Main | Hoon. Na

Now he stood outside the terrace gate of the old Tiwari mansion—her family’s abandoned property. The place she always fled to when the world became too heavy. The gate was unlocked. The staircase was dark.

He was waiting for her.

“What if I can’t?” she whispered.

He climbed.

“I know,” he said.

“ Main hoon, ” he said quietly. Then, after a pause, softer still: “ Na. ”

“Then why are you here?”

Main hoon. Na. — I am here. Period. Don’t argue.

Kavya had called him at 11 p.m., voice fractured and low. “Arjun, I think I’m going to do it. Tonight. I just wanted someone to know why.” Then a click. Then silence. He had run twelve kilometers through broken streets and sleeping colonies, his lungs burning, because his scooter had chosen that precise evening to die. main hoon. na

“You can’t know.”