Chapter 7: The Shadow of the Rival
The sky was turning a pale lavender as Aarav and Ayushi walked toward the college gate.
The shared success and vulnerable conversation of the night had wrapped them in a close, intimate bubble.
"I should be heading home," Ayushi said, pulling her bag higher onto her shoulder.
"I don't want to wake my parents, but they worry if I'm late."
"Of course," Aarav replied, his mind urgently calculating how to prevent her from taking her usual, fatal route.
He stopped just short of the main gate, where the busy city life was already starting to stir.
"Ayushi, wait," he said, forcing a serious, professional tone. "About the B-Plan. I just realized something about our timeline."
She paused, instantly focused. "What is it?"
"We need every minute we can get to win this," Aarav stated, leaning in conspiratorially.
"If you take your normal route home, that bus will take at least an hour with morning traffic. I think we need to cut that commute time. Think of it as Minimum Drag for a Maximum Win."
He pointed in the opposite direction, toward a quieter, residential neighborhood.
"I live near the old railway colony. If you take the back route—the one past the old Botanical Gardens—it's mostly residential and avoids the market snarl. There's a faster, smaller bus stop there. You'd cut your travel time by half an hour."
Ayushi looked at the unfamiliar street, then back at Aarav, curiosity mixed with skepticism.
"The Botanical Gardens route? That sounds much longer, and it's quiet. I don't usually take the quiet roads alone."
"It's not longer, trust me, I used to jog that way," Aarav lied smoothly.
"It's counter-intuitive, but faster. Look, how about this? For the next few days, since we'll be working late, let me walk you until you catch the right bus at the new stop. Then you can time it yourself."
Ayushi smiled, accepting the sincerity of his concern, even if it was framed as a business strategy.
"Aarav, you don't have to. You've already done so much."
"It's part of the partnership, Ayushi," he insisted.
"Two successful partners must ensure the efficiency of the entire operation, including travel time."
She laughed lightly.
"Alright, my efficient partner. Lead the way."
As they turned and walked toward the quieter street, a sense of relief washed over Aarav.
He had successfully rerouted her. But the victory was short-lived.
Down the residential road, a sleek, expensive Mercedes C-Class was parked, its black windows tinted and its engine idling.
It looked completely out of place in the quiet, middle-class neighborhood.
As Aarav and Ayushi walked past, the driver's window slid down with a silent, electrical whir.
Aarav's stomach dropped.
Sitting behind the wheel was Rajat, a fellow student from a supremely wealthy family.
Rajat was arrogant, entitled, and openly disdainful of anyone from a humble background—including Aarav and Ayushi.
More critically, Rajat had been relentlessly pursuing Ayushi for months in the original timeline, seeing her as a beautiful prize to be won.
Rajat didn't smile. His handsome face was contorted into a mask of pure, possessive resentment.
His dark eyes, fixed entirely on Ayushi, were burning with a jealous fire.
"Ayushi," Rajat said, his voice a low, cold sneer. "Going home? And you have this for company?"
Ayushi tensed, pulling her arm away from Aarav's elbow. She hated confrontation and disliked Rajat's aggressive attention.
"Rajat, what are you doing here? I'm with my business partner."
Rajat ignored Aarav completely, as if he were a piece of pavement.
"You spent all night with him in a dark room, working on that ridiculous sanitation project? You should be focused on the major league, Ayushi. My family is hosting a mixer next week; I'd introduce you to some real investors. Leave this low-level college project behind."
Aarav felt a familiar, visceral surge of anger, not just because Rajat was rude, but because Rajat represented the kind of wealth and power that had always put him at a disadvantage—and the kind of entitlement that often dismissed Ayushi's true worth.
This was not the time for professional strategy; this was about defense.
Aarav stepped forward, placing himself squarely between Rajat and Ayushi.
"Rajat, we just secured a fast-track government initiative for our proposal," Aarav said, his voice ringing with the calm authority he had practiced the night before.
"Your 'major league' event sounds slow and inefficient. We prefer minimum drag on our progress."
Rajat finally shifted his gaze to Aarav, his lip curling in contempt.
"You think you're smart, scholarship boy? Stay out of my business. You don't have the connections or the funds to compete with me, and you certainly don't have the right to be near Ayushi."
"Ayushi chooses her own partners, Rajat," Aarav countered, keeping his tone even.
"And for now, she chose the one who makes the numbers work. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have a tight schedule."
Rajat's eyes narrowed dangerously, a silent promise of future retaliation passing between the two rivals.
He didn't say another word, but the intensity of his glare—a mixture of lust for Ayushi and hatred for Aarav—was chilling.
He rolled the window up slowly and pulled away from the curb with a sharp screech of tires, disappearing down the street.
Ayushi let out a shaky breath, turning to Aarav with wide, grateful eyes.
"Wow, Aarav. Thank you. He's always been aggressive, but that was unsettling. How did you stay so calm?"
Aarav just smiled, a fierce determination hardening his eyes. "He's a nuisance, Ayushi. Just a source of drag we need to eliminate. Come on, let's get you on your new, efficient route home."
He walked her until she boarded the bus at the quieter stop.
As he watched the bus pull away, Aarav knew that Rajat was not just a rival for her affection, but a clear and present danger to his mission.
Rajat possessed the resources and the malice to cause real trouble—and perhaps, given his desperate desire for Ayushi, he could be an unwitting catalyst for the very accident Aarav was trying to prevent.