> Avni smiled once. And he was never the same.
The city had its usual charm — people rushing, cars honking, lights blinking in patterns only chaos could understand. But amidst that mess of moving life, Avni walked like a song no one had heard before — soft, unhurried, and completely unaware of the hurricane she'd awaken.
Aarav saw her for the first time in the university corridor. He wasn't supposed to be there — that floor belonged to the arts department. He hated arts. He hated noise. He hated anything that didn't fall in line.
But she... she wasn't noise. She was distraction disguised as peace.
Her hair was a messy bun, barely holding itself together. She was wearing a faded blue kurta, a bag slung over her shoulder like it weighed nothing, and her nose was buried in a book titled "When Love Destroys". Fitting, he thought.
And then — she looked up.
Their eyes didn't meet. She didn't even notice him.
But she smiled. Maybe at a message on her phone. Maybe at a memory. Maybe at a joke in the book.
He didn't know.
He just knew that smile didn't belong to anyone else.
It belonged to him.
---
Aarav Singh Rathore was not someone people forgot. Tall, impeccably dressed, with the kind of silence that suffocated rooms — he was a storm in a well-fitted black coat. Girls tried talking to him. Boys avoided him. Professors respected him. Enemies feared him.
But no one ever smiled at him.
Not like that.
And not without meaning to.
That evening, he found her name.
Avni Mehta. 21. Literature major.
She had no idea someone had already claimed her.
---
The next few days passed like an experiment.
He watched.
From the cafeteria, from across the library shelves, from behind the glass windows of the admin block — silent, precise, almost surgical.
He noted everything.
She drank chai at 4 PM, always with two glucose biscuits.
She listened to indie music while sketching random scenes in her diary.
She never looked at a boy twice.
Except one.
Kabir.
The name scratched itself into Aarav's memory like a thorn.
Kabir was in her poetry class. He laughed too loud, talked too much, and stood a little too close to Avni whenever they were in the same frame.
Aarav's jaw tightened the first time he saw her laugh at Kabir's joke.
That night, Kabir's bike mysteriously ended up in a gutter three blocks away.
---
Avni was unaware.
She lived in a bubble — where sunrises were beautiful, rains meant hot pakoras, and friendship was sacred. She didn't know obsession could wear a face as perfect as Aarav's.
Until that day.
---
It rained that evening.
Her book was wet, her phone was dead, and all the rickshaws were full. She was stranded under the university gate, hugging herself to keep warm.
That's when he walked up. Black umbrella, black shirt, black eyes.
"Need a ride?" His voice was smooth, practiced, dangerous.
Avni blinked. "Sorry, do I know you?"
"No," he smiled faintly. "But I know you."
A chill ran down her spine, but she nodded. The rain made everything blurry. Sense, most of all.
---
The bike ride was quiet.
He didn't speak.
She didn't ask.
But somewhere between the college gate and her apartment, something shifted. The air around him wasn't cold anymore — it was possessive.
When she got down, he didn't ask for her number.
He already had it.
"Thanks," she smiled politely.
And just like the first time — that smile ruined him again.
He didn't sleep that night.
He sat in his room, staring at her pictures, reading her posts, scrolling through the messages she'd exchanged with Kabir months ago.
He wasn't just watching anymore.
He was planning.
---
Because to Aarav, love wasn't freedom.
Love was control.
Love was silence.
Love was ownership.
And she? She was already his.
Whether she knew it or not.
---
> To be continued...