Akriti: “Yeh Vivek hai?”
“Haan.”
“Chup.” Then, after a second, against her own mouth: “Size dekh ke lagta nahi virgin tha.”
Puja: “He was. He didn’t last. Then he did. That’s the whole tragedy.”
Sonam had her knuckles against her lips.
“Raja Bhaiya ko maine last year holori pe white shirt mein dekha tha. Ab yeh.” She swallowed. “Un teeno ne tujhe—”
“Haan,” Puja said. “To the fullest. Don’t make me draw a diagram. You can see enough.”
Akriti pushed the phone down, then pulled it back, then pushed it down for good.
“I’m angry.”
“I know.”
“I’m also—” Akriti shook her head. “Don’t you smile.”
“I’m not smiling.”
Sonam wiped her eyes with her dupatta.
“If they come here like last night is a sequel, I will throw them out.”
“They won’t,” Puja said. “I told them talk first. We see where this goes. Maybe it goes nowhere. Maybe it goes to us stopping the bookings and them standing outside like they used to stand outside tuition. Maybe it goes somewhere we don’t have a word for yet. But we call them. We don’t sit in this room inventing their faces.”
Akriti looked at the bolt.
“Call.”
Sonam: “Talk first. I mean it, Puja. No cute plan.”
Puja picked up the phone, typed the pin, added the line about not coming like a court, and sent it to Sanjay.
Then she put the phone down between them.
“They’re coming. If you want to leave before the bell, leave. If you stay, you stay as Sonam and Akriti, not as a booking and not as a punchline. Bhaichod jo bhi bolna hai, mujhe bolna. Unke saamne hum decide karenge kya naam bacha hai.”
Sonam nodded once.
Akriti stared at the door as if she could already hear the stairs.
Three packed dinners were already moving through the lane toward that same door, three brothers carrying foil and a promise, not knowing the phone in the room had already shown their bodies to the sisters who were about to open it.
The lane was narrower at night.
Sanjay rang the bell once. Raja had the bags. Vivek stood a step lower on the stairs, as if height could make him smaller.
Footsteps. The bolt.
Puja opened the door.
Not the morning grin. Not the field brightness. Just Puja, in a plain kurta, hair tied, eyes tired.
“You brought a court anyway,” she said. “Come in.”
Sonam was on the bed, dupatta still around her shoulders. Akriti stood by the window with her arms folded. Neither of them smiled. Neither of them left.
Raja held out the bags like an offering he did not want praised.
“We were already eating. We packed yours. It’s probably lukewarm.”
Akriti took one bag because her hands needed a job.
“Sit. Don’t hover.”
Three plates came out on the low table. Foil peeled back. Dal, roti, sabzi that had survived the ride. The girls ate because hunger is stubborn even after a shock. Sonam tore roti with too much care. Akriti put pickle on everything and tasted nothing at first. Puja ate standing, then sat when Sanjay looked at her legs as if they might give up.
Talk started in the safe lane, the same one as lunch.
Sanjay: “Eighteenth is still the paper?”
Sonam: “Haan, Bhaiya.” The word came out thin. She kept it anyway. “Morning slot. I have two chapters I keep pretending I’ve finished.”
