A subtle start to love

The coming winter morning felt chillier than usual as he got out of his warm bed and headed straight for the washroom. He stepped out with a towel wrapped around his waist, drying his damp hair with another.

He nudged his sleepy younger brother, who was still fast asleep in the bed beside his. "Wake up, Ali, or you'll be late for school."

Ali hummed lazily and rolled over to sleep again.

Aliyan dressed in blue trousers and a white shirt with small blue stripes. Today was his first day at the private school. He had stubbornly refused to transfer earlier when his parents moved his elder sister and younger brother to private institutions, insisting instead on completing his middle school years at his old government school. Now, with his sister in college and his brother in the fifth grade, he was finally starting the ninth grade here.

He walked out of his room and saw his mother making breakfast, still in her pajamas. He stepped into the kitchen, picked up a plate piled with parathas and an omelet, and filled his cup with steaming hot tea straight from the stove.

"Did Ali wake up?" his mother asked.

He shook his head and carried his breakfast into his father's room, where Mr. Zahid was watching the news while eating.

"This year's World Cup will be held in Australia. The first match will be between Pakistan and India; the cricket rivals will face each other on the Australian pitch..." the news anchor reported with passion.

"I don't have much faith in the team this year," Mr. Zahid said in a low voice.

Aliyan smiled, thinking the exact same thing.

A light fog hit his face when he opened the front gate and stepped outside. With his school bag slung over his shoulders, he felt a strange heaviness weighing on him from the inside. He walked toward the school, which was just a two-minute walk from his home, while neighborhood boys walking past him stared at him with curious eyes.

He stepped inside the school and walked straight to the admin office to report his new admission.

Sir Awais led him down the corridor and into his new classroom.

"Silent, class!" he shouted to the room of rowdy students. Everyone froze in their seats, looking at Aliyan with intense curiosity.

"This is Aliyan Ahmad. He'll be joining your class from today. Go sit in the empty chair."

Aliyan walked over and sat down beside a boy with glasses, who warmly introduced himself as Dawood Mustafa.

The classes went by, slow and boring, until the bell finally signaled break time. Instantly, a circle of curious boys surrounded Aliyan, firing off questions about his background, his hobbies, and his old school while eagerly introducing themselves. Soon after, the teacher's voice echoed through the room, clearing the students out.

Aliyan and Dawood headed to the canteen, settling onto the concrete staircase on the ground floor as Ibrahim and Hasnat joined them with their lunchboxes. A few feet away, four tough-looking boys were deep in a high-stakes game of hallway cricket, using a thick textbook for a bat and a tightly rolled paper ball. Without any forced effort or awkwardness, Aliyan slipped right into the rhythm of the new school, realizing he would fit in just fine.

"Have you ever eaten chaat?" Dawood asked Aliyan mischievously.

"Yes, plenty of times. There was a stall outside my school," he answered plainly, not understanding the mischief behind the question, and continued packing his bag. Since he was joining a few months late, Aliyan had a lot to cover and had borrowed some notebooks from his classmates.

"We also have one, but it's outside the girls' campus," Dawood said, exaggerating the words girls' campus.

Aliyan smiled a little. "I'm not really interested in girls."

"Are you interested in boys?" Dawood widened his eyes.

"No! I'm just not interested in that kind of stuff," Aliyan said, zipping his bag shut.

The two of them came out of the classroom, walked down the stairs, through the hall, and out of the main gate.

"Oh please, come with us. The chaat is amazing."

"The chaat?" Hasnat asked playfully, raising his eyebrows.

Ibrahim and Hasnat joined Aliyan and Dawood in a laugh. After constant insisting, Aliyan finally agreed to go with them.

The girls' campus was two streets away from the boys' campus. Crossing the flood of kids rushing everywhere, they reached the girls' campus while talking about how a girl had slapped Ibrahim last month when he accidentally bumped into her bag.

Aliyan was looking down or toward his friends; he didn't look at any girl, young or old. But the girls were definitely looking at him. It wasn't easy to ignore a boy almost 5'10" tall with broad shoulders and a sharp jawline—black eyes shining in the sunlight, and dark hair styled neatly to reveal a broad forehead.

While taking a sharp turn toward the school gate, he was looking at Ibrahim when something hit his chest. He looked down—he had bumped into a girl. He stepped back, parting his lips to say sorry, but the girl looked up, and her light brown eyes made him stop dead in his tracks. He forgot how to look away.

Those beautiful, light brown eyes, filled with innocence and fear, were so captivating; he had never seen anything like them before. He stayed frozen there, lips parted slightly and eyes locked onto hers, completely lost, until a sudden, sharp voice demanded him to move away.

He blinked twice to come back to his senses and looked over. Another girl with a harsh expression was staring at him intensely, telling the girl in front of him to move in a voice filled with disgust.

He looked back at the first girl. Her white scarf covered her hair, which gave a glimpse of brown underneath—it was the only thing he could really see. She was looking down, her hands clenching a register tightly against her chest. She muttered something, maybe a soft sorry, and hurried away with two other girls.

He stood there frozen for a full minute until Dawood pulled him out of his trance.

"You're not interested in that kind of stuff, huh?" Dawood teased.

For the next few days, he went to that chaat stall right outside the girls' campus gate to get another glimpse of her. Every day, he would stand with his back toward the gate, nervously checking his watch until the clock struck 1:45 PM. Then, he would turn around and watch the gate as a flood of students in white and blue uniforms poured out.

Two girls walked with her, looking sharp with their chins held high, acting like royalty. Beside them, she looked like a scared doe, afraid she might accidentally cross someone's path. She would look directly into his eyes for a single second, and then her gaze would instantly drop to her feet, guiding her away toward the right side of the street.

Aliyan would let out an uncontrollable sigh and slowly turn his back to the gate once again.

Aliyan had become famous throughout the school. With his handsome looks, reserved nature, and genuine respect toward girls, he was the ultimate prize for the entitled girls who wanted to win his attention and brag about it. Everywhere around her, people were talking about him—her sister, her friends, no one was immune to his quiet charm.

Not even her own heart.

That tall and charming stranger had made her skip a beat from the very first moment she had accidentally bumped right into his chest. It had become impossible to forget those dark, intense eyes looking at her with an expression she had never seen before.

"Write this down in your diaries: I am giving you a test for tomorrow on the first three letters," the teacher announced.

The class instantly erupted into loud complaints.

"I don't want to hear a single word. You should do what you actually came to school for—which is studying, not crushing on some boy!" The classroom went dead silent at the sudden, sharp confrontation.

Later, Mahnoor and her friends were chatting near the desks. "Did you see how he was looking at me yesterday?" Mahnoor asked.

"Totally captivated!" Muqaddas chimed in, always ready to sweet-talk her friend. "He looked like he was completely in love with you. Well, who wouldn't be? You're so pretty."

Listening from her seat, Maliha remembered how Aliyan had been looking toward the gate as they walked out the previous day.

Why wouldn't he look at her? She's so pretty; every boy likes her, Maliha thought with a heavy pang of self-doubt. What was I even thinking?

With a quiet sigh, she snapped her diary shut.

The afternoon air was loud with school kids talking until the loud sound of motorcycle engines broke through the street.

A group of older college boys—taller, bigger, and looking scary—surrounded some school boys. Before anyone could understand, the older boys started beating them.

"Hey! Look at them, they are going to hurt them badly!" Dawood grabbed Aliyan’s arm, his eyes wide with fear. "We have to do something!"

Aliyan frowned and looked at the fight near the gates. He shook his head twice. "This is not our fight, Dawood. Stay back."

"We can't just stand here and watch! Those are our classmates" Dawood begged, already running toward the fight where four helpless school boys were being beaten by eight mean college boys.

Seeing how unfair it was, something inside Aliyan changed. He stepped forward with a tight jaw.

Quickly, he walked up to the main college boy, grabbed him by the hair, and pulled him backward with all his might. The older boy flew off the student he was hitting and crashed hard onto the road.

Right away, the other seven college boys turned and rushed toward Aliyan.

Aliyan didn't step back. When the first boy jumped at him, Aliyan kicked him hard in the stomach. The boy stumbled back, coughing hard. Before another boy could hit him, Aliyan grabbed his arm, twisted it, and punched him in the face, throwing him to the side.

In the middle of the dust and shouting, his eyes looked toward the crowd.

There she was.

she stood still in the crowd, her hands covering her mouth, her light brown eyes wide with fear and shock as she watched him fight.

Before he could look at her longer, something hit the side of his head hard. A sharp pain burned on his skin. Reacting fast, Aliyan spun around, snatched a heavy wooden stick from the attacker's hand, and hit the remaining boys until they fell to the ground groaning.

The street went quiet, except for everyone breathing heavily.

The fight was over. The college bullies lay on the ground, and the school boys started cheering and clapping for him.

Aliyan stood there, breathing hard. Warm blood was trickling from his split lip, a cut on his forehead, and behind his ear. Even with the pain, he turned his head and looked through the crowd to find those familiar light brown eyes watching him from far away.

He slowly walked toward the crowd, looking directly at her.

"Do you have a tissue?" His eyes held an unreadable expression, his voice soft yet strong.

Almost instantly, several girls from the crowd rushed forward, offering him tissues and handkerchiefs. He didn't even blink, keeping his eyes locked on her still figure as she stood frozen.

"Or anything I can wipe my blood with," his voice grew a little firmer.

She looked down at her bag. Just as Dawood stepped up and offered him a tissue, Aliyan pushed his hand away without ever moving his eyes from her face.

She smiled uncontrollably. She reached inside her bag, pulled out a clean white handkerchief, and offered it to him.

The moment his fingers brushed hers and he grabbed the handkerchief, teachers rushed out of the school gates and shouted for the crowd to scatter. She quickly turned and hurried away with the others.

Dawood stared at Aliyan, looking a mix of shocked and thoroughly amused. Breaking his gaze at last, Aliyan casually snatched the tissue from Dawood's hand to wipe the blood from his face, while carefully and safely tucking white handkerchief away into his pocket.