Aanya lay on her bed without sleeping.
The room was dark now, except for the faint glow from Aditi's phone across the room and the streetlight slipping through the curtain gap.
Aditi had stopped talking some time ago.
That itself was unusual.
But Aanya hadn't noticed immediately.
Her mind was still somewhere else.
Not in the present.
Not fully in the past either.
Somewhere stuck between the hostel gate and that split second on the walkway.
Sagnik's hand.
His voice.
That instant too-fast reaction.
She turned slightly onto her side, pulling the blanket closer.
It should have been simple.
A normal moment.
Someone nearly falling.
Someone catching them.
End of story.
But her mind refused to file it away like that.
Because it didn't feel like an action.
It felt like something that happened before thought had time to intervene.
And that was what kept replaying.
Not the support.
The urgency.
Aanya closed her eyes briefly.
Then opened them again.
Because closing them didn't help.
It only made the moment clearer.
The way his expression had shifted.
Not controlled.
Not polite.
Not careful.
Just… immediate.
As if something in him had reacted faster than whatever version of him she usually saw.
She sat up slightly.
Aditi stirred.
"You're still awake?" Aditi asked softly.
"Yeah," Aanya said.
A pause.
Then Aditi turned slightly in her bed.
"You've been weird since afternoon."
Aanya didn't respond immediately.
Because she still didn't have a word for it.
Finally she said, "It's nothing."
Aditi made a sound that didn't fully believe her.
But didn't push either.
The room fell quiet again.
Aanya looked down at her hands.
And then, without meaning to, she replayed it again.
Not what happened.
What changed.
Because something had.
Subtle.
Unspoken.
Irreversible in a way she couldn't explain yet.
She kept thinking she would find a normal explanation if she just went through it one more time.
But every repetition made it worse.
Not clearer.
Worse.
Because the reaction didn't feel like something someone did for a friend.
It felt like something someone did before deciding what they were allowed to feel.
Aanya exhaled slowly.
Turned her face toward the ceiling.
And for the first time that night, the question formed properly in her mind.
Not about what happened.
But about him.
Why did he look like that?
And worse—
why did part of her already feel like she knew the answer, even though she wasn't ready to say it out loud.