The classroom had begun to breathe differently.
It wasn't obvious. The bell still rang with the same shrill disinterest. The fans still rotated with lazy indifference. The chalk still broke mid-sentence on the blackboard. But something had changed.
And it started, oddly enough, with a chessboard.
Kabir Sahni had brought one to class.
Not a fancy, magnetic foldable set. A proper, wooden, heavy-board chess set—the kind that looked like it came from a forgotten corner of an old Delhi bookstore. It sat on his desk during breaks, pieces arranged in perfect formation, waiting like soldiers for war.
"Who's gonna play?" he called out on Wednesday afternoon.
Half the class circled, watching. Few played. Fewer lasted longer than ten minutes.
"Try Aarav," someone said. "He's supposed to be some kind of brain."
Aarav looked up from his notebook, unbothered.
"I don't play games."
Kabir raised an eyebrow. "But life is a game. Or haven't you read your Nietzsche?"
Aarav stared back. "Nietzsche wouldn't be caught dead playing chess. Too linear. Too civilized."
"Fair point," Kabir said, grinning. "Still. Sit. Let's see how deep that notebook of yours really goes."
The class ooohed like a studio audience.
Aarav closed his book.
The match began.
---
Suhani sat cross-legged on a nearby desk, eyes flitting between the board and the players.
Aarav played like he thought. Quietly. Calculating. Each move was emotionless, surgical, deliberate.
Kabir, on the other hand, played like he lived—aggressively, intuitively, like a street magician pulling tricks from thin air.
"I see what you're doing," Aarav said after six moves. "You're creating chaos to mask your structure. Hypermodern opening. Flamboyant but functional."
Kabir smirked. "And you? Playing the long game? Starving me of options until I eat myself?"
"That's the idea."
Tension rose like steam.
It wasn't about winning.
It was about exposing.
Two boys, one stage, using ancient rules to say everything they couldn't out loud.
---
"You're not what I expected," Kabir said mid-match.
"What did you expect?"
"A smart guy with no guts. But you've got... something. Rage, maybe."
"I don't have rage."
"Then you've never looked in a mirror."
Aarav paused.
Moved his knight.
Check.
Kabir blinked. "Well damn."
"You lose."
Kabir nodded slowly, eyes scanning the board.
"You're good. Dangerous, but good."
Aarav stood, uninterested in gloating. "It's not about danger. It's about understanding your opponent."
Kabir laughed. "You really talk like you're in a Christopher Nolan film."
Aarav walked back to his desk, Suhani trailing behind him.
"You enjoyed that," she whispered.
"I didn't hate it," he admitted.
"That's practically euphoria, coming from you."
---
Later that day, in the corridor, Kabir cornered him again.
"You think you're safe behind that 'I don't care' routine?"
Aarav didn't flinch. "What do you want?"
Kabir leaned in, lowering his voice. "I want to know what happened to you."
"What makes you think something did?"
"Because no one becomes a ghost without a grave."
Aarav said nothing.
Kabir continued, softer now. "You're scared. I get it. So am I."
He walked off, leaving a trail of silence behind.
Aarav stood frozen, the words echoing louder than he expected.
"No one becomes a ghost without a grave."
---
That night, Aarav sat at his desk, black notebook open. But he didn't write.
Instead, he stared at a photo frame near his bed.
It was turned facedown.
He hadn't looked at it in two years.
Now, with hands that didn't feel like his own, he turned it over.
Two boys. One taller, one leaner. Both smiling like the world was still fair.
His brother, Arjun.
The golden boy. The firstborn. The IIT aspirant. The one who was supposed to make everything alright.
Gone.
Vanished one evening without a word. No note. No trace. Police called it "likely voluntary disappearance." Some said depression. Others whispered love affair. Aarav never knew.
What he did know was the aftermath.
His parents fell silent. Their home became a museum of unresolved grief. The air grew cold. Expectations grew louder.
And Aarav?
He stopped believing in dreams.
Because dreams were what Arjun had—and look where they led him.
---
At school the next day, the literary club met during lunch.
Suhani and Aarav sat near the back as poems were read aloud.
Most were forced, cheerful, filled with metaphors about butterflies and seasons.
Then Suhani was called up.
She didn't bring paper.
She recited from memory.
> "I've learned to walk through corridors like they're mine,
But none of them know I'm wearing a mask.*
I smile, I blink, I nod on time—*
But inside, I'm running from my past."*
The room fell into stunned silence.
When she sat down, Aarav leaned toward her.
"That wasn't poetry," he said.
She looked at him, a little hurt.
"It was a confession."
She smiled.
"And what about you? Will you ever confess?"
Aarav didn't reply.
---
The next day, Aarav walked into class ten minutes late.
Kabir, already there, raised an eyebrow.
"You oversleep?"
"No," Aarav said, placing a printed paper on the teacher's desk.
"What's this?" the teacher asked.
"My submission. For the festival."
The teacher flipped through the pages. Paused.
Then said nothing. Just nodded.
Kabir snatched a glance later that afternoon.
It was a monologue. Titled:
"The Boy Who Forgot to Dream."
One page. No rhymes. No filters.
Just truth.
> *"I stopped trying when I realized I wasn't living for myself. I was performing. For family. For school. For a brother who no longer existed.
I told myself I was rebelling, but really... I was mourning.
Because grief isn't always crying.
Sometimes, grief is silence. Long, aching silence.
And I filled my life with it.
Until someone asked me, 'What would you do if nothing held you back?'
And I didn't have an answer.
But I wanted one."*
---
Suhani hugged him after class.
Not a romantic hug. A human one.
A 'thank you for coming back' hug.
Aarav didn't hug back at first.
But then he did.
Slowly. Quietly. Like thawing ice.
---
The next day, Kabir walked into class with two cups of cutting chai.
He handed one to Aarav.
"No special reason," he said.
Aarav sipped. "Sweet."
"You're welcome."
They said nothing for a while.
Then Kabir added, "I wasn't always like this either. I used to be scared of crowds. Couldn't read aloud without shaking."
"What changed?"
"I realized people only see what you show them. So I started showing them what I wanted them to believe."
Aarav nodded. "That's... smart."
Kabir grinned. "And exhausting."
A pause.
Then Aarav said, "You don't have to perform with us."
Kabir looked surprised.
Then serious.
"Neither do you."
---
That evening, all three of them sat on the back wall near the football field.
Suhani had brought murukku from home. Kabir stole most of it. Aarav complained but kept eating anyway.
They didn't talk much.
They didn't need to.
Three broken teenagers. One wall. One quiet sky overhead.
And a feeling none of them could quite name.
Maybe friendship.
Maybe healing.
Maybe the start of something that would last.
---
That night, Aarav wrote in his notebook:
> *"A boy challenged me to a game. A girl challenged me to a thought.
Between them, I found a version of myself I didn't know still existed."*
He closed the notebook.
And for the first time in years, he dreamed not of falling—but of flying.