The studio was still half-asleep when Arjun arrived. The air carried that sterile morning quiet — the hum of machines warming up, a faint trace of coffee grounds from the night shift. He liked arriving before everyone else. There was something sacred about solitude — especially now, when his mind refused to still itself.
Inside his jacket pocket, the old photograph pressed against his chest like a secret heartbeat. He had folded it carefully, afraid even the light might blur it further. Summer 2002. The words on the back had felt like a whisper from another lifetime — one that had finally reached him.
When Suhana walked in, her hair was still damp from her morning shower, curling slightly at the ends. She smelled faintly of rain and jasmine. Her laughter at something the receptionist said filled the room softly before fading as she saw him already there.
"You're early," she said, setting her tote bag down, brushing a stray lock from her face.
"Couldn't sleep," he admitted.
She tilted her head. "You? The most composed man alive?"
He smiled faintly, eyes lingering longer than usual. "Guess even calm people get restless sometimes."
There was something different in the way he looked at her — reverent, almost fragile. She caught it. "What?"
"Nothing," he said quickly, shaking his head. "Just… nothing."
But his smile was too gentle for it to mean nothing.
Inside, the thought pulsed quietly:
How do you tell someone they were part of your beginning, when you're just learning to be their now?
They began recording soon after. The topic — irony at its finest — was "On What We Owe the Past."
Arjun sat opposite Suhana, mic in front of him, the red recording light blinking steadily between them like a pulse.
Suhana's voice was steady, reflective. "Maybe we don't owe the past anything," she said thoughtfully. "Maybe we just carry it until it stops hurting."
Arjun looked at her, the words sinking deeper than she could have known. He leaned toward the mic.
"Or maybe," he said quietly, "we owe it gratitude — for bringing us to the right people, even if we didn't recognize them the first time."
Suhana frowned slightly, sensing something behind the words. "That sounded personal," their producer joked from behind the glass.
It drew a small laugh, but the air afterward thickened again. The kind that hums when meaning hides between words.
Arjun couldn't look away. Every word she spoke felt like a memory retracing itself.
After the session, Arjun stepped into the hallway, needing air.
He leaned against the cold wall, closing his eyes. And suddenly he was ten again — standing knee-deep in lake water, clothes clinging to him, the world spinning in grey light.
A girl, small and trembling, was coughing beside him. He remembered how her tiny fingers had clutched his wrist, how he'd whispered, "It's okay, I've got you."
And her voice — faint, scared, but determined — "Don't let me forget this."
Back in the present, his hand drifted unconsciously to his wrist — feeling the ghost of that touch.
"You kept your promise," he whispered to the empty hallway, "even if she didn't."
That evening, they found themselves at their usual café — the one with uneven tables and fairy lights that looked like fireflies caught in midair. The place had become their spot without them meaning to make it so.
Suhana stirred her cappuccino lazily, telling him about the painting she was working on — how the rain last week had made her want to paint water again. "It's strange," she said, "how something as simple as rain can make you feel like you're remembering something you never knew."
Arjun smiled, though his mind was elsewhere — torn between admiration and fear.
She caught the faraway look in his eyes. "You've been in your head a lot lately, Professor," she teased. "Thinking of your next poetic monologue?"
He hesitated, then spoke softly, the words careful, fragile.
"I think I used to know someone like you… a long time ago."
Suhana laughed, though her eyes searched his. "Oh yeah? Did she break your heart?"
He shook his head, smiling faintly. "No. She just disappeared before I could ask her name."
Something inside her stilled. The air between them felt charged, almost electric — as if an invisible thread had tugged at both ends at once.
For a second, neither spoke.
Then she looked away, pretending to sip her coffee. "Sounds like she was lucky," she said quietly.
He wanted to tell her she still was.
On the walk home, silence stretched comfortably between them.
The city lights flickered on puddles. Suhana's reflection wavered beside his, her hair brushing her coat collar as she walked. She glanced at him once, twice, wondering why everything about him — his quiet, his voice, even his silences — felt like something she'd already known.
"It wasn't déjà vu," she thought. "It was like remembering a story I was once part of."
Arjun walked beside her, his pulse heavy with withheld truth. He wanted to reach for her hand, to say You were the girl by the lake. You've always been the girl by the lake.
But he didn't.
Because something about the silence felt sacred — like the moment before dawn when the world hasn't yet decided to wake.
At home, Arjun finally took the photograph out again.
The edges were worn, the image faint — but the girl's smile, her bright eyes, the lake behind them — it was all there. He turned the photo over carefully, and for the first time noticed the writing on the back.
In his mother's familiar cursive:
Summer 2002 — Arjun and Suhana by the lake.
His breath left him in a slow exhale. The name he had only dared to imagine was now real — tangible, alive in ink and memory.
It wasn't just memory anymore. It was truth.
He sat back, staring at the ceiling, the corners of his mouth curving into a disbelieving smile.
"It's always been her," he whispered.
The words felt like a prayer.
Much later, when the city had quieted, he opened his phone, her name glowing softly on the screen.
He typed: Can we talk?
Then deleted it.
Typed again: I have something to tell you.
Deleted that too.
Finally, he wrote: Don't forget to bring your sketchbook tomorrow. I think our next episode deserves a cover art from you.
A minute later, her reply came: You remembered.
He smiled faintly at the screen.
"And for once," the narration closed softly, "remembering felt like a promise kept."
------
Arjun knows now. Suhana doesn't — not yet.
But the space between them has changed.
It's no longer filled with questions — but with quiet, shimmering truth waiting to be spoken.