The next morning, Mira tried to tell herself it had been nothing — a prank, a misplaced scrap of paper, anything but what it felt like. Yet when she reached into her bag for her notebook, the slip was still there, its crisp folds untouched. I see you. The letters looked sharper in daylight.

She stuffed it back between the pages and walked to class.

Ramanujan’s old red-brick corridors were still new to her; she counted pillars to calm herself, her curls sticking to the back of her neck in the September heat. She had Literature Theory in Room 5. The professor’s voice washed over her like distant rain as she opened her copy of The Norton Anthology. She had almost managed to forget the note when someone sat down beside her.

Olive shirt again.

This time he smiled. “Hi. I’m Armaan.”

His voice was calm, unhurried, as if he knew she would listen. Up close she noticed faint scars on his knuckles, a silver watch too expensive for a student. He smelled of something clean and faintly metallic, like rain on iron.

“Mira,” she said automatically.

“I know,” he said softly.

Her heart did a small, startled jump. “How?”

“You’re on the department’s new-students list. Plus…” His eyes flicked to her notebook, then back. “You always sit by the window.”

She forced a laugh. “That’s… observant.”

“I’m observant about a lot of things,” he said, and then the professor called the roll and she didn’t have to answer.

All through the lecture she felt his attention like a physical thing, but when she glanced at him his gaze was on his notes, his handwriting neat and angled like the writing on the slip. She pressed her knees together under the desk, suddenly aware of every inch of space between them.

After class, she hurried out. The corridor smelled of chalk and dust. Footsteps followed her.

“You left this yesterday,” Armaan said, holding out her pen. She hadn’t even realised she’d dropped it. His fingers brushed hers when she took it back, warm and deliberate.

“Thanks,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Anytime,” he said. “You write, don’t you?”

She blinked. “What?”

“Stories. You want to be a writer.” He said it like a fact, not a guess. “I read your notebook once when you went to get coffee. You write beautifully.”

“You—” Her voice came out sharper than she intended. “You read my notebook?”

He tilted his head, not apologetic. “You left it open. I was curious.”

“That’s private.”

“I know.” His smile deepened, not contrite but fascinated. “But sometimes people need someone else to see them before they see themselves.”

Before she could think of a reply he was already walking away, the crowd parting for him like water.

Mira stood in the corridor clutching her pen, her pulse beating in her throat. She should be angry. She should tell him never to touch her things again. But part of her — the part that had written “obsession is another word for loneliness” — was thrumming with something else entirely.

She glanced down at her notebook. Another slip of paper was tucked under the cover. She hadn’t put it there.

“Meet me in the library. 5 p.m. If you want the truth.”