Ayaan's house always carried a faint smell of tea leaves and warm rice.
Mornings followed a pattern that felt safe in its predictability. His mother moved through the kitchen barefoot, bangles clinking softly as she worked. She never rushed. She never needed to. Being a housewife wasn't something she defended or apologized for—it was simply her rhythm.
"Ayaan, breakfast will get cold," she called. Not loudly. Not sharply. Just enough.
He stepped out of his room with a book still in his hand.
His father sat on the sofa, glasses slipping down his nose, eyes fixed on the news scrolling endlessly across the television. He worked at a private company—long hours, decent pay, the kind of job people described as "settled." He rarely spoke before breakfast. That was his rule.
"You were up late again," his father said, still watching the screen.
"I couldn't sleep," Ayaan replied.
His mother glanced over. "You read too much."
Ayaan smiled faintly. "There's no such thing."
His room revealed more about him than he ever did. Books lay stacked unevenly on shelves—fiction, philosophy, old science-fiction paperbacks with dog-eared corners. A modest gaming setup occupied one side of the room, lightly dusted. He played sometimes. Not obsessively. Mostly when his mind needed noise to quiet itself.
He liked systems. Stories. Worlds that made sense, even when they were cruel.
His parents trusted him. Perhaps too easily. But trust came naturally when a child caused no trouble.
Ariyan's room was silent.
Not the peaceful kind—just empty.
The fan rattled overhead, pushing warm air through a space that felt too large for one person. His phone buzzed now and then, but he rarely checked it. Messages felt like obligations he didn't have the strength to answer.
He lived alone in a rented room near the edge of the city. His family was far away, in a village where time moved slower and expectations weighed heavier. They called once a week. Sometimes more, when money grew tight.
"How are you managing?" his mother asked every time.
"I'm fine," Ariyan lied every time.
He was a senior student, balancing classes with a job at a departmental store. Long shifts. Low pay. Hours spent standing under harsh white lights that made everyone look exhausted. He smiled at customers because the manager was always watching.
At night, when the store shut down and the streets grew quiet, everything he avoided during the day returned.
The incident wasn't loud in his memory.It was sharp.
He didn't cry anymore. Crying felt useless now. What remained was heavier—a constant pressure beneath his ribs. A thought that never reached its end.
I could have…
He stopped there. Always there.
At school, Ayaan observed more than he spoke.
He noticed how easily his friends laughed. How casually they discussed the news—crimes, violence, things that happened to other people.
"Did you hear about that case?" someone said. "That boy ran away, right?"
Ayaan stayed quiet.
He wondered how people decided what they would do long before they were ever tested.
In the evenings, he returned home, ate dinner with his parents, listened as his father complained about office politics and his mother talked about neighbors. Ordinary things. Familiar things.
Later, alone in his room, he opened his laptop—not to play, not to study.
He read.He observed.He gathered.
Not urgently.Patiently.
Ariyan walked home late that night, uniform still on, feet aching in worn shoes. The city didn't notice him. That hurt less than being noticed for the wrong reasons.
He unlocked his door and sat on the edge of his bed, staring into nothing.
He wasn't thinking about justice.He wasn't thinking about revenge.
He was thinking about how small his life had become.
And how no one—not his family, not his friends, not the system—seemed to know.
Somewhere else in the same city, Ayaan closed a book and leaned back in his chair.
He thought about people—about how closely their lives ran without ever touching. About how easily someone could vanish into routine and silence.
He didn't know Ariyan yet.
But without realizing it, they were already standing at the same edge, staring at the same world from opposite sides.