[ complete ] 𝐌𝐀𝐅𝐈𝐀'𝐒 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐖𝐈𝐅𝐄 || 𝐉.𝐉𝐊 𝐅𝐅

62. The Man With Smiling Eyes

Advait’s POV –

The classroom smelled like markers and wooden blocks. My favorite smell in the whole wide world—well, after strawberry milk. Aarohi was busy drawing suns with too many rays, and I was sitting on the carpet, building a tower out of colorful plastic blocks. It was gonna be taller than me. Taller than my sister. Maybe even taller than Umma.

“Advait,” she whispered, crawling next to me, “does my sun look like a pancake?”

I looked. “Kinda. But it’s a happy pancake.”

She grinned and poked my arm. “Yah!”

I giggled and kept stacking blocks.

That’s when I saw him.

The new teacher. Mr. Ha Joon. He had a kind face. But something about it felt… weird.

The way he looked at us when Umma was talking to him this morning. His eyes were smiling but not really. It was like the smile didn’t match the eyes. Like someone wearing a smiley mask but underneath it was just… something else.

“Mr. Ha Joon,” I called out, raising my hand. “Can I go get water?”

He smiled that same smile again and knelt down beside me. “Of course, champ. Be quick though, okay?”

I nodded and stood up, but instead of going to the water station, I tiptoed back and peeked from behind the art shelf. I watched him.

He stood in the middle of the room, looking around at the other kids. Not like a teacher. More like… someone who was trying to find something.

Or someone.

Then his eyes landed on Aarohi. My sister.

His smile didn’t change.

But something about the way he looked at her made my heart feel funny.

I rushed back and sat next to her, whispering, “Don’t go anywhere without me.”

She blinked. “What? Why?”

“I don’t like the way he looked at you.”

Aarohi tilted her head. “You mean Mr. Ha Joon? He’s nice. He said he likes my hair.”

I leaned in closer, whispering in a low voice like I was in a spy movie. “That’s what they say in movies before they kidnap the kids.”

She gasped. “You mean like villains?”

“Yeah.”

“But he smiled.”

“I know. That’s the scary part.”

She went quiet for a second, then held my hand under the table. “Should we tell Umma?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. What if we’re wrong and he’s not a villain? Umma will be mad.”

“So what do we do?”

“We watch him. Like detectives. And if he does anything weird—anything at all—we run straight to Umma and Appa. Okay?”

Aarohi nodded, her eyes serious now. “Okay. But if he’s really a villain, we need code names.”

I grinned. “Mine will be Shadow Panther.”

She giggled. “And mine is Golden Sparkle.”

We tapped our fingers together. “Detectives forever,” we whispered.

Later, during recess, he came over again. Mr. Ha Joon.

He knelt down and ruffled my hair. “You two are very close, huh?”