After Lunch Break
The classroom was its usual mess of noise when lunch ended.
Someone was flicking chalk pieces. Someone else was chasing a stolen pencil. A few boys were pretending to sword-fight with scale rulers until a prefect yelled at them.
Sagar stood near the back windows, quietly watching Aryan.
Aryan had his head down on his arms, face half-hidden, like he was just resting.
But Sagar knew that wasn't how Aryan rested.
His shoulders were too tight. His fingers, on the far edge of the desk, were curled just a little too hard into the wood.
Aditi sat in the next bench, doodling half-heartedly on the corner of her notebook—a little house, a tree, and a stick figure hanging onto a balloon. Every few seconds, her eyes flicked sideways at Aryan.
"You'll dent the desk if you keep pressing like that," she said softly.
Aryan didn't lift his head. "I'm fine."
Sagar heard the same "I'm fine" he'd heard years ago.
It never meant fine.
Aditi sighed, turning the page in her book. "You said that in third, also," she muttered. "Back then, too, you looked like someone hit you with the whole syllabus."
Sagar's hand, halfway to his water bottle, stopped.
Third.
That year.
He glanced at Aditi. "You still remember that?"
"Of course," she said. "That DHARA thing. The scholarship thing. You both vanished for two days afterwards. I thought you ran away to become secret company owners."
She laughed lightly.
Sagar didn't.
He took a slow breath.
"I remember it," he said quietly.
Just saying the words made his chest pull tight, like he'd inhaled something too heavy.
Aditi looked at him properly now. "You do?"
"Yeah."
He looked at Aryan again.
"At least… what I could see."
The room's noise faded in his ears, memories sliding over the present like a second layer of glass.
What Aryan called "that fight"—
Sagar had watched it.
He still wasn't sure it had been a fight at all.
Or something worse.
---
Two Years Ago — Class 3, Late Winter
Back then, Vidyashree felt smaller.
The building, the classrooms, even the corridors looked the same, but the world felt narrower—like their lives ended at the school gate, and everything beyond it was for elders to worry about.
Sagar had only two big things filling his head in those days:
One: The multiplication tables his mother stuck on the kitchen wall.
Two: The fact that Radhika would be leaving.
He sat on the low compound wall near the cycle stand, feet not reaching the ground, while Radhika paced in front of him, her ponytail swishing like a metronome for his anxiety.
"I'm not saying you're wrong," she said for the third time that week. "I just… I want to see what the top looks like. That's all."
Sagar hugged his tiffin box to his chest. "Top is not only there, ya. You're already top here."
"That's exactly the problem." She blew out an annoyed breath. "There's no challenge. No one pushes. They just say 'good marks, good girl.' I'll get lazy."
"You won't," he muttered.
She stopped pacing and looked at him properly, eyes sharp and soft at the same time.
"Appa said Arclight has kids who prepare for olympiads in middle school. DHARA teams visit them first. If I can't beat them, I'll at least see how it feels to lose properly."
Sagar frowned. "Losing is not fun."
"Not like normal losing." Radhika shook her head. "Real losing. Where the other person is just… better. That's how you grow."
"I like winning small also," Sagar said.
She stared at him for a long moment.
"That's why you're nicer than me," she said quietly.
He looked away, cheeks heating.
He didn't want to stop her.
He didn't want her to go.
He couldn't find a way where both feelings could exist at the same time.
Radhika sat beside him, shoulders almost touching, the way they always did when their arguments ran out of words.
"Anyway," she said, voice lighter again. "It's not final. I got shortlisted. That's all. Final selections after this term."
"Still," he muttered.
"Still," she agreed.
They left it there.
It might have stayed like that—
half-decided, half-painful—
if DHARA hadn't come to school that month.
---
The announcement came on a Wednesday, right after first period.
The DHARA coordinator, a tall man with a thin moustache and a carefully folded file, stood in the corridor and called for Class 3, 4, and 5 to assemble in the open courtyard.
"Junior Applied Reasoning Assessment," he said into the mic, his voice echoing faintly.
"Voluntary, for now. Students from Class 4 and 5 may apply. Class 3 may attempt with teacher recommendation."
The moment he said "scholarship," the courtyard buzzed.
"Six thousand rupees?!" someone hissed.
"Twelve thousand total, da—"
"No, no, price pool is twenty four thousand—"
Numbers dissolved into echo after "rupees."
For Sagar, it wasn't money that lit him up first.
It was the words "Applied Reasoning."
Puzzles.
Logic.
Real problems.
Radhika's hand shot up almost before the man finished.
"Sir, Class 3 also can, right?" she asked, practically bouncing.
He smiled, a little amused. "With teacher approval, yes. But difficulty will be higher than your textbook."
"It's okay," she said.
Of course it was. For her.
Later, when they returned to class, students crowded around Nandini Ma'am's desk like it was a ticket counter.
"Ma'am, I want to go!"
"Ma'am, please!"
"Ma'am, scholarship!"
Radhika was at the front.
Her form was signed in seconds.
Sagar watched her walk back, the paper in her hand fluttering, her smile so bright it almost hurt his eyes.
"Go," she whispered, nudging him forward.
His legs moved on their own.
When he reached the desk, words didn't.
"Well?" Nandini Ma'am said gently. "You want to try?"
He nodded.
"You understand it's not like normal tests? You might not win anything."
He nodded again.
Her smile turned warmer. "Good. Wanting to try is already half victory."
She signed his form.
He walked back, holding the paper carefully like it was a live thing.
"That's three of us," Radhika said. "Me, you, and—"
Her eyes flicked to the corner of the room, where Aryan sat by the window, head bent over his notebook, pretending to read but really just breathing in the quiet.
"And him," she added.
Sagar followed her gaze.
Aryan looked up for a second, caught them looking, then immediately dropped his eyes again.
Radhika hummed.
"He won't come," Sagar said. "He doesn't join anything."
"He should," she muttered. "That boy's eyes are too sharp for his marks."
Sagar blinked. "How do you know?"
"I watch," she said simply.
---
Aryan did go to ask.
Sagar saw it.
He went in the break between second and third period, when most kids were busy eating snacks or arguing about who stole whose scale.
He stood in front of Nandini Ma'am's desk, form in hand, fingers clenched white around the corners.
Sagar wasn't close enough to hear, but he saw Ma'am's expression change from surprise to hesitation.
Her lips moved. Aryan's shoulders stiffened.
She shook her head once.
He didn't argue.
He just stood there for a half-second longer, as if his mind hadn't fully caught up to the refusal yet, then turned and walked away.
He passed Sagar and Radhika without looking at them.
Radhika frowned. "Why did she say no?"
"He's been… off," Sagar said, choosing his words carefully. "Headache. Marks dropped. Maybe she doesn't want him stressed."
"She could let him decide," Radhika muttered.
Aryan didn't go back to class.
He went straight to the DHARA room.