Yug found him that same day.
"So you found your notebook."
Digvijay looked at him. Really looked. No longer seeing a friend. No longer seeing anything resembling friendship.
"You knew where it was."
"I had a feeling." Yug's voice was soft. Almost gentle. "Things have a way of turning up."
"After being taken."
"After being misplaced." Yug smiled. "You should give back Devansh's book now. You have your materials. You don't need his."
You know, Digvijay thought. You know that I know. And you don't care. You're telling me you don't care.
"I was going to return it anyway."
"Good. That's the right thing to do." Yug paused. "Friendship is about doing the right thing, isn't it?"
Digvijay returned the book the next day. Handed it to Devansh directly. Said nothing. Devansh said nothing either — just took it, smiled that smile, and walked away.
And then the whispers started.
It began in the classroom. Spread to the corridors. Reached the playground by lunch.
Thief.
Book thief.
Didn't want Devansh to prepare for exams.
Jealous of him.
Always knew there was something wrong with that guy.
Forty-eight percent boy trying to drag others down.
The narrative was complete now. Every piece in place. Every witness rehearsed.
Digvijay Pratap Raj — the boy who had scored ninety-one percent in the first unit test — was now the thief. The jealous underperformer. The saboteur.
He walked through the corridors and felt eyes sliding away from him. Conversations pausing as he approached. Laughter resuming after he passed — different laughter, pointed laughter, the kind that was about him.
Even students who had never spoken to him now had opinions about him. The story had spread beyond his class, beyond his section. He was becoming infamous.
Famous, he thought bitterly. I'm finally famous.
For something I didn't do.
---
The half-yearly exams came.
Mathematics. The subject he had been best at. The subject where he had scored ninety-one percent just months ago.
He sat in the examination hall. Same seat. Third row, second bench. Same sounds around him — pens scratching, pages turning, nervous coughs.
But this time was different.
He had no notebook. He had no textbook. He had borrowed materials here and there, studied in fragments, tried to piece together what he had lost. But there were gaps. Entire chapters he hadn't covered properly. Concepts he had learned once but couldn't revise without his notes.
He looked at the question paper.
The questions looked back at him. Some familiar. Some half-familiar. Some completely foreign — topics he should have known, would have known, if his materials hadn't been systematically stripped away.
He answered what he could. Guessed at what he couldn't. Left some questions blank because a bad answer was worse than no answer.
When he walked out, he knew.
He had failed.
Not officially failed — perhaps he had passed the minimum. But failed by any standard that mattered. Failed compared to what he was capable of. Failed compared to the ninety-one percent boy he had been just months ago.
Devansh was waiting outside. Yug beside him. The rest of the group arrayed like a small army.
"How was it?" Devansh's smile was brilliant. "Paper okay?"
Digvijay didn't answer. Walked past them. Didn't look back.
Behind him, he heard Yug's soft voice: "I think it was hard for him."
And Devansh's laugh — warm, pleasant, utterly hollow.
---
The school bus dropped him at his usual stop — corner of Main Road and Temple Street, a ten-minute walk from home.
He got off. Started walking. Head down. Mind still processing the disaster of the exam, the months of sabotage, the complete destruction of everything he had built.
And then he saw her.
She was waiting at the corner. Same stop. Same conveyance route. The first person who had spoken to him kindly when he joined SVM — before Devansh found him, before the group absorbed him, before everything turned.
She had shared notes once. Helped him find classrooms in the first week. Small kindnesses that had meant something then.
He raised his hand. A small wave. The instinct of someone who still remembered warmth.
She looked at him.
And the warmth was gone.
"I heard about... things." Her voice carried across the small distance between them. Careful. Measured. The voice of someone choosing words precisely. "At school. About you."
"It's not what they're saying. I didn't—"
"I have to go."
She stepped back. Not toward him. Away.
"Just let me explain—"
"I really have to go. My mother is waiting."
And then the look.
Brief. Dismissive. The look you give something unpleasant on the street. Something you step around. Something you don't want touching you.
She walked away. Fast. Not running, but close.
He never saw her face clearly in his memory after that. Only the retreating back. Only the speed of departure. Only the words echoing:
"I heard about things."
"I have to go."
"I really have to go."
He stood there. On the corner of Main Road and Temple Street. Watching her disappear into the crowd.
His chest felt cold. Not painful — cold. Like something had frozen there and would not thaw.
She had been his first friend at SVM. The first person to treat him like a person rather than a forty-eight-percent statistic.
And now she looked at him like he was a pest.
Years later, he would think about this moment.
Not about her — her name faded, her face blurred, she became simply the girl from the bus stop, a symbol rather than a person.
But about the lesson.
Kindness is conditional, the lesson said. People are kind when it costs them nothing. When the story changes, when the crowd turns, when being kind becomes a liability — they walk away.
They always walk away.
And they never look back.
That night, on the terrace, he sat and did not look at the stars.
He looked at his hands instead. The hands that had been accused of stealing. The hands that had tried to write answers to questions he should have known. The hands that had reached out in a small wave and been rejected.
What did I do?
The question echoed. No answer came.
I tried to be good. I tried to improve. I tried to make friends, to belong, to become what they wanted me to be.
And this is what I got.
---
He changed.
Not obviously. Not dramatically. But in ways that, over the following weeks, became a new pattern.
He stopped seeking out the group. Stopped sitting with them at lunch. Stopped helping with homework. When they approached him, he was polite — distant, but polite. When they made jokes at his expense, he smiled — the empty smile he had learned from watching Devansh.
He studied differently now. Not openly. He kept his books hidden, his notes concealed. He read in fragments, memorized in pieces, never letting anyone see the full picture of what he knew.
Let them think I'm struggling. Let them believe their sabotage worked. Let them underestimate.
He watched them more carefully now. Observed the dynamics. Saw how Devansh commanded and Yug planned and the others followed. Saw the machinery of their social power — the networks, the alliances, the careful distribution of favors and threats.
I was a tool to them. A resource to be used and discarded.
Now I will be something else.
Something they cannot use.
Something they cannot see.
But the attacks didn't stop.
One evening, his phone buzzed. Unknown number.
"We know what you did, thief."
Then another message.
"Stay away from Devansh. Or you'll regret it."
Then another.
"48% loser thinks he's smart now. We'll show you."
His number had been leaked. Given to people he didn't know. Friends of friends. Seniors. A network of hostility spreading outward.
He changed his number. Told only his parents. Told no one at school.
But somehow, a week later, the messages started again. New number. Same threats.
Devansh. It had to be Devansh. Or Yug. Or both. Working together. Coordinating.
He stopped responding. Blocked each number as it came. Let them scream into the void.
But the messages kept coming. Late at night. Early in the morning. During class hours when he should have been focused on studying.
"You think you can hide?"
"We know where you live."
"Wait for the boards. We'll make sure you fail."
He saved every message. Documented everything. Told no one.
Evidence, he thought. This is evidence.
Someday I might need it.
---
The pre-board exams came in January.
Two rounds. Practice for the real boards. Same format, same timing, same conditions. Only difference — the marks didn't count officially. They were just preparation.
Just preparation.
But preparation for what?
Digvijay sat for the first round. Struggled through some papers, managed others. The months of sabotage had left holes in his knowledge that he was still trying to fill.
The results were distributed in class. A girl handed them out — Ananya, one of the most beautiful girls in tenth grade, appointed by the teacher because beautiful girls were often appointed for such tasks, as if their presence made bad news easier to bear.
She moved through the class. Calling names. Handing out answer sheets.
"Digvijay Pratap Raj."
He raised his hand. She walked toward him.
But something was wrong.
She handed him a sheet. He looked at it.
Failing marks. Twenty-eight percent.
But this wasn't his paper. The handwriting wasn't his. The name at the top was smudged, barely legible.
"This isn't mine."
She looked at him. That look — he recognized it now. The same look Priya had given him. The look that said I already know what you are. I already know you're a failure.
"It has your roll number."
"The roll number is smudged. And this isn't my handwriting. I already have my answer sheets." He held them up — the two papers from the first pre-board, already in his possession, distributed earlier.
"Then why would I give you this?"
Because you assumed. Because someone told you I was the failure. Because the story has spread so far that even you believe it without checking.
He didn't say this. Just handed the paper back.
"Check the name again."
She took it. Looked more closely. Her expression flickered — surprise, then embarrassment, then something harder. Not apology. Never apology.
"My mistake." She walked away. Didn't look back.
The class had watched. The class always watched.
Another small humiliation. Another layer added to the story of Digvijay Pratap Raj, the failure, the thief, the pest.
To be continued...