After sending the message, the room felt too quiet.Not scary-quiet, not glitch-quiet—just the awkward, tense silence you get after doing something bold and then immediately regretting it.
Vicky stared at his phone like it was a bomb.Every second stretched.He started replaying the moment in his head.
Why did I message her? What if she thinks I'm just whining? What if she doesn't reply at all?
He was two seconds away from tossing his phone under the bed and pretending the whole thing never happened—
Buzz.
A soft vibration.He grabbed the phone so fast he almost dropped it.
Priya:Vicky? Wow, long time.I'm really sorry you're dealing with all that.If you want to talk, I'm here.
He blinked at the screen.Simple.Sincere.No lecture, no pity.
He let out a breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding.
He typed back slowly.
Vicky:I don't even know where to start. Just feels like everything's slipping and I can't catch up.
Her reply came quickly.
Priya:You don't have to fix everything.And you definitely don't have to fix it alone.Friends exist for a reason—even the old ones.
That line hit him harder than he expected.
They kept texting.Nothing dramatic—just normal, honest conversation.
He told her about the mid-term, about feeling stupid in class, about watching his parents juggle bills. The simple stuff. The stuff you're allowed to share.
No reality glitches.No diamonds.No cosmic nightmares.
Just Vicky being human.
Priya:You're being too hard on yourself.Everyone has bad weeks.Learn one small thing at a time.Don't try to swallow the whole syllabus.
It was such a practical suggestion that he almost laughed.
But it clicked.
The next morning, he went to class with a different mindset.He didn't stare at the entire textbook like it was a demon.He just focused on one topic: the for loop.
Small videos.Simple examples.Tiny outputs.One step at a time.
By afternoon, he could finally write a loop without messing it up.
It wasn't genius.It wasn't magic.But it was progress.
That evening, he sat in the hall doing practice questions. His father walked over, curious.
"Kya padh raha hai?" Vikram asked.
"A loop," Vicky said. "It repeats instructions."
His father nodded thoughtfully."Like how every day repeats in a pattern. Morning, then work, then evening, then night. Same cycle."
Vicky paused.
"Yeah… kind of exactly like that."
It wasn't a breakthrough moment.But it felt warm.Like his world wasn't so distant from theirs.
Later that night, lying on his bed, he scrolled through the messages again.Priya hadn't solved anything.She hadn't given him a secret trick.
She just made him feel… less alone.
And that mattered more than any item he could pull from a game.
The family problems were still there.The bills still existed.Reena's future was still a maze.
But he wasn't carrying the weight in silence anymore.
He didn't need to be the lone "Guardian" he had imagined.He wasn't meant to fight alone in the first place.
He had people—Friends who listened,Family who cared,And a life that still had space for hope, even if it was small.
And maybe that… was enough for now.