Her figure was an exquisite balance—slim waist tapering into the gentle swell of her hips, thighs shaped with a youthful firmness, long legs bare beneath the boxers. Even her casual movements carried a hypnotic grace: sitting cross-legged on the sofa, one thigh peeking from the hem of her shorts; leaning against the doorframe, her t-shirt slipping enough to hint at the outline of her breast; curling up on the chair, her body folding into soft, careless shapes that seemed to whisper intimacy.
Akshay found himself staring when he shouldn’t. The bounce of her breasts when she hurried down the stairs, the way her nipples sometimes pressed faintly against the thin fabric, the curve of her ass in those boxers when she bent to pick something up—these images carved themselves into his mind with painful clarity.
The awareness gnawed at him. Nights became restless; when he lay awake in the glow of his study lamp, it wasn’t porn clips from his hostel days that came to mind anymore, but the real, breathing presence of Sonam in the next room. Her body haunted him—the softness of her curves, the natural sway of her walk, the scent of her hair drifting when she passed too close.
Every careless brush of her arm against his, every time she sat too close on the sofa, every accidental glimpse of bare skin beneath her t-shirt pushed him deeper into the hunger he had tried so hard to bury.
He didn’t know when the shift had truly begun. But now, he couldn’t look at her without feeling the ache.
Similarly something was cooking up in Patna…
Patna was a city that lived between two worlds—its ancient history whispering from crumbling ghats on the Ganga, and its restless present seen in the flood of young aspirants who filled every library, coaching hall, and rented hostel room. In one of its older colonies stood a two-storey house with fading paint and narrow balconies, home to the Anand family.
Vivek Anand, the elder son, was twenty-nine. A serious man with a calm face and quiet eyes, he had always carried the weight of responsibility. After completing his master’s degree in Economics, he too had plunged into the endless cycle of government job preparations. His mornings began with newspapers and underlined notes; his evenings were spent revising or teaching neighborhood kids for pocket money. What set him apart was his discipline—his friends often called him a “walking timetable.” But beneath that composure was a man haunted by the ticking of time, by the growing fear that he was lagging behind in life.
His younger sister, Akariti, was twenty-three, a recent graduate in English Literature. Unlike her brother’s reserved nature, she had a spark—an energy that carried into everything she did. She was sharp, witty, and not afraid to question things. But she too was trapped in the same grind of competitive exams, her dreams tied to the stability of a government job. Akariti often spent hours at her study desk, surrounded by highlighted books and sticky notes, but her restless nature meant she needed breaks—music, sketching, long walks on the terrace at dusk.