At 6:00 AM

The mirror had seen Siya Malhotra change her outfit three times already.

"Mumma, does this look too formal?"

she called out, tugging at the sleeve of her light blue kurti.

Pooja Malhotra appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her dupatta, a small smile already forming.

"Beta, it's your first day of university, not a job interview. You look lovely."

"But what if everyone else is wearing western clothes and I look-"

"You'll look like you," her mother said gently. "That's enough."

Siya exhaled and turned back to the mirror. Her hands were trembling slightly, though she'd never admit it out loud. Three years of hard work, sleepless nights before board exams, and countless dreams had led to this one morning.

Downstairs, the smell of her father's favorite parathas filled the small kitchen. Sanjay Malhotra sat at the table, glasses perched on his nose, reading the newspaper with the calm authority of a man who had spent twenty-five years as a school principal - a man who believed discipline and kindness could exist in the same sentence.

"Nervous?" he asked without looking up, though the corner of his mouth twitched knowingly.

"A little," Siya admitted, sliding into the chair across from him.

"Good." He finally looked at her, eyes warm behind his glasses. "Nervous means you care. Just don't let it make you small, beta. You've earned your place there."

Before she could respond, the front door banged open and Arjun walked in, car keys twirling around his finger, hair still damp from his shower.

"Whoa, look at this," he said, dropping into the chair beside her. "First day of college and she's already looking like a topper."

"Arjun-"

"I'm serious! Though-" he leaned closer, dropping his voice into his signature protective-older-brother tone, "-if any boy tries anything funny, you call me. I don't care if I'm in the middle of a client meeting."

"I'm going to college, not a warzone," Siya laughed, swatting his arm.

"Same thing," Arjun muttered, stealing a piece of her paratha.

Pooja set a glass of milk in front of her daughter. "Eat properly. And Siya-" she paused, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her daughter's ear, the way she'd done since Siya was a child, "-you're going to do wonderfully. I just know it."

Siya smiled, something warm settling in her chest despite the nerves buzzing underneath. Whatever waited for her at the university, she had this - this noisy, loving kitchen, her father's quiet confidence, her brother's overprotectiveness, her mother's gentle hands.

She just didn't know yet how much that morning's calm would be tested by afternoon.

Across the city, a very different kind of morning was unfolding.

"Raghav! Your tea is getting cold!"

Nandini Khanna's voice carried through the house with the practiced sharpness of a mother who had said this exact sentence at this exact volume for the past ten years.

Raghav walked into the dining room already dressed - sharp charcoal shirt, sleeves rolled with military precision, hair combed back, phone in one hand as he scrolled through his morning schedule.

"I'll drink it in the car," he said, reaching for his leather bag.

"You will sit and eat breakfast like a normal human being," Nandini said, not even glancing up from pouring his tea. "I don't care how many students are waiting to be terrified by you."

From the other end of the table, Riya snorted into her coffee. "Terrified is right. Bhai, one of my friend's cousins is in your Strategic HR class. She says you made a boy cry last semester."

"He didn't cry. He got emotional over a bad grade he earned."

"That's the same thing, Raghav," Nandini said, setting a plate in front of him with the unspoken command eat, now.

"It builds character," Raghav said flatly, finally sitting down.

Riya leaned back in her chair, grinning. "You know what would build your character? Smiling once in a while. I heard the entire batch goes silent when you walk in. Like you're some Bollywood villain entering in slow motion."

"Good. Silence means they're paying attention."

"Or that they're scared of you," Riya shot back, unbothered by his glare. "There's a difference, bhai."

Rajiv Khanna, who had been quietly reading his newspaper at the head of the table, finally spoke without looking up. "Your sister isn't wrong."

"Papa, not you too."

"I'm simply saying," Rajiv said, folding the paper with deliberate calm, "that respect earned through fear rarely lasts. Respect earned through understanding does."

Raghav said nothing, though his jaw tightened slightly - the closest thing to acknowledgment he'd give.

Nandini softened, reaching over to fix his collar even though it didn't need fixing. "We're not saying change who you are, beta. Just... remember there are people behind those grades. That's all."

Raghav finished his tea in silence, the words settling somewhere he wouldn't examine too closely. He kissed his mother's forehead on his way out - the one soft gesture he allowed himself every single morning - and grabbed his bag.

"Have a good day, Professor Terrifying," Riya called after him.

He didn't turn around, but the faintest ghost of something almost like a smile crossed his face before the door shut behind him.

The university campus was chaos on the first day - students clustered under trees comparing timetables, seniors weaving through freshers with exaggerated confidence, someone's speaker playing music too loudly near the canteen.

Siya walked through the gates clutching her file of documents to her chest, phone in her other hand, eyes darting between the campus map and the building numbers around her.

Room 204... Room 204... where is Block C

"Excuse me," she asked a passing student, "do you know where Block C is?"

The boy pointed vaguely toward the left before disappearing into the crowd, unhelpfully.

Siya sighed and turned back to her phone, walking faster now, weaving between groups of students, eyes fixed on the little blue dot that refused to move in the right direction.

She turned a corner near the faculty building, gaze still glued to her screen-

And collided directly into someone walking just as fast in the opposite direction.

"Oh my god-I'm so sorry-"

Her file went flying. Papers scattered across the pavement - her admission documents, her orientation schedule, a printed copy of her timetable - fluttering in every direction like startled birds.

"Are you serious right now?"

The voice was sharp, clipped, dripping with irritation. Siya looked up mid-scramble for her papers and found herself staring into the coldest pair of eyes she'd ever seen.

A man - tall, sharply dressed, clearly in a hurry - stood there looking at her like she'd personally ruined his entire week.

"I'm really sorry," she said quickly, kneeling to gather her papers. "I wasn't looking-"

"Clearly." He didn't kneel to help. He simply stood there, arms crossed,

watching her scramble with visible impatience. "This is exactly why phones should be banned on campus walkways."

Siya's cheeks flushed - partly from embarrassment, partly from something else. She stood up, papers pressed messily against her chest, and met his eyes properly for the first time.

"I said I was sorry," she repeated, voice steady despite the heat crawling up her neck. "It was an accident."

"An accident that could've been avoided if you'd simply watched where you were walking."

"Right," she said slowly, "and you were walking with your eyes closed?"

Something flickered across his face - surprise, maybe, that she'd actually pushed back instead of shrinking away like most people probably did. His jaw tightened.

"Excuse me?"

"I apologized," Siya said, quieter now but not backing down. "Twice, actually. I don't think I need to apologize a third time for something that takes two people to cause."

For a second, neither of them said anything. The campus noise seemed to fade into the background - just the two of them standing there, a stranger's irritation crashing against a stranger's quiet defiance.

Then he simply exhaled, sharp and dismissive, like she wasn't even worth the argument anymore.

"Watch where you're going next time," he said, already turning to walk away.

"You too," Siya muttered under her breath, bending down to pick up the last scattered page.

He didn't look back.

She didn't either.

Neither of them had any idea they'd be standing in front of each other again in less than fifteen minutes.

Room 204 buzzed with the nervous energy of twenty-eight first-year students, all clutching notebooks, whispering to their new classmates, trying to guess what their professor would be like.

Siya slid into a seat in the third row, still slightly flustered from the collision outside, smoothing her papers back into order. She'd barely caught her breath when the girl beside her leaned over.

"Have you heard about our HR professor? Apparently he's insanely strict. Someone said he made a guy redo an entire assignment because of one wrong citation."

"Great," Siya murmured. "Something to look forward to."

At exactly 9:00 AM, the door opened.

The classroom went silent instantly - the kind of silence that arrived before anyone even fully registered why.

Siya looked up along with everyone else, expecting a stranger.

Her stomach dropped.

No. No, it can't be-

Same sharp charcoal shirt. Same cold, irritated eyes. Same tall, unreadable expression that had looked at her like she was an inconvenience less than fifteen minutes ago.

He walked to the front of the class, set his folder down on the desk, and scanned the room with the practiced authority of someone who had done this a hundred times before - until his eyes landed on the third row.

On her.

Something shifted in his expression - recognition, disbelief, maybe even the faintest trace of oh no - before it smoothed back into cold professionalism.

Siya felt her face go pale.

The man from outside. The man I argued with.

He's my professor.

For a long, tense second, neither of them said a word. The rest of the class had no idea what was happening - they simply watched their new professor's gaze linger a moment too long on one particular student.

Then he straightened his blazer, cleared his throat, and turned to face the whole room, voice cutting through the silence like a blade.

"Good morning. I'm Professor Raghav Khanna. I'll be teaching you Strategic Human Resource Management this semester."

His eyes flicked back to Siya one final time - sharp, unreadable, and just a little too long to be accidental.

"And I hope," he added, voice flat but pointed, "that all of you learn to pay better attent

ion than some already have this morning."

Siya sat frozen in her seat, papers still slightly crumpled in her hands, heart pounding.

This is going to be a very, very long semester.