Pratiksha

Some people take their time with everything-
with conversations,
with attachments,
with the meanings they allow things to carry.

Diksha has always been one of them.

At Ranchi University, her days move quietly between lectures, hostel rooms, and familiar routines that ask nothing more of her than presence.

Until one evening shifts something-softly, almost unnoticed.

A wedding she was never meant to attend.

Lights spilling gold into the night.
Music weaving through strangers who seem to belong.

And in the middle of it-
"Groom's side or bride's?"
She turns.
A familiar face. Someone she has seen before, somewhere between corridors and passing moments.
Pratik.

The question rests lightly, as if it means nothing.

"Groom's side," she replies, without thinking.

A brief pause.
A quiet smile-like he understands something she doesn't.

"Okay."

And that is all.

No grand beginning.
No promises.
Just a moment that settles quietly... and stays.

Back on campus, everything remains the same-
the same corridors,
the same classrooms,
the same rhythm of days moving forward.

And yet-
Something lingers a second too long.
A glance feels a little more intentional.
A familiarity begins to take shape.

Some things arrive gently.
They settle into silences that feel understood, into moments that ask for nothing and still leave something behind.

Until, slowly, they become something you carry.
Something that stays.
Something that begins to feel like everything.

And that's the thing about love-
you never really know what it is while you're inside it.

A romance... or a tragedy.

By the time you understand-
it's already too late.

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