(Irshad's POV)
Four months. That's how long it had been since the three of us had somehow — quietly and completely — become inseparable.
We were at the apartment Ali and I shared.
Seerat was perched on the sofa, laptop open in front of her, a calm little island of focus in the chaos of our living room. She wore an oversized t-shirt, navy blue, sleeves bunched at the elbows and plain black leggings, and had her hair twisted into a neat messy bun — somehow making even casual look curated. Her feet were tucked under her, and she typed with quiet determination, like she was preparing to conquer the world, one PDF at a time.
I was beside her, laptop on my knees, trying to focus on tort law while the fan hummed uselessly and the heat slowly cooked whatever was left of my motivation.
Ali was... Ali. Splayed dramatically on the floor like an exhausted Victorian ghost, red t-shirt half-ridden up his stomach, grey shorts barely matching. He'd fallen asleep during his "ten-minute power nap" nearly an hour ago and woke up with a snort loud enough to startle a pigeon outside the window.
"Bro," he croaked, blinking around. "I just had a dream I passed all my papers with distinction. And I was wearing a crown."
"You should go back to sleep then, because I don't see that happening in real life," Seerat said dryly, eyes still on her screen.
Ali groaned and grabbed his business ethics book. "Okay, okay, real effort time." He read a paragraph. Maybe. Then shut the book with a tragic sigh. "I've given my best. Now we deserve a break."
"You read half a page," I said without looking up.
"That's all the page deserved."
Seerat didn't flinch. "We're not watching anything."
Ali crawled over to the sofa, clutching his textbook like a prop. "Come on, just the first thirty minutes of a movie. My brain's literally leaking out of my ears. Look—" He tilted his head. "Do you hear it?"
"I hear something, alright," Seerat muttered.
"Seerat," he said solemnly, "you need this too. You've been glaring at that screen like it owes you money."
"I don't glare," she huffed.
Ali gasped. "Irshad, back me up. She glares."
"She has resting exam face," I offered.
Seerat turned to me like I'd just sided with her archnemesis. "You're both impossible. I knew I should have stayed at the hostel to study."
"She admits we're a team," Ali declared, victorious. "So, movie night?"
Seerat groaned and finally leaned back into the sofa, arms crossed. "Only the first thirty minutes. Then we get back to studying."
"Yes!" Ali shouted, scrambling for the remote like his life depended on it.
The opening credits rolled, and for a while, all three of us pretended we weren't supposed to be doing something else. Ali snorted at a joke ten minutes in, and Seerat threw popcorn at him, already forgetting she'd meant to be strict about the break.
Twenty minutes in, her head had inched closer to my shoulder. Not touching — just hovering there, like it belonged but didn't want to assume. Her laptop sat forgotten on the coffee table, arms curled around a pillow, breathing soft and even. She'd fallen asleep mid-scene, the little crease between her brows — the one she always had when she was focused — finally gone.
I tried not to stare. Tried.
But something about her like this — calm, trusting — pulled at something in me I couldn't quite name.
And all I could think about was the first time I ever saw her. That night on the roof.
She didn't know I was there. Hell, we hadn't even met yet. But I remember it clearly — the way she'd sat curled up in the corner, crying like her heart was breaking and no one was supposed to see it.
I don't know what hurt her that night. I probably never will. But the memory clings to me — like it branded itself into the part of me that never stopped wondering if she was okay.
I never want her to hurt like that again. Not if I can help it.
Ali leaned in then, smirking like the menace he is. "You're being creepy," he whispered.
"Shut up," I muttered.
"Bro. She's not gonna disappear if you blink."
"Ali."
"Fine, fine." He threw up his hands. "Just saying. She's asleep next to you. This is basically a rom-com moment."
I looked away, back at the screen, but my focus didn't follow. Not when the girl beside me — this quiet, brilliant, infuriatingly endearing girl — was somehow both mystery and comfort. A question I hadn't dared ask, and an answer I didn't want to lose.
What got me most was how normal this felt now. Like we'd always been this — the three of us. As if there hadn't been a phase where I shut down and pushed her away with every excuse I could find.
She never asked why. Never called me out. She just moved with it — let me act like nothing had changed when I finally found my way back to them.
I never said thank you. Probably never will. But I think about it more often than I'd ever admit.
I treasure both of them more than they'll ever know.
And if I ever lost either of them—
Yeah. I couldn't.
"Irshad," Ali whispered, fake whispering loud enough to wake the dead, "when she wakes up, can we tell her she was snoring like a chainsaw?"
"She doesn't snore."
"You would know, wouldn't you?"
"Ali."
"Romance is in the air."
"I swear to God—"
Seerat stirred slightly, and we both shut up immediately. She didn't wake but shifted just a bit, her head brushing my shoulder now. Warmth bloomed in my chest again. Stupid warmth.
My whole body went still, like moving would ruin something fragile and perfect.
But some moments — you don't move through them.
You just stay.
***
"I don't want to study with you," Seerat had said flatly that morning, arms crossed, already walking towards her hostel. "You don't study. And then you don't let me study either. I'll get more done alone."
Ali, of course, took that as a challenge.
Cut to two hours later, and she was walking into the library with us, expression tight with resignation, iced coffee clutched like it was all that stood between her and a complete breakdown.
"Don't say a word," she hissed at Ali.
He held up both hands, grinning. "Wasn't gonna. But just for the record, you caved. This is growth."
The three of us settled into a back table by the window. Seerat sat across from me, pulling out her notes with military precision, a red t-shirt draped over her frame and jeans and sneakers. Her hair was up in that lazy bun she somehow made look purposeful. Even when she was done with the world, she still looked... composed. Like her, chaos had a filing system.
I was in front of her, trying to care about tort law while my brain kept short-circuiting every time she hummed under her breath or tapped her pen in a rhythm that matched the song in her head. I didn't even recognize the song. I just knew I wanted to hear it again.
Ali — for once — sat like a human being, not sprawled on the floor or dangling off furniture. He had a book open, highlighter in hand, and the attention span of a goldfish. Seerat had already flicked two pens at him for being distracting.
We'd fallen into a decent rhythm — quiet, focused — when a voice cut through it.
"Didn't think I'd see you here, Seerat."
I looked up.
It was a guy from her class.
I didn't know much about him, except that he was in Seerat's class and somehow always... around. Not in a loud, in-your-face kind of way. He was more of a slow burn — quiet, polished, the kind of guy who probably read poetry and actually understood it. The kind girls leaned in to listen to him, like they wanted to know what was going on inside his head.
He looked like he walked straight out of some indie film — sharp jaw, unreadable eyes, that whole soft-spoken, deep-thoughts thing going on. Wore black like it meant something. Even now, he had on this black shirt with the sleeves pushed up and rings on his fingers like he didn't care if anyone noticed them — which made people notice more.
He had that lean kind of strength — not bulky, but solid. Confident in this calm, deliberate way that felt practiced. The kind of guy who played football by day and stayed up writing about heartbreak like he'd copyrighted the concept.
And right now, he was leaning a little too close to her side of the table.
Seerat looked up and offered a polite smile. "Hey, Dev. You usually study upstairs, don't you?"
"I do," he said, shifting his weight onto one elbow. "But this spot looked better today."
Subtle. Real subtle.
She gave a little laugh, awkward but still kind. "Didn't know you were taking Prof. Kamble's elective too."
"Only because you wouldn't stop recommending it."
"I mentioned it once," she said, raising a brow.
"And that was enough," he grinned. "Anyway, how's prep going? Finals hitting hard?"
"Like a truck," she admitted, glancing at her notes.
He chuckled, then slid his hand along the table's edge, inching closer. "If you want to compare notes sometime…"
She shifted in her seat. "I'm kind of drowning in my own at the moment, to be honest."
He opened his mouth to say something else, but then her phone lit up.
"Excuse me," she said quickly, picking it up. "It's from home."
I watched her retreat down the hallway, phone to her ear. When I turned back, Dev was already gone — like he knew he'd overstayed his welcome.
Ali was already staring at me.
"What?" I said, trying to sound bored. Detached. Like my teeth hadn't been clenched for the last two minutes.
He leaned forward, arms on the table, voice low. "You looked like you were about to flip this table."
"I did not."
"You looked like you were calculating his blood type and his life choices."
"It's fine. He's in her class. It's not a big deal."
Ali smirked. "Sure. Totally normal to shoot daggers from your eyeballs. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't start growling."
"Shut up."
"Relax, bro," he said, eyes twinkling."But they'd look cute together, right?"
"Ali."
"What? He seems the poetry-writing type. Seerat loves that emotional academic stuff."
"Ali."
He grinned wider. " And you? You'd get all broody and start avoiding her again."
My jaw ticked. "I didn't avoid her."
"Oh, right, my bad. You just happened to disappear emotionally for a month while pretending it was a completely normal way to act."
I glared at him. He only smiled wider.
"Listen," Ali said, kicking me lightly under the table. "You can pretend all you want, but your face does this whole thing when you're jealous. It's like watching a volcano try not to erupt."
"I'm not jealous."
"Of course not," he said. "You're just deeply invested in her academic interactions."
I muttered something unprintable and looked back down at my textbook. The words blurred together. I couldn't remember a single thing from the last three pages.
Ali leaned back in his chair, satisfied. "She's got options, man. You keep pretending you don't care, someone else might actually believe it."
And with that, he pulled out his phone and put on his headphones like he hadn't just lit a fire and walked away.
I didn't say anything.
But I watched the hallway she disappeared into, my heart beating in that stupid, uneven way.
I wasn't jealous. I just didn't want her wasting time on someone who didn't deserve her.