All characters in this story are above the age of 18, and this story is my original work.
Chapter 01:
That engineering college in Delhi had its own particular smell. Chai, photocopied notes, damp grass after the monsoon. Something about it felt always slightly behind on sleep, always chasing the next thing. Some kids buried themselves in textbooks like that was the only way to prove they existed. Others just floated, club meetings and cricket and sneaking out after curfew. Ankur was the second kind, and he'd stopped apologizing for it by his second year.
He was 21, final year, Civil Engineering. The subject was fine. It was just never really his. His father wanted it, wanted the legacy and the stability and the story of a son who became an engineer. Ankur had gone along because that's what you do when you're the only son and your father says things with that particular kind of quiet certainty that isn't quite pressure but feels heavier than pressure. But somewhere in his second year he found the dramatics club, and the people in it, and suddenly there was a place on campus where he actually wanted to be. His best friend from the department was Som.
The two women who mattered most in that club were Priya and Ritika. Both seniors, both five years into an Integrated Mathematics program, both the kind of people you notice before you know their names.
Priya was barely 4'11". She didn't look like a crush so much as a quiet disruption, the kind that sneaks up on you. Off stage she was reserved, a little guarded, easy to mistake for someone who didn't care. Under the lights she became something else entirely, magnetic and completely present. She had a boyfriend back in Mumbai and it was one of those relationships that had probably made sense at some point but now mostly meant long calls where he accused her of things she hadn't done and she talked herself into staying. Every time she took a role with a male co-actor, the phone calls got worse. She had this belief, a stubborn, sweet, heartbreaking belief, that marriage would fix it. That he'd calm down once things were settled. She held onto that idea the way you hold onto something you already know is broken, because letting go means admitting it was never going to work.
Ritika was different in almost every way, at least on the outside. She walked into rooms like she'd built them. Confident, sharp, funny, the kind of person whose energy you can feel from across a corridor. She had ideas that changed how the whole club approached a production. Her own relationship, some on-and-off thing with a college graduate, had been losing air for a while. But Ritika wasn't the type to sit in the wreckage and feel sorry for herself. She moved toward people. She leaned in.
The two of them were completely inseparable. Hostel corridor, dining hall, late nights running lines before a show, 3 AM conversations about the kind of things you only say to someone you actually trust. Priya used Ritika as her safe place. Ritika used Priya as her anchor.
Because of how the Integrated Mathematics program ran, Ritika and Priya's graduation year lined up with Ankur and Som's, all four of them finishing in 2017. Ritika took on something like an older sister role with the boys, gave them advice they hadn't asked for and probably needed, teased them constantly, made sure they didn't fail anything too badly. Ankur called her Ritika Didi. So did Som.
His feelings for Priya were different. A lot of people on campus had a crush on her. Ankur was one of them. But he kept it at a careful distance, didn't do anything with it, didn't let it become something messy. She was in a relationship. She was his senior. He drew the line himself without anyone asking him to.
Final year pulled the four of them even tighter. Project deadlines, exam pressure, placement season bearing down on everyone like weather. In between all of it there were late rehearsals and shared snacks and hours of talking about nothing that ended up meaning everything. They snuck onto restricted rooftops. They found empty corridors in academic blocks to watch movies on whoever had the better laptop. They moved like two couples in all but name, and anyone who paid attention could see it.
Sports fest came in October. The whole campus went into a different mode, lights strung up everywhere, food stalls, music, energy. Hostel rules didn't vanish but most people got around the 10:30 PM curfew for girls by just staying on campus rather than signing the late-entry register, which basically announced to everyone that you'd been out doing something you shouldn't.
Ritika suggested a movie night on the second evening of the fest. Nobody argued. After dinner and a quick hostel check-in they met near the campus café around 10 PM. Priya carried a couple of bedsheets. Ankur and Som had their laptops.
Their usual spot was the rooftop of the CS building. They got up there and found a couple already in it, locked together and not remotely concerned with the world around them.
"Could they at least be more careful? If they get caught the college is going to make life miserable for everyone," Priya said.
Ritika was smiling. "That's the whole point, Priya. The fear of getting caught is half of it."
Ankur raised an eyebrow at her. "You say that like you know."
"Obviously she knows," Som said.
Ritika didn't deny it. "My ex and I had a map of every hidden corner in this place. I'm serious."
They found another spot. Top floor of one of the academic blocks, a quiet corridor with just enough ambient light coming through the windows that you could see where you were going. They spread the sheets against the wall, settled in, kept the volume low on the movie. The space was narrow but felt private, washrooms close enough to duck into if any late-working faculty showed up. It had that quality of small improvised spaces, slightly cramped, immediately comfortable.
Ankur sat at one end, Som at the other. Priya next to Ankur, Ritika beside Som. During the movie Priya's head gradually drifted onto Ankur's shoulder. He didn't shift away. At some point they decided to just sleep. It was easier than packing up and walking back.
Ankur and Priya went out fast. Ritika and Som stayed awake.
Their voices dropped to something just between the two of them. Ritika said she didn't know what she was going to do after graduation, how she'd hold onto this, these people, this particular feeling of having somewhere to belong.
Som moved a little closer. "You'll be okay. And you'll have Subham bhaiya in Bangalore."
Her voice flattened. "It's not really working with Subham. I think I've known that for a while. Maybe it's time."
He put his hand over hers, nothing more, just there. "Right now we're here. Let's not go too far ahead."
She turned toward him, rested her arm against his chest. "Promise me this doesn't just fade when we all leave."
"Not a chance," he said.
He kissed her cheek. Just once, just that, and then pulled back immediately, heart going at a pace it had no business going at.
Ritika blinked. Sat up. Took a sip from her water bottle and looked across at Ankur and Priya. Priya was curled into Ankur's side, his arm loose around her, both of them completely out.
She came back to Som. Lay down facing him. Her fingers found his arm in the dark. "Thanks for being here," she whispered, and pressed her lips softly to his cheek.
Something in Som's chest did something complicated.
They looked at each other. He moved slowly, leaving her room to pull back. She didn't. Her eyes closed.
They kissed.
Careful at first, almost asking. But the tension between them had been building for weeks without either of them naming it, and that first kiss broke something open. Ritika held still for a breath, not entirely sure, but her arms stayed around him. It happened again, longer. Deeper.
Som felt the guilt move through him and then she kissed him back, quiet and certain, and the guilt loosened.
They went slowly, both of them aware of the people sleeping inches away. His hand settled at her waist. She didn't pull back.
"No... please," she breathed into his skin.
He stopped. Immediately, without hesitation, without making it a thing. She didn't have to say it again.
They lay close all through that night. Soft kisses, quiet warmth. No further than that. But it had already changed, and they both knew it.
Ankur woke first when morning started going pale in the windows. He sat up slowly, head foggy, and remembered where they were. Faculty would be in this corridor in a couple of hours. They needed to move.
Priya was beside him, face relaxed in sleep, breathing slow. He looked across to Ritika and Som. They were facing each other, his arm draped over her. Ankur didn't think much of it. The space was tight and they'd all been sleeping close. He nudged them awake and they packed up quietly, slipped out into the early morning campus without saying much.
The weeks after sports fest only pulled them closer. The four of them were always somewhere together. Studying, rehearsing, doing absolutely nothing productive but doing it together. What Ankur and Priya didn't see was that something had already changed for Som and Ritika after that night on the corridor floor.
It came out in small things first. Excuses to meet that had nothing to do with the club or class. Som borrowed a friend's bike in the evenings and picked Ritika up, and they'd ride off somewhere beyond the campus gates where no one from college was watching. Nothing was said about it to Ankur or Priya. Some things you hold close.
One night Som pulled over on a stretch of road dark enough that the college lights couldn't reach. Ritika leaned into him first, her lips finding his, warm and deliberate and nothing like something accidental. They kissed like people who had already admitted to themselves what this was. His hands moved down her arms and back up along her ribs. He cupped her boobs over her shirt and the sound she made against his mouth made his brain go sideways. She pressed closer. His fingers found the hem of her shirt.
Ritika caught his wrist. "Not yet," she said, voice a little ragged.
He had learned something about her by then. When the moment took her, her moans came out whether she meant them to or not. Just that was enough to make him half-crazy.
Exams crowded in and free time got harder to find. Still, none of the four really separated. In between study sessions the group chat was running nonstop about one thing, a December trip to Gokarna, a last escape before the final semester made everything serious and then over. Hotel options, beach recommendations, which café had the best seafood. Nobody was gunning for distinction anymore. Passing was enough. What mattered was one last real memory.
It wasn't simple for Priya. She had to tell her boyfriend in Mumbai and she knew exactly how it would go.
"You can't visit me but you can travel with strangers?"
She lied. Said it was all girls. "This is the only trip in five years," she said quietly. "It means a lot to me." He sulked and gave in.
Ankur had been overhearing those calls for months. The way the guy talked to her, like she owed him an explanation for being alive. It sat badly in him. Priya had been opening up to him in pieces, a comment here, a look there.
One evening on the way back from the library he said, "Priya di, seriously. Leave him. You deserve so much better. Nobody should speak to you that way."
She smiled but it didn't go all the way up to her eyes. "Don't worry, Ankur. It'll be fine after we're married. Things settle down."
"But will he even let you keep in touch with us? With Som, Ritika, with me?"
She laughed. Light, breezy, not quite real. "If he doesn't, I'll run away and find you all."
He kept thinking about that laugh afterward. The way it sounded brave because it had to. He could hear what was underneath it. And what he felt when he heard it wasn't just protectiveness. It was something more than that, something he hadn't quite found a name for yet. The crush had become something quieter and more stubborn. He admired her. The way she carried heavy things without making everyone else feel the weight. She had blushed when he half-joked once that she was his big college crush, and teased him back easily. But it had moved past that without asking his permission.
Exams ended. The trip became real. One December evening they boarded an overnight train to Gokarna, still tired from the end of semester but buzzing underneath it. They had a 3AC coach, two upper berths and two middles on the same side. The moment the train started moving nobody was anywhere close to sleeping.
Som and Ritika grabbed one upper berth and spread out across it like kids who'd just claimed territory. Ankur and Priya took the one opposite. From up there it felt like their own little suspended world, heads hanging over the edge to talk to the pair across from them.
"I still can't believe we're actually doing this," Priya said, grinning.
"After that last lab report? We've earned this ten times over," Som said.
"If we don't come back with at least three stories worth telling for the rest of our lives, this trip was a failure," Ritika announced.
"Once Priya Di has her first drink we'll have plenty of material," Ankur said.
"I said no. I am not dying on holiday."
"Just one sip. We'll keep you safe. Maybe Ankur will." Ritika smiled sideways.
Priya's face went faintly pink. "I don't trust him at all. He'd record the whole thing and blackmail me."
"I would hold your hand through the existential crisis," Ankur said. "Very supportively."
"And then she'd be sick all over your shoes," Som said. "True love, bro."
They laughed. The coach was dim and warm, station lights sliding past through the curtains. They talked long past midnight about the sea and food and which beach was worth waking up early for. The train moved through the dark and Gokarna got closer but the trip had already started, there in those berths, in that low light.
Eventually it all went quiet. Priya was the first to drift off, her head settling onto Ankur's shoulder, her breathing evening out. He lay beside her with his eyes closed and his mind still going.
Across from them, Som and Ritika were pressed together under a thin sheet in that narrow berth. Their mouths found each other again in the dark. Quiet, unhurried, with that particular kind of urgency that comes from wanting something and finally being in a place where you're allowed to want it. What they'd started weeks ago was still going, burning low and steady under the fabric.
What they hadn't noticed was that the berth had started to shift with them. Slow and rhythmic. The kind of movement that doesn't belong to adjusting or fidgeting.
Ankur noticed it.
He told himself he was imagining things. Just the train. Just the small space. The movement kept going, steady, deliberate.
Were they actually...?
He pushed it away. Som called her Ritika Didi. They had always been careful in front of people. It didn't add up. Except the movement was still there, and his brain was already building the rest of the picture.
His pulse picked up. His breathing got shallow and he didn't ask it to. The thought of them together under that sheet, her hands on him, his hands on her, it hit him somewhere low and warm.
He made himself stop. Turned away. But the thought had already gotten into him and it wasn't going anywhere. It stayed warm and restless all the way into the dark.
The train got into Gokarna in that grey light just before actual morning. They climbed off stiff and squinting, found an auto driver willing to take them to the hotel. Roads narrow and winding, sea air coming in cold and clean. It did more to wake them up than sleep had.
The rickshaw ran two benches facing each other. Som and Ritika on one side, Ankur and Priya opposite. Priya stretched her arms above her head and smiled at him. "That was such a good sleep. Lucky you're slim, we actually fit."
Ankur smiled. He hadn't slept. The berth across from him had played on a loop all night, the shifting, the rhythm, what his imagination had built from it.
"You? How'd you sleep?" Priya asked.
"Good. Weird dream, can't remember what," he said.
From the opposite bench Ritika said, "Berth was tight but we adjusted. Slept fine."
Ankur's stomach went flat. Adjusted. Sure.
He looked at her. Her face gave nothing away. Easy, calm, the same Ritika Didi who had always sat across from him at club meetings. Either nothing had happened or she was simply that good at this. He couldn't tell. Som was looking at his phone, relaxed, offering nothing.
The hotel was exactly what the photos had promised, modest, white walls, bougainvillea climbing up near the entrance, the sound of waves close enough to hear if you paid attention. They talked the receptionist into letting all four of them stay in the room for the price of three, a skill they had refined on various campus sleepovers. The king-sized bed was technically for three. They'd made worse work.
After washing up they spent the mid-morning walking. Coastal cafés, little shops, a lookout point that shut everyone up for a moment when the view hit. Without planning it they fell into pairs, Som and Ritika a little ahead with shoulders occasionally brushing, Ankur and Priya just behind. Comfortable. Natural. Like two separate conversations happening simultaneously.
Ankur kept turning the train over in his mind. Should he say anything to Priya? She was closer to Ritika than to anyone. Raising it could shut something. He held it.
Evening found them at a small restaurant between palm trees and hanging lanterns, good seafood, drinks that lasted longer than planned, a table nobody wanted to leave. On the way back they stopped at a shop for vodka, mixers, and plastic cups. Tonight Priya was finally going to have her first drink.
Back in the room the vibe went close and personal. Then Priya's phone rang. She stepped aside, came back quieter, a particular careful blankness on her face that Ankur recognised. Her boyfriend.
She put the phone down on the bed and looked at it for a second. "Fuck it, yaar. Someone give me a drink."
Som set up four cups. Ankur got music going, something soft and undemanding. Ritika sat beside Priya, started quiet and went louder the way she did when she actually meant it.
"Priya. Why are you still with him? Every single time he does this."
Priya looked at her cup.
"And Ankur is literally right here, you know. One yes and that boy is yours completely, Priya Didi." Ritika said it like a simple fact.
Ankur's face went red. Everyone in that room knew exactly how he felt. Having it said out loud that casually was its own particular experience.
Som lifted his cup. "To friendship. To Priya Di's first ever drink."
They drank. Priya stared at her cup.
"I just... in one go?"
"Don't think. Go," Ankur said.
She did it. Pulled a face immediately. Som had already started filming.
"You're going to be completely comfortable with this by midnight."
More drinks after that, lighter mood, music lower. Priya's shoulders came down. Her voice opened up.
"He doesn't actually listen. He just controls. Sometimes I start wondering why I keep..." She left it there.
Nobody finished it for her.
"This is nice," she said, quieter. "Just this. Being here with you lot. Not having to pretend anything."
After that she curled up on the far left of the bed, one hand under her cheek, and went still. The three of them let the rest of the night run down slowly. Tomorrow was sunlight and beach. Tonight was sleep.