The problem with being noticed was this:
People stopped seeing you as someone learning.
They started seeing you as someone responsible.
By Monday, Ananya realized her name had quietly started circulating.
"Ananya from Room 407."
"The anchor girl."
"The one who spoke well."
Seniors nodded at her. Juniors asked questions. The fest coordinator added her to three different groups.
Her phone buzzed constantly.
Can you host this?
Can you announce this?
Can you help us talk to the management?
She hadn't agreed to become anything.
Yet suddenly, she was something.
Room 407 felt different too.
Not worse.
Just… tilted.
Pihu was proud. Loud about it.
Nandini was supportive. Calm as ever.
Meher smiled — but not always at the right time.
One evening, while Ananya was practicing lines softly, Meher snapped, "Can you stop rehearsing for one minute?"
The room went quiet.
Ananya blinked. "I'm sorry, am I disturbing you?"
"I had a headache," Meher said, already turning away.
It wasn't a fight.
But it didn't feel like nothing.
The next day, Ananya was called to meet the fest core team.
She found herself in a small classroom with ten older students discussing budgets, permissions, stage layouts.
She listened. She spoke when she needed to.
And without realizing it, she was mediating, suggesting, clarifying.
At one point, the coordinator said, "Okay, Ananya, you handle this."
She froze for half a second.
Then nodded.
When the meeting ended, Kabir was waiting outside with two coffees.
"Let me guess," he said. "You accidentally took responsibility again."
She laughed tiredly. "I didn't volunteer. It just… landed."
He handed her the cup. "Leadership usually does."
She took a sip. "I don't want to become the girl everyone depends on and no one asks about."
Kabir studied her. "Then don't disappear inside usefulness."
That sentence stayed.
That night, Meher dressed up.
Not campus-pretty.
Mumbai-pretty.
When she walked out of the washroom, even Pihu stopped chewing.
"Okay," Pihu said. "Main character alert."
Meher smiled. "Aarush invited me to a pre-fest meet."
She looked at Ananya briefly. Just briefly.
"I'm leaving."
"Have fun," Ananya said genuinely.
Meher nodded and left.
But when the door shut, Nandini looked up from her book. "She's unsettled."
Pihu frowned. "By what?"
Nandini hesitated. "By change."
Later, while Ananya was half-asleep, she heard the door open.
Meher came in quietly.
She sat on her bed. Didn't turn the light on.
Ananya spoke into the dark. "You okay?"
Meher didn't answer immediately.
Then, very softly, "Do you know what's scary?"
Ananya waited.
"Being the loudest girl in the room," Meher said, "and slowly realizing people are listening to someone else."
Ananya sat up.
"That's not—"
"I know," Meher cut in. "And I hate that my mind even thinks this. But it does."
The honesty hung between them.
Ananya got down from her bed and sat beside her.
"I'm not taking anything from you," she said. "I'm just finding something in myself."
Meher's shoulders loosened slightly.
"I don't want us to compete," Ananya added. "I want us to become."
Meher looked at her.
For a long moment.
Then she leaned forward and rested her forehead on Ananya's shoulder.
"I don't like feeling replaceable."
Ananya closed her eyes.
"None of us are," she said.
That night, Ananya wrote in her notebook:
Being seen is beautiful.
Being expected is heavy.
I don't know yet how to hold both.
Outside, Mumbai moved without permission.
Inside, she was learning a new truth:
Growth doesn't arrive alone.
It brings tension with it.