Two Different Worlds

Part 5: New Routines, Old Fantasies

It was always the same bench.

Middle row. Third seat from the right. Direct AC airflow. Close enough to the charging port but far enough from the professor's line of sight.

Srushti had perfected the seating chart for emotional damage control.

It was where she could reply to messages, tweak decks, scroll lightly through Instagram reels without accidentally watching one too loud, and not have anyone ask what she was smiling at.

Until today.

The lecture was dragging.

"Neural networks are fundamentally driven by two core strategies-" the prof droned on, writing on the whiteboard like he was in a race no one else signed up for.

Srushti's phone buzzed once. A soft vibration under her palm, hidden beneath the desk. She barely glanced at it.

Abhay Sharma-PR
Can we shift Sunday call to evening? Might get stuck at the nets.

She inhaled quietly, a small twitch at the corner of her mouth. Not because of what he said. It was an ordinary message.

But the way he texted - clean, direct, no punctuation where there didn't need to be any. And that casual use of "can we" like they were... collaborating. Friends.

She turned her phone screen down, just in case.

Too late.

From beside her, Vrushali leaned in just a little too far.

"Wait," she whispered sharply. "Was that... Abhay Sharma?"

Srushti didn't move.

"As in..." Vrushali's voice rose half a decibel. "Abhay SHARMA Abhay Sharma?"

The name repeated itself like it had to pass through her brain twice to be fully believed.

That's when Shambhavi, seated two rows diagonally behind, suddenly periscoped into the conversation like a panther scenting blood.

"Excuse me? What did you just say?"

Vrushali looked genuinely offended by the implications of the universe. "Her phone. Just now. That name popped up. Did you see it?"

No one had seen it.

Until now.

Shambhavi didn't wait. She lunged forward, grabbed the phone from Srushti's desk with alarming precision, and held it up like it was the Ten Commandments.

"NO," Shambhavi said, eyes wide. "NO, YOU'RE FUCKING KIDDING. Yeh real hai??" (Is this for real?)

"Give it back," Srushti whispered through her teeth, her face already heating like an overheating CPU.

"It literally says 'Abhay Sharma.' Full name. Oh my god

"Can we not announce it in Dolby Surround Sound?" Srushti hissed, trying to snatch the phone back. She just wanted to dissolve into the floor. Into the cement. Into the geological layer under the floor.

Vrushali was still stuck in disbelief. "Wait, are you like... managing him or dating him or... kya?!"

"Managing," Srushti muttered, reclaiming her phone. "Professionally. It's a job."

That's when the professor turned. "Everything okay, girls?"

Shambhavi smiled sweetly. "Yes, sir, just helping her with her...codes."

Srushti nearly died.

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