My Miss Bardbard

Scream your rank loud enough!

"Did you pack your extra pens?" Virat asked, leaning against the doorway of their bedroom, arms crossed. The dim glow of the bedside lamp cast shadows across Sai's hunched shoulders as she rifled through her bag for the fifth time.

"I did," she muttered, though her fingers kept moving, restless. "But what if my calculator batteries die? Or I misbubble the answer sheet? Or...."

Virat sighed, pushing off the doorframe and crossing the room in three strides. He caught her wrists mid-fidget, his thumbs brushing over the raised veins on the backs of her hands. "Listen to me," he said, voice low but firm, the same tone he used with nervous rookies at the station. "Your calculator could explode tomorrow and you'd still outscore everyone in that room by sheer stubbornness."

Sai snorted, but her shoulders relaxed slightly. "That's not how physics works."

"And yet," he said, pulling her up from the edge of the bed, "you once solved a circuit diagram on a napkin with eyeliner when your pen ran out during prelims." The memory flickered between them-Sai, furious and sleep-deprived, scribbling equations in black kohl while Virat smuggled her a third coffee past the library supervisor.

She exhaled sharply through her nose, then let him reel her into his chest. The scent of his aftershave-something citrus and stupidly expensive she'd teased him about for weeks-cut through the static in her head. "You're really not going in tomorrow?" she asked against his collarbone.

"No," Virat murmured, his lips pressing into her hair. "Not unless someone robs a bank at gunpoint. And even then, I'd send Patil." He felt her laugh-just a quick, damp puff of breath against his skin-before she pulled back to scrutinize his face. Her dark eyes searched his, looking for the lie. He arched an eyebrow. "What, you think I'd miss watching you hyperventilate over a webpage for two hours? I've been training for this. Like a... marathon. Or whatever."

Sai rolled her eyes, but the tension in her jaw eased. She swiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand, smearing a streak of mascara Virat wouldn't point out until morning. "You're terrible at metaphors."

"Good thing I married a doctor, then." He grinned when she elbowed him, then caught her wrist to press her palm flat over his heart. "Feel that? Steady. Because I know exactly what's going to happen tomorrow."

"You don't...."

"I do," Virat said, pressing her palm harder against his chest as if he could transfer the certainty straight into her bloodstream. The thud of his heartbeat was slow, deliberate-a metronome counting down the hours until her results. Sai wanted to crawl inside that rhythm and live there. "You're going to open that webpage, see your rank, and then scream loud enough that Mrs. Iyer downstairs calls the cops on us for once."

Sai's laugh tangled with something wet and shaky in her throat. "And if I'm not..."

Virat kissed her before she could finish the sentence. Not the gentle, reassuring kind-the kind that stole the rest of her breath and left her fingers clutching at his shirt. When he pulled back, his grin was all teeth. "Then we riot. Burn down the exam board. I'll arrest the chairman for..." He paused, considering. "Tax fraud. Everyone's guilty of tax fraud."

She swatted his shoulder, but her chest felt lighter, the dread unspooling like a knot in her ribs. The clock on the nightstand blinked 1:37 AM. Tomorrow was already here, gnawing at the edges of the room.

The notification popped up on Sai's phone at 10:17 AM-three hours earlier than the results were supposed to drop. She stared at the screen, her thumb hovering over the alert like it might bite her. Across the kitchen table, Virat froze mid-sip of his coffee, watching her face instead of the phone. "That it?" he asked, deliberately casual, though his knuckles had gone white around his mug.