The school felt different now.
Not in a dramatic way — there was no rearranged furniture or sudden silence. But the rhythm had changed, like a song that had lost its bridge and was learning how to continue without it. Suhani was gone. Not just absent, but gone — her seat empty, her laughter echoing in memory, not the halls.
Aarav still walked the same route every morning. Still passed the bulletin board with its crooked flyers and half-torn announcements. But now he paused there, not out of curiosity — out of quiet acknowledgment.
Pinned at the center was a fresh notice:
> Student Council Update:
Congratulations to Kabir Sahni, the new Council Head.
We look forward to your leadership!
Aarav stared at it for a moment longer than he meant to. Then he smiled — just a little.
He had known Kabir would get it. Not because Kabir tried harder than anyone else, but because he cared without needing to be loud about it. The kind of presence people didn't always notice until it was leading them somewhere better.
Kabir found him later that afternoon, sitting on the steps near the library, sketching diagrams into a notebook. Not for class — for himself. Lines connecting thoughts, emotion maps, a stray sentence about how people hide sorrow behind routine.
"You know," Kabir said, nudging his shoulder with a rolled-up pamphlet, "you're turning into a real psychologist already."
Aarav didn't look up. "Observing humans in the wild. It's part of the training."
Kabir laughed, then sat beside him. "You're okay?"
There was no need to clarify what "okay" meant.
"I think so," Aarav said. "Some days feel hollow. But not unbearable."
Kabir nodded. "You're still mentoring the juniors?"
"Yeah. Three of them. One keeps calling me 'sir' like I'm eighty."
Kabir grinned. "Well, you do have the soul of an old man."
"And you," Aarav said, turning to him with a smirk, "are officially the face of the student body. Enjoy the paperwork."
"I actually kind of like it," Kabir admitted. "Feels like I can do something useful."
"You always could."
Kabir went quiet for a second. "Suhani would've said something poetic right now."
Aarav closed the notebook and leaned back. "Yeah. Probably something about stars and growth and beginnings."
They sat there for a while, the kind of silence that didn't need filling.
---
In the weeks that followed, Aarav's name began appearing in places it never had before — not on awards, but on whispers.
"Go ask Aarav — he helped me plan my schedule."
"He really listens, you know?"
"I think he's going to study psychology."
It wasn't official yet. But in his mind, Aarav had chosen.
Not because he wanted to fix people. Not because he thought he had answers. But because he had learned — through Suhani, Kabir, himself — that people weren't puzzles to solve. They were stories. And sometimes, all you needed was someone who wouldn't turn the page too fast.
He mentored a girl who struggled with overthinking. A boy who couldn't speak in crowds. Another who said he hadn't felt "present" in years. Aarav didn't fix any of them. He just sat beside them, asked quiet questions, and sometimes shared stories of his own — the kind without perfect endings.
There was one day, early in March, when Aarav passed by Suhani's old seat. It still had the sticker she'd left — a small yellow sunflower tucked into the corner.
He didn't stop.
He didn't cry.
He just smiled. Softly. Like a memory well-kept.
---
Kabir, meanwhile, adjusted quickly to his new role. He brought structure to the chaos — scheduled debates, revived the poetry club Suhani once loved, even hosted a student mental health day with Aarav as speaker.
"Never thought I'd see you holding a mic," Kabir joked as they set up chairs.
"Still not sure it's real," Aarav replied, eyes scanning the crowd.
But it was real.
Aarav stood at the front of the hall, heart racing but voice steady. He didn't give a speech. He told a story — about silence, connection, and what it meant to feel deeply in a world that often rushed too fast.
He ended with something Suhani had written:
> "Not all whispers stay.
Some are borrowed by the wind."
The applause wasn't thunderous. But it was honest. And afterward, three students came up to thank him. One said, "You made me feel seen."
That night, Aarav walked home beneath a soft evening sky, hands in his pockets, wind brushing past his sleeves.
He still walked quietly. Still preferred silence to noise.
But he smiled more now.
Not the forced kind. Not the polite kind.
The kind that came from knowing he was no longer walking alone — even when no one was beside him.