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The sun draped over Rosewood High like a soft blanket, painting the brick walls golden. The air was crisp, the kind of morning that promised new beginnings and sharpened edges. Dew still clung to the grass, shimmering like small jewels in the soft glow of dawn.
The school bus squealed to a stop at the curb. Aryan Mehra stepped down with the fluid grace of someone used to attention. Not the loud, flashy kind—but the silent magnetism that made heads turn without understanding why. His black school shoes, polished to an unnatural shine, reflected the light like mirrors. His navy-blue blazer hung just right on his lean frame. A whiff of clean, citrusy cologne lingered as he passed.
His hair—jet black, thick, and perfectly parted—had the deliberate messiness of someone who spent thirty minutes making it look like he didn't care. His face was symmetrical, almost unnervingly so. High cheekbones, a defined jawline, and warm amber eyes that always seemed to be studying something… or someone.
Girls huddled near the gate, adjusting their hair subconsciously as he walked by. Their whispers rippled through the morning air like a low wave. "That's Aryan," one of them murmured. "He's new. From Delhi, I think." Another sighed, "He looks like someone from a movie."
Boys watched too. Not with admiration—at least, not openly. But with a dull ache of inferiority that they didn't fully understand. He had something they didn't: an effortless charm, a stillness,....a control maybe? .
Teachers, hardened from years of teenage chaos, nodded politely as he passed.
"Good morning, Ma'am," Aryan said as he held open the door for Mrs. D'Souza, the notoriously strict Chemistry teacher who once made a boy cry for chewing gum. She looked up, startled—and then smiled. A real smile. The kind no student had ever earned.
Aryan returned it with his trademark calm. He had practiced it in the mirror many times. Not too wide. Not too eager. Just enough to seem sincere.
The hallway smelled of disinfectant and cheap perfume. Lockers clanged open and shut, a student bumped into another, someone dropped a book. Aryan walked through it all like it didn't touch him. Like he wasn't really there. Like a ghost who'd been given skin and made to pretend.
He walked into Class 11-C and slipped into his chair, third row from the front, center column—perfect view of the blackboard, perfect acoustics, perfect spotlight.
His desk was a mirror of his mind—obsessively clean. Notebook centered. Black pen exactly parallel to the edge. Blue pen above it, followed by a pencil, a ruler, and an eraser in a perfect line. No smudges. No dust.
To anyone looking, he was a dream student.
But if you looked closer—really looked—you might see things that didn't fit.
Like the way his fingernails were bitten down far too much. The raw, pink skin beneath screamed of late-night anxiety.
Or the faint red mark near the base of his neck. Not a bruise, not a scratch from a fall—but the kind that came from nails dug in too hard, out of frustration or compulsion.
His eyes glowed like amber, but didn't blink often enough. And when they did, it was too mechanical. Almost… rehearsed.
He glanced around the classroom casually. Friends joking, phones buzzing, backpacks thrown haphazardly. But Aryan watched them the way a scientist observes lab rats.
He smiled again. Practiced. Warm. Perfect.
And yet… completely hollow.
No one saw the boy behind the mask.
No one ever had.
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