College Campus
The college campus buzzed with a strange mix of energy and tension.
Colorful flex banners fluttered at the building's entrance, half-taped, half-folded in wind. Cardboard boxes of props lay open near the stairs. A loudspeaker had been set up — but no one dared turn it on. Everyone looked busy. No one looked happy.
Inside, the atmosphere was heavier.
The seminar hall doors were propped open. Voices echoed from within — back and forth, overlapping, stressed and snappy.
Niki, walking across the corridor with her bag slung loosely on one shoulder, paused when she saw Deepsi and two other girls rushing past.
They looked like they hadn't slept in days.
"Deepsi!" Niki called out, stepping in their direction.
Deepsi slowed down, strands of her hair stuck to her forehead, a marker pen still in her hand.
"Hey, Niki! You coming to the hall? Emergency meeting!"
"What happened?" Niki frowned, now walking alongside them.
"Decoration list got messed up, two people backed out of the dance performance, and the food vendor is asking for an advance we don't have yet."
Deepsi groaned.
"I swear, this party is turning into a disaster film."
One of the girls behind her added sarcastically,
"Yeah, and we're the background characters who die first."
They all gave a quick, tired laugh — but it was the kind of laugh that held panic underneath.
"Weren't these things already assigned?" Niki asked, brows raised.
"Didn't everyone get their duties last week?"
"They did, Niki. But no one's doing their part. Everyone wants to enjoy the party, no one wants to make it happen."
Deepsi pushed the door open with her elbow.
---
Scene: Inside the Seminar Hall
The hall felt like a pressure cooker.
About twenty students were already seated in clusters, papers in hand, paint marks on sleeves, shoes kicked off. On stage, a loud discussion was going on between two senior students about the event sequence.
The whiteboard was filled with notes in red and green ink:
'Welcome Speech - Pending', 'Dance Props - URGENT', 'Food Confirmation - Call Today'
The air smelled of paper, glue, and urgency.
Niki slipped in with Deepsi and her group, taking a seat near the middle row.
Someone said from the back —
"Guys, if we don't lock things by tonight, we won't get the auditorium booking extension."
Another voice added —
"Also, who's handling the freshers' speech? And where the hell are the anchor scripts?"
Deepsi looked at Niki.
"We need to split up again. I'll take the decoration side. Can you help with stage management and maybe sort the hosting lineup? No one's coordinated it yet."
Niki nodded, already pulling out her notepad.
"I'll talk to the literature club kids. A couple of them were prepping speeches and skits anyway."
Another student — a boy from the organizing committee — raised his hand from the front.
"Guys, can we get silence for 2 minutes?"
The hall slowly quieted down, tension still thick in the air.
He cleared his throat and said:
"We have 48 hours. That's it. No more delays, no more last-minute changes. From now on, every team gives a status update every 4 hours, got it?"
Someone mumbled,
"We're treating it like a military operation now…"
"Because if we don't, it's gonna collapse."
Niki said sharply, not looking up from her notes.
People turned. Deepsi smirked.
That was classic Niki — calm, composed, and cutting through chaos like
Seminar Hall — Tension, Movement, and One Silent Gaze
The chaos had found its rhythm.
Students were now moving around with purpose. Voices still filled the seminar hall, but they weren't clashing anymore — they were stacking. Fast, determined, overlapping in urgency.
A guy from the organizing team was trying to calm the noise at the front,
"Guys, we have forty-eight hours! Can we just—"
But before he could finish, the door banged open again.
And in walked Rohit, the student council head — confident, clear-eyed, commanding.
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
"Alright, listen up."
That alone was enough to silence the room.
Every head turned.
"This isn't about roles anymore — it's about responsibility. If this goes down, it goes down with all our names on it."
His tone was sharp, no-nonsense, and carried a certain leadership weight.
"Dance crew — left wing. Anchoring team — right. Logistics and catering — front row. Anyone without a task, you're now on backup support. Niki, Deepsi, I need you two handling performance transitions and backstage movement."
Niki nodded automatically, her hands moving to open her notepad again.
But something in the way Rohit took control…
the way the room suddenly aligned itself like puzzle pieces snapping into place…
the rising heat, the humming overhead fans, the rustling of papers, and feet, and thoughts—
—it all made her pause.
She looked up slowly, her pen frozen mid-air.
People bustled around her — talking, moving, rushing — but she…
she wasn't quite in it anymore.
Her gaze wandered upward.
The ceiling — high, plain, a little cracked in the corner — spun in her vision for a second as if the air had shifted around her.
She didn't know what it was — just a moment, just a weight in her chest that didn't belong to the room.
Her eyes scanned the noise — the overlapping figures, bodies in motion.
And then —
she turned her head.
Like her instincts tugged at her spine.
And there he was.
Aditya.
Leaning against the wall at the back.
Half hidden. Unmoving.
A faint glint in his eyes that didn't blink.
His arms were crossed, expression unreadable — but his gaze…
His gaze was only on her.
It cut through the crowd like it was made of glass.
Everyone else was speaking. Moving. Working.
He wasn't.
He just stared at her — quietly, unshakably —
as if he was remembering something she never gave him permission to remember.
And she...
She stared back.
Just for a second.
Not out of curiosity.
Not out of surprise.
But because somewhere inside the blur of effort and noise and names and deadlines —
she had felt it.
She had felt him.
And now she knew why the ceiling had looked so far away.
Because he was too close — even in silence.
She turned her face away without flinching.
Back to her notepad.
Back to the tasks.
Back to the list.
But her fingers…
they trembled.
Just a little.