Night school

Chapter 1: What if...

*Chapter 1: What If* — _Iru’s POV_

I was sitting alone in class. Again.

The fan was squeaking. Someone was tapping their pen. Sun was pouring through the windows like it owned the place.

It’d be nice, I thought. If school happened at night. No sun stabbing my eyes. No morning noise. Just me, streetlights, quiet halls. A place that felt like it belonged to people like me.

“Iru!”

I flinched. Diya had twisted around in her seat. She was grinning. That dangerous kind of grin.

“I have to tell you something,” she said, loud enough that two people turned. “What if we had night school? Here. At our school.”

My breath caught.

Because I’d been thinking it for years. Every single morning I dragged myself here at 8 AM, I thought it.

“I was just thinking that,” I said. My voice came out too quiet.

“We should do it,” Diya said. She wasn’t whispering anymore. “All of us. Tonight. We’ll go to school at night.”

I let out this weird, nervous laugh. “Diya… who’s gonna open it? School’s locked at night. Gates closed. Watchman sleeps at the door. We can’t just walk in.”

“So we ask.” She shrugged. Like I’d asked her what 2+2 was. “The whole class. We ask for night school. Tell them it’s a trial. One week. Just to see.”

One week.

Seven nights without that morning bell ripping me out of sleep. Seven nights where the school is ours and the rest of the world is shut down.

I glanced out the window. The sun was still up there, bright and loud and wrong.

“Yeah,” I said. My hands were shaking under the desk. “Let’s ask.