I thought I could sneak down the stairs without anyone noticing… I was wrong. My mom is two steps ahead, like she knew I was going to steal money from her drawer upstairs.
"Stealing from your own home again, Sahil?" she asks.
My brain tangles as I try to figure out what to say.
She sighs and hands me 100 rupees. "If you want money, just ask me—and put it back where it was," she says in a bittersweet tone.
"Now go get ready for school, or you'll be late."
I quickly get ready and pack my bag. "Bye, Mom… bye, Dad," I call, heading out to wait for the school bus.By the time I reached the bus stop, my mind was already on the anime I'd seen yesterday.
My neighbor friend arrives, and we greet each other.
"Hey Divansh, wassup?" I ask.
"I'm good," he replies softly, a little shy.
We chat about school until the bus arrives..
The smell of wet asphalt hit me as the bus pulled up, mixing with the faint scent of chalk and old books from school.
When I get on, I notice damage near the rear wheel—looks like a car crashed into it. "Hey Uncle, what happened to your bus?" I ask the driver.
"Yeah, that happened yesterday while I was picking up students. It was raining, and while my bus was in neutral at a red light, a pickup truck hit it. Probably the brakes couldn't stop in the rain," he explains.
"Yeah… sometimes things just happen. It was probably inevitable," I say.
I sit at the back with my two friends—Divansh and Bhupesh. I can talk to Bhupesh about everything, from personal stuff to… sexual stuff. Divansh, though, is a little insecure about those topics. I get it—he's still younger than me.
"Have you heard about the new anime that came out? It's called The Devil from Heaven," I ask Bhupesh.
"Oh, that sounds interesting," he says.
I sigh. "So… you haven't seen it yet?"
The bus reaches school. The moment I step off, my mood flips completely. School isn't a place for learning or growing—it feels like mental slavery.
Inside the building, hundreds of footsteps echo up and down the corridors, enough to make anyone anxious. Luckily, my classroom is on the ground floor, so I avoid most of the physical chaos.
the corridor felt like a tunnel, dim light from the windows barely reaching the cracked tiles. The big classrooms leave just a narrow path, and the ceiling lights are so dim that you hardly notice them.
Stepping into my classroom, I feel a warm breeze—it's like a little door of fresh air. The room is cozier than the corridor, and the atmosphere feels calmer.
Girls chat in groups, boys giggle over random stuff, and I set my bag down. "Hey guys, any jokes left for me?"
"No, we've cracked all of them," one friend says. Everyone laughs.
The class in-charge walked in, and I already knew today was going to be… interesting.