It started off quietly, like a song you hear on the edge of sleep, there, but not really making a scene. Avyukta had been living on Aayansh’s voice notes for days, maybe weeks. It was their little ritual: she’d be stomping through crowded corridors, and suddenly her phone would buzz, his voice, half-laughing, half-whispering stupid inside jokes about their math teacher’s handwriting (“Does he use a chicken’s foot dipped in ink or what?”), or a five-second snippet from that one pop song they both pretended to hate (but secretly knew the words to). Sometimes, it was just his sleepy murmur at midnight, “Breathe, you’re doing fine”, like he could sense when her brain was chewing itself up.
Then one morning, her phone stayed silent. No ping. No Aayansh at the gate, grinning and making faces behind the principal’s back. No shadow flopping into the seat beside her at lunch, raiding her tiffin and acting like his food was radioactive. It was weird how empty everything felt. Like someone had sucked all the color out of the day.
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