Lunch break at Vidya Mandir was always a noisy, vibrant blur—laughter bouncing off the walls, clatter of tiffin boxes, and the hum of conversations everywhere. But today, Karthik noticed something new.
The noise didn't scare him.
He sat beside Ananya on the bench near the tree in the school courtyard. The usual crowd was a few feet away, but he wasn't watching them. He was listening to her. Watching her explain some topic from physics using exaggerated hand gestures and dramatic expressions.
"You know, if the velocity becomes negative—hey, are you even listening?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
Karthik blinked. "You talk with your hands more than the teacher does."
Ananya laughed. "It's how I remember things, okay?"
He smiled. A real one. Not the polite, practiced smile. The kind that made his cheeks hurt a little. And she noticed.
"You're smiling more these days," she said softly.
"Only when you're around."
Ananya's eyes widened just a bit, then she looked away. "Flirting, huh? Who taught you that?"
"No one," he said. "It just... slipped out."
She leaned back, her smile lingering. "I don't mind."
That stunned him more than anything else today.
The conversation drifted to other things—her annoying cousin, the math test next week, the new song trending on Instagram reels. He talked more than usual. He didn't fumble or retreat into silence. And for once, he didn't feel like a background character in his own life.
As the bell rang, they stood up.
"I have history," Ananya groaned.
"I have chemistry," he replied. "Fitting, huh?"
She rolled her eyes but grinned. "Go before I start teasing you again."
He began walking but stopped. Turned.
"Thanks," he said.
"For what?"
"For showing me that I don't have to stay the same forever."
Ananya blinked. And then, with a gentleness he hadn't seen before, she said, "You never did."
They parted ways, and Karthik walked into his classroom with a strange sense of peace in his chest.
It wasn't that everything was perfect.
But for the first time in years, he felt like he could breathe without the weight of self-doubt on his shoulders.
And in that breath, he saw a glimpse of who he could become—with her beside him, or even just because of her.
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End of Chapter 58