Whisper in the Night|18+

Chapter 20 :Rivalry

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Hi guys,

Long time no see! I know I promised regular updates, and I really feel bad for not keeping up with that. Life has been a little hectic lately, and with Navratri going on, I've been caught up in celebrations and responsibilities. I hope you'll forgive me for the delay and still enjoy reading the story.

I also want to apologize for this chapter being shorter than usual. I know it might feel like it ends too soon, but I promise it's just a small pause before things pick up again.

So, please enjoy this short chapter for now, and thank you again for understanding. I promise to do my best to get back on track and bring you more exciting chapters soon. Your love and support mean the world to me. 💕

ENJOY................

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Kaira's POV:-

The pages smelled of dust and rain, like a room emptied of its people but not their memories. The paper whispered when I turned it - thin, fragile sounds that felt almost obscene, as if I were trespassing into somebody's forever. I knew I shouldn't be reading. I told myself that a hundred times. Still, my fingers obeyed the pull of the lines, and my heart kept skipping to the rhythm the handwriting made.

Each sentence bled ache: small, precise wounds stitched with longing. The writer's sorrow settled in my chest like a familiar bruise - not mine, but close enough that I winced at every line. I told myself it was just a stranger's diary. But the words clung like wet clay, molding to something inside me I hadn't named yet.

Something in her voice felt meant for me.

(the diary is continued from last chapter)

IN THE DIARY -

I still remember when Suryansh and I were nothing but enemies-constantly clashing, constantly at war. And yet, in the blink of an eye, something shifted. One moment we were fire and storm, the next... everything changed.

Sharvani POV:-

The courtyard smelled of strong coffee and sun-warmed stone. Laughter ricocheted off the old walls, and the campus moved in lazy orbits around its own little suns. One of those suns was Suryansh Singh - perfect jawline, practiced smile, an arrogance polished until it gleamed.

He stood there like a billboard, and people drifted toward him with the same soft inevitability as moths. I should have gone the other way. I should have been invisible, a shadow with a stack of books. But my feet remembered the shape of confrontation before my brain had a chance to object.

"Out of my way, Singh," I said, tightening my grip on the books until my knuckles threatened to pale.

He turned with that bored, theatrical slowness. "Ah - Sharvani Vardhan. The campus firebrand. Where are you rushing off to? Another war with the faculty?"

My mouth tasted like iron. "Move. Some of us are here for lectures, not for your... parade."

A ripple of gasps cut through his circle, the kind that feeds a man like him. He narrowed his eyes and smiled, only half-true. "Lectures? From what I recall, your specialty is yelling at people. A rare talent."

"I'd rather yell than be polished for show," I snapped. "At least my words aren't bought and sold at the dinner table."

He stepped forward, close enough that his breath was a careless breeze. "Careful, princess. If arrogance could kill, you'd have no rivals."

My reply came sharper than I meant. "Better to die from fire than live gilded and empty."

That tiny fracture - his smirk for a beat gone rougher - felt like victory. Then Marco, who always seemed to enjoy the slow burn of whatever drama I started, clapped once, low and theatrical.

"Brava, Sharvani," he said with a lazy grin, leaning off the pillar like a man with no urgency in the world. "You make the sun lose its shine."

Kashvi's hand on my sleeve was steady, small and warm. "Let it go," she murmured - not because she thought I should, but because she loved me like that: patient, sure-footed.

"Let it go?" I echoed, and there was a laugh in my chest that tasted like salt. "I will not. Not today."

I could feel them watching - the flock of faces that fed off the drama. Their interest was a weight; their admiration, a net. I hated him for the easy way the world tilted toward him. I hated how a single curve of his mouth could rearrange people's loyalties. I hated that my blood rushed hot when he was near, as if my anger was ashamed of how it hid another feeling.

Kashvi laughed under her breath. "You're theatrical today."

"Isn't everyone drawn to a little theater?" I said, but my voice had softened. "Maybe I'm the playwright."

Marco's eyes flicked to mine, amusement bright in them. "And a brilliant one at that. Tell me - will the hero survive?"

I watched Suryansh's jaw tighten, a glint of something like annoyance - or interest - hidden beneath his practiced cool. He leaned toward me, voice low enough that only I could hear, as if sharing a secret.

"You should learn to pick your battles, Sharvani. Save the fireworks for someone worth it."

My tongue wanted to bite out a glare; instead it found words. "I pick battles for myself, not for your entertainment."

He smiled then - the kind that said he both understood and dismissed me. It should have been infuriating. It was infuriating. And it was, horribly, intoxicating.

We moved toward class together because the campus had its ways of arranging encounters. Kashvi matched my stride, her presence a slow anchor. "You're going to explode," she said softly.

"I hope so," I admitted, the admission barely more than air. "Maybe if I explode, he'll see I'm not a thing to be toyed with."

She squeezed my hand. "If you explode, at least don't take any detours to martyrdom."

"I never do martyrdom," I said, then forced a laugh that sounded too loud in the hush between buildings. "I prefer dramatic exits. Cleaner."

A boy let out a laugh from somewhere behind us. Marco called over his shoulder, "Sharvani, I'll buy front row seats for the next act."

"Buy a ticket," I called back, throat tight with something that was almost a smile. "And bring popcorn."

Kashvi's hum wrapped around us like a blanket. "Promise me you won't let this one be the thing you lose sleep over."

I wanted to tell her the truth: that it wasn't Suryansh's words alone that kept me awake. That when he looked at me as if I were an interesting problem rather than a person, some hollow in me - one I tried to mask with bravado and jokes - tightened. That my rage was, at times, simply fear wearing a louder face.

But instead I shrugged, shoulders square in armor I wore every day. "Let him think whatever he wants," I said. "He doesn't get to decide who I am."

Kashvi's eyes held mine like a soft promise. "Then make him regret ever thinking he could."

And somewhere between the stone steps and the door, my resolve didn't feel like a declaration anymore. It felt like a fragile, stubborn thing - mine, and dangerously precious.

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