The look.
TIMELINE- AROUND DECEMBER 2025
She was already late.
She hurried into her shoes, grabbing the jacket in one hand. She shouted toward the house, “Papa, I’m leaving. Close the door, please. I’ll be back by nine.”
The van was honking—impatient, relentless. Of course it was.
“God, how am I always late, and how is he always so early? I swear this guy breaks his own record each day!” she muttered under her breath as she got in the van, slumping into the same seat she always took. The one by the window, with the door that wouldn’t open.
She put her headphones on before anyone could talk to her and spiraled into her thoughts.
Another Wednesday. But this one was different. Combined classes with four hours of physics.
She hated that. Physics? Not so much. But combined classes? She definitely hated those.
Not because of the noise or the crowd—but because it meant sitting through hours with people she didn’t know and didn’t want to.
The JBT batch was the worst of it.
By the time she reached the third floor, the corridor was still empty. She liked it that way. Quiet before the noise. She checked her watch. 3:05.
“Early, for once,” she told herself as she walked toward her class.
When she walked in, the room shifted—just a little.
Not enough for anyone to say anything, but enough for her to notice. A few heads turned. Someone near the back nudged their friend. She pretended not to see it and made her way to her seat, dropping her bag between her feet.
“Guess I’m the first one today, huh.”
She sat down, pulled her bag closer to her feet, and told herself it would be just another day.
But there was still time. The class started at four.
Pihu slid in beside her a while later, breathless.
“Wow! Someone’s early today,” she said, dumping her bag down.
“You’d think they’d at least compensate us for ruining our entire day.”
“Oh, one can only dream,” Pihu teased.
“Kill me now,” she groaned before burying her face in her desk.
“It’s four hours. You’ll survive.”
“I’ll have to!”
“Did you do the homework?” Pihu asked, even though she knew the answer.
“Nope.”
“Of course. What did I expect?”
“You know me ;)”
Soon, her other friends were there too, and it was time for class.
The teacher walked in. The room shifted—bags tucked in, voices lowered, chairs dragged closer to desks. She straightened without thinking, pen already in hand.
As the lecture started, her attention drifted in and out the way it always did. She copied formulas she didn’t fully understand yet, underlined things she knew she’d Google later.
Halfway through, she felt it.
That uncomfortable prickle at the back of her neck.
She didn’t look up immediately. She’d learned not to. Instead, she adjusted her grip on the pen, shifted slightly in her seat.
Still there.
When she finally glanced up, she caught it—a guy from JBT, eyes lingering longer than necessary, without any effort to hide it.
She looked away immediately.
“Of course.”
She didn’t dwell on it. She never did. There were better things to waste energy on—like how slowly the clock was moving, or how her hand already hurt from writing.
When the bell rang for break, the room came alive all at once. Chairs scraped back, voices rose, laughter bounced off the walls.
Pihu stood up. “Iraa, want to go out for a bit?”
“Of course! I desperately need coffee to survive.”
“Let’s go then, quick! Or there’ll be a crowd.”
They started toward the door, and she did what she always did—pushed Pihu forward, hands on her shoulders.
“Move, engine,” she said. “You’re holding up the entire train.”
Pihu laughed, nearly stumbling. “You’re insufferable.”
“Yet you walk with me anyway.”
As they spilled into the corridor with the others, she felt it again. Someone was looking.
Not sharp. Not uncomfortable, surprisingly.
Just… present.
She didn’t stop walking. Didn’t turn. She was too busy laughing at something Ginni said, too busy tugging Pihu along like a child, to care.
Whatever it was, it could wait.
She leaned back in her chair once they returned, staring at the board without really seeing it.
There were thoughts she didn’t like having on days like this—ones that asked too much, ones that never came with clean answers. Questions she knew better than to ask herself when things were already complicated enough.
Life was simpler when she didn’t look too closely. When she was exactly who she was supposed to be—daughter, student, friend. Nothing more. Nothing that needed explaining or uncomfortable conversations.
She’d learned early that some feelings were easier to ignore than to understand.
So she did what she always did.
She focused on surviving the day.
The rest of the classes blurred together—notes, sighs, shared glances at the clock. By the time the final bell rang, the sky outside had darkened.
8:15 p.m.
“Alive,” Pihu announced, checking the time.
“Barely,” Ira replied.
They gathered their things and started walking out together, talking over one another. As they were nearing the door, she felt it again.
This time, she stopped.
She turned.
Across the room, near the back—someone she hadn’t really seen all day was looking at her. Not openly. Not carelessly.
Their eyes met.
For a second, everything else fell quiet. No laughter. No footsteps. No noise.
Just that look.
Her stomach flipped, sudden and unfamiliar.
She looked away first.
“It’s nothing,” she told herself, already moving to catch up with her friends.
Just another girl. Just another day.
She didn’t know yet how wrong she was.
She reached home a little before nine.
The lights were on in the living room. Her father was sitting at the sofa, phone in hand. He glanced at her as she stepped in.
“You’re back,” he said, more a statement than a question.
“Yeah,” she replied, slipping off her shoes near the door. “Class ran a bit late.”
He nodded, eyes turning back to the screen. “Eat your dinner.”
“Okay,” she replied.
She saw her mother’s slippers outside her room, which was also partially the mandir. She walked to her room, “I’m back maa,” she said. Her mother nodded, eyes still shut close.
She checked the time again out of habit.
8:57pm.
I am a little late.
She changed into her night clothes and lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling. The day replayed itself in fragments—small gestures, half-glances, pauses that lingered longer than they should have. She had always done this. Reading people. She had always trusted that people could lie, but their body couldn’t. Bodies were honest that way, even when words weren’t.
She kept analyzing every detail until her thoughts snagged on one moment. The memory replayed itself—their eyes meeting, the way it hadn’t made her uneasy. Just… seen. And the more she tried to understand what those eyes had meant, the more it slipped through her grasp. She couldn’t read it. Couldn’t name it.
At least not yet.
