By the next morning, the gate looked exactly the same.
Aryan didn't.
He looked like someone who'd slept, but not rested.
There was a new tightness behind his eyes; the kind that didn't come from marks or scoldings, but from knowing too much and not knowing what to do with it.
He sat in his usual place, second row from the window.
Math period.
Ms. Devi droned slowly at the board about common factors.
Most of the class was only half-listening.
Riya wasn't.
Not because she cared about common factors.
Because she'd noticed that Aryan's rough notebook — which usually held neat sums and short notes — now had strange words on the open page.
Near the top, in his small handwriting:
> fake ID scam
big stalls = high rent
bribe sometimes
they trust place, not people
Not a single number.
Just… lives.
She pretended to copy from the board, but her eyes slid sideways again.
Aryan wasn't scribbling now.
He was just… thinking.
Too still.
Too focused.
The bell rang.
Math dissolved.
Raghavan Sir's Business period arrived with a thump of his steel water bottle on the desk.
"Alright, entrepreneurs," he said, wiping his glasses with the edge of his shirt. "Today we're learning one thing. Not in textbook. In life."
He wrote four words on the board:
> Don't Design In Your Head
He underlined it.
"Everyone thinks their idea is genius," he said. "Until it meets real people. Real people are always messier than your plan."
He looked at them over the rim of his glasses.
"If you don't listen to them properly, your project will fail beautifully."
The class laughed.
Aryan didn't.
Riya's pen paused.
"Homework," Raghavan continued. "You will talk to one real person who earns money. Any job. Ask three questions:
1. What is hardest part of your work?
2. What are you scared of losing?
3. What do you wish people understood about your job?
Then write one page. Not hero story. Just truth. Got it?"
"Yesss sir," the class muttered.
Riya glanced at Aryan again.
He already had half those answers.
From three different vendors.
Before the teacher even gave the assignment.
Raghavan capped his marker. "And no cheating. Parents don't count. Their answers will be long lecture."
The room laughed again.
"Sir, auto driver ah?" someone asked.
"Fine."
"Security guard?"
"Fine."
"Street vendor?" Riya heard herself ask, before thinking.
"Very fine," Raghavan said. "But don't disturb them in rush time. If they shout, I won't come save you."
His eyes flicked, just for a second, toward Aryan.
Aryan looked down.
His fingers pressed into his notebook, the ache behind his temple pulsing once.
I'm already there, he thought.
I just don't know if I'll bring back something useful.
---
After school, round three began.
The corridor after last bell was its usual hurricane — bags swinging, last-minute homework copying, someone trying to dribble an old tennis ball and getting yelled at for it.
Aryan closed his notebook.
Sagar slung his bag on, already moving toward the door.
Riya stuffed her things in with more force than necessary.
"You're going?" she asked.
Aryan nodded.
"You're coming?"
She rolled her eyes. "Obviously. Free data."
Sagar snorted.
"Free emotional damage also, probably," he said. "Today I'm carrying water for you both."
They slipped into the flow of students leaving, then broke away near the cycle stand, taking the side path that led straight to the gate.
The street outside was busier than yesterday.
Tuition kids.
College students.
Office workers.
Vendors in full rhythm.
The world didn't pause because a Class 5 boy wanted to understand it.
It just kept moving.
---
Round Three — Standing on Their Side
This time, Aryan didn't stop in the middle of the chaos.
He walked along the inside edge of the wall.
Between school and street.
Between two worlds that didn't like touching.
He headed straight to Murthy uncle.
Not with a file.
Not with a map.
With two steel water bottles.
"Uncle," he said. "We brought water. For us. For you also, if you want."
Murthy looked up from the kadai, surprised.
"Already hot, ah?" he asked.
"Little," Sagar replied. "Also, Riya has no stamina."
Riya glared. "Excuse me?"
Murthy chuckled.
"Keep there," he said, jerking his chin to a crate. "If I drink now, I'll drop plate in oil."
Aryan set one bottle down, kept one with them.
He didn't mention the project.
Not yet.
He just stood where Murthy had pointed yesterday — slightly to the side, where he wouldn't block customers.
He watched.
Listened.
Counted silently.
Kids with ten-rupee coins and big demands.
Office uncle who ordered "pack quickly, madam is waiting."
The way Murthy shifted his cart by exactly half an inch when a car squeezed past, like his body had learned the road better than his eyes.
After ten minutes, when there was a small gap, Aryan spoke softly.
"Uncle… can I ask three questions?"
Murthy's eyes narrowed. "Like exam, ah?"
"Teacher gave homework," Aryan said. "We have to talk to one person who earns. Not to use you in chart paper. Just… to write how it feels."
Murthy snorted. "Whole world is suddenly interested in our feelings."
"Just three," Aryan repeated.
Murthy flipped a bajji, thought a second.
"Ask," he said.
Aryan remembered Raghavan's list.
"What is hardest part of your work?"
Murthy didn't even pause.
"Nothing is hard. Everything is tiring," he said. "Getting spot, cutting, frying, fighting, moving, paying… it all eats same energy. There is no one 'hard' thing."
Aryan wrote a rough version of that in his head.
"What are you scared of losing?" he asked next.
Murthy didn't say "money".
He didn't say "cart".
He glanced at the road.
"The right to stand here," he said.
"Not this exact place," he added. "Any place near your school. Because here… I know how people walk. Where car will turn. Where parents will stop. New place means new danger. New delay. My legs won't learn again so fast."
Aryan swallowed.
Last question.
"What do you wish people understood about your job?"
Murthy gave a small, tired laugh.
"That we also calculate," he said. "They think we are standing here simply. Every minute in rush, my brain is doing maths. Oil level, gas level, money in pocket, how much more batter I can make today. But people think we just shout 'bajji bajji' and eat half."
He shook his head.
"I just want them to know I'm not here by mistake. I chose this instead of some other misery."
Aryan didn't speak.
He didn't say "thank you".
He just nodded once.
Murthy seemed to understand anyway.
"Don't write big emotional story, okay?" he added gruffly. "Just write normal. Like you saw."
Aryan's mouth twitched.
"Okay, uncle."
Beside him, Riya had stopped pretending she was only there for "market research".
Her pen moved fast across her notebook.
Later, when she glanced at what she wrote, she realized all her points were about him.
Not just Murthy.
He listens differently.
He doesn't argue back.
He doesn't explain his idea first.
She scowled at her own handwriting and turned the page.
---
Parvathi aunty gave fewer answers and more scolding.
"Hardest part is not pani or puri," she said, hands moving quickly.
"It is people who ask for free extra, then complain about taste."
"What are you scared of losing?" Aryan asked.
She paused.
"…My speed," she said.
He blinked.
"If my hands become slow, I can't keep up. Then children go to some new fancy shop. They like 'fast' more than 'familiar'."
Her mouth tightened.
"And I wish," she added, "people understood that just because we stand on road, it doesn't mean we are dirty. We are more clean than half the kitchens in this area."
She looked at Aryan sharply.
"If you write opposite in your project, I will stop giving you extra sev."
He almost smiled. "I won't."
Salman leaned his elbows on his cart and gave the neatest answers of all.
"Hardest part? Guessing the weather," he said. "Hot days good. Rain is weak. Too much heat, people want bottled drinks, not fresh. I lose."
"What do you fear losing?" Aryan asked.
"My sister's education," Salman said simply. "If I earn less, she will have to start working earlier. I don't want that."
"And what do you wish people understood?"
"That I'm not trying to cheat them," he said. "Prices go up, they think I am greedy. They don't see how sugar, fruit, gas all went up also."
He smiled a little. "Also, I wish people understood that we don't love standing in smoke and dust. If we had choice, we would also sit in office like them."
A car horn blared loudly behind them, cutting through the last sentence.
All four of them turned.
A sleek white SUV had rolled up to the gate, engine humming too smoothly for this small road.
The back window was half-open.
Inside, two boys in a different uniform — some other private school, logo shining — were laughing at something on a phone.
The boy near the window glanced out, eyes skimming over the carts, over the crowd, over Aryan and the others standing with notebooks.
"Bro, look," he said, voice just loud enough to carry. "They're doing board meeting near bajji cart only."
The other boy laughed. "Street-level MBA, da," he said. "Next they'll charge service tax for pani puri."
They cackled.
The driver said nothing.
The SUV edged forward as the guard opened the gate.
The vendors didn't react.
Not outside.
Murthy just turned the flame slightly higher.
Parvathi clanged her steel plate more loudly.
Salman wiped a drip from his jug with a little more force than necessary.
Riya's spine stiffened.
Her school bag strap suddenly felt too soft against her shoulder.
She wasn't rich like those boys.
Her life had no SUVs.
But she wasn't like the vendors either.
Her family had a shop. A house. Savings. Respect.
Seeing the way that boy's eyes had skimmed over everyone — vendors, students, gate — like they were background…
…she felt something sharp and uncomfortable twist in her chest.
He wasn't talking about her.
He wasn't mocking her.
But she still felt hit.
Sagar stared after the car for a moment, mouth pressed into a line.
"Idiots," he muttered.
Aryan didn't look at the car.
He looked at Murthy's hands.
They had paused for half a second.
Just half.
Then continued, same rhythm.
In his notebook later, Aryan didn't write about the car.
He wrote:
> Everything they stand on is temporarily.
So they cannot afford fragile promises.