Aria had one job today.

She have to check the notice board, that's it.

She checked it and she regretted it immediately.

"Project Partners — Final List."

She found her name, simple enough. Then her eyes moved to the column, next to her name.

-- Zayan Rathore.

She stared,blinked and stared again.

Still him.

She looked around like maybe someone put up the wrong sheet. Nope, Just her & him, their names sitting right next to each other like that was completely fine and normal but it was not okay for her.

She immediately texted Priya without looking away.

"i'm dropping out from the project"

Priya: lmaooo him again??

Aria put her phone away. Didn't reply to Priya. Because obviously yes but she wasn't going to say that.

She took a deep breath. Okay, fine. She could handle this. She was Aria Mehta. She'd handled worse than one annoying boy with a good jawline and an ego the size of Mumbai.

She got to the studio. Dropped her bag on her seat — the window seat, best light in the whole room, her's since day one, everyone knew that. She went to grab coffee. Came back in after four minutes. Someone was sitting in her chair. She didn't even need to see his face.She already knew. Of course, she knew it's Zayan Rathore .

He was just sitting there and sketching something. Completely relaxed. His one leg crossed, pencil moving and not even slightly aware that he'd just made a very bad decision or maybe he was aware. Maybe that was worse.

Aria walked straight up to him and said "That's my seat."

Zayan Rathore's pencil kept moving, didn't even pause.

She called him again "Zayan."

He looked up then, slowly. Dark brown eyes, sharp jawline, that expression he always had, very calm and unbothered, like the world was just mildly interesting to him.

Every single girl in this college went weak when he looked at them like that.

Aria felt her jaw tighten.

"No name on it," he said.

He looked back down and started sketching.

She took one deep breath.

"Get up," she said.

"We're partners this semester apparently. So let's not start like this."

He looked at her again. This time something changed in his face, just slightly. Like he wasn't expecting that tone at all. Like he was used to people softening around him, smiling and making it easy.

She was not going to make it easy.

He picked up his stuff. Moved one seat over. No argument. No attitude. Just moved one seat over.

And somehow that was worse than if he'd fought back because it meant like she's not someone worth arguing with.

Aria sat down, fixed her things and did not look at him.

Professor Singh walked in two minutes later. No good morning. Straight to it.

"Partners are final. Joint project is forty percent of your grade. And this year". She paused, looked around the room.

The Rathore Scholarship panel is personally reviewing every submission.

One second of silence.

"Only one of you wins it."

Aria felt Zayan go still beside her.

Just for a second she noticed and filed it away.

The scholarship, full fees and guaranteed internship. The thing she'd wanted since her dad went quiet when she said she wanted to study design. That specific silence that said "are you sure Aria?" without saying a single word.

She was sure.

She was winning it, not up for discussion.

She opened her notebook and started writing.

Beside her Zayan did the same.

Neither of them spoke. But she could feel it between them that tight uncomfortable charged thing. Like they'd both already decided without saying it out loud.

This wasn't going to be easy.

Good, Aria thought.

She didn't want easy as she wanted to win.

She wrote three whole pages before her brain betrayed her.

"He smells really good."

She stopped, stared at her notebook.

"No," she told herself.

"Nope. Not doing this. He thinks every girl falls for him."

"You are not every girl."

"You are Aria Mehta and you have a scholarship to win so FOCUS."

She kept writing and didn't think about it again.

Mostly.