Later that afternoon, when the noise of the day thinned out and routine took over, the thought crept back in—quiet, insistent.
Isn't this too much… for a senior just talking to her?
He paused mid-step, the realization landing heavier than he expected.
This reaction—this tightness, this possessiveness, this almost-anger—didn't match the crime. Nothing inappropriate had happened. No lines had been crossed. Aanya had done exactly what she always did: existed honestly, openly, without calculation.
So why did it feel like something had been taken from him?
The answer unsettled him.
Because this wasn't about the senior. It never had been.
It was about the fact that he'd seen her—really seen her—only after pushing her away. About the way her presence had slipped into his days so seamlessly that the idea of someone else claiming even a fraction of her attention felt invasive.
He leaned against the corridor wall, running a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself.
You don't get to feel this, he told himself. Not after rejecting her. Not after choosing safety over honesty. Not after telling himself he didn't want this.
And yet—here he was.
Jealous over a conversation. Silent over his own fear. Grumpy because the world hadn't paused to wait for him to catch up.
Aanya had.
That was the cruel part.
She hadn't changed. Hadn't withdrawn. Hadn't punished him for his distance. She had simply noticed it—and named it gently, the way she always did.
And that gentleness? That was what cracked him.
Because if he stayed silent any longer, the distance wouldn't just be something she noticed.
It would become something she accepted.
And suddenly, the thought that scared him most wasn't the senior. It was this:
What if she stopped asking? What if she stopped waiting? What if one day, she learned to walk this distance without looking back?
That night, Sagnik understood something he wasn't ready to admit out loud—
Jealousy wasn't the problem.
Regret was.
And he didnt quite know what to do with that regret, and that is solely because he has never regretted anything in his life.. and when this realization hit him, he was actually scared, because. Maybe.. Just maybe. He was about to regret this in the long run.
He tried hard to let it go. But, everything's vain.. how much ever efforts he puts into forgetting things, he just can't get over the depth that guy had when he was talking to her... a depth so hard to not notice, and it is serious because if the trace itself is so apparent, how deep the feeling would be.
This thought sent a shiver down his spine, and he just let it be because prying on it would only bring chaos, and nothing else. As if, there wasnt enough going on between him and Aanya.
He snapped out of it, and he was brought back into his class, which had a pathology lecture going on.
"Ugh, She is going to be the death of me"