders lowered.
His fingers loosened.
Everything unnecessary fell away.
His eyes — normally warm, tired, or distant — now reflected a stillness far, far older than his age.
A dangerous stillness.
The kind that made silence feel like pressure.
He took a step.
And the air in the stairwell dipped as if someone had drawn heat out of it.
A faint ringing filled his ears — not sound, but focus collapsing inward.
He didn't walk.
He cut through the hallway.
Administrative Office
Harish Patil didn't look up at first.
He heard the knock, muttered a bored "Yes?", and expected a teacher or clerk.
Then the door closed behind the boy.
And something in the atmosphere changed.
Harish looked up fully.
He didn't know why, but he straightened in his chair as if someone older had entered. Someone he shouldn't look down on.
But it was the same kid.
Aryan Kumar.
Except—
He wasn't standing like a kid.
His body was perfectly balanced, weight distributed evenly, shoulders lowered, chin slightly tilted down — a stance of someone reading the room before speaking.
A stance Harish had only ever seen in board meetings with high-ranking officials.
"You again?" Harish said, but his voice wavered unexpectedly.
Aryan didn't move for a full second.
Just stood there, silent.
Then he walked forward — measured, slow, controlled — each step light but deliberate. Almost soundless.
Not timid.
Not bold.
Just… precise.