“Hey, you three.
Stop fighting over the cake.”
Goutam looked at them with a tired smile, leaning his arm against the wooden wardrobe.
“Yeah, yeah.
We’re stopping,” Joy said, setting his empty plastic cup onto the edge of the desk.
“But you need to get ready too.
We still have to commute across the sector to college and receive our degrees.”
Sayan looked down at his paper plate, his brow furrowing.
“Wait.
Sarthok, that’s my piece.”
Sarthok was already chewing it, his expression completely blank.
“Hmph.
Then you should’ve taken it earlier.”
“You explicitly knew it was mine.”
“I didn’t.”
“You literally moved it onto your plate while I was setting the bottle down.”
Sarthok shrugged, looking away.
Joy shook his head, checking his wrist.
“Forget the cake for now.
Goutam, go get ready.
We’re going to be late for the roll-call.”
“Give me a minute.”
Goutam turned toward the small bathroom at the end of the corridor.
He closed the plywood door behind him and stood in front of the stained mirror above the sink.
For a few seconds, he didn’t do anything but stare at his own skin.
His reflection looked normal.
A little tired around the eyes, maybe, but normal.
Then the dream came back.
Not the macro-scale destruction, just sharp, isolated flashes—a dusty asphalt road, Shweta’s silhouette, a smear of dark red, and that awful, hollow weight behind his ribs.
Goutam lowered his eyes, his hands resting on the porcelain rim of the basin.
“Why…”
He stopped himself.
There was no practical point in dwelling on a stray thought.
He turned the metal tap, splashed cold water over his face, and stood there for a short while before finally stepping into the shower.
By the time he came out, wrapped in a towel with his uniform shirt over his arm, the cardboard cake box on the desk was almost entirely empty.
Joy looked up from his phone, tracking the wall clock.
“You said a minute.”
“I needed a proper shower to wake up.”
“You took twenty minutes, Goutam.”
Goutam grabbed his ironed trousers from the rack.
“I’m ready now.”
Sayan looked down at the empty white plate, scraping a stray crumb of frosting with his thumb.
“You missed your chance.” Goutam stopped buttoning his collar, staring at him. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“You ate my breakfast portion too?”
Sayan offered a small, sheepish smile.
“I was genuinely hungry.”
Goutam shook his head, quickly finishing the rest of his laces.
A few minutes later, the four of them picked up their files, left the apartment, and latched the heavy iron door behind them.
Today was the seventy-eighth graduation ceremony of their college.
The main campus looked entirely different from its usual weekday routine.
Students who normally walked straight through the rusted iron gates without giving the brick architecture a single thought were stopping every few yards to take group photographs.
Some were already wearing their black graduation gowns, adjusting the square caps against the morning wind.
Others stood around in small, loose circles near the library stairs, talking quietly about what they planned to do next.
Some were excited about corporate jobs they had secured during the spring placements.
Some were arguing about the syllabus for postgraduate entrance exams.
A few seemed significantly more concerned about which local restaurant everyone would head to for lunch once the certificates were handed out.
Parents and extended relatives filled the lawns as well, taking blurry photographs on their phones and waving their children over whenever they noticed someone standing alone near the hedges.
Goutam slowed his pace for a brief moment, taking in the scale of the crowd.
They had finally made it to the end of the line.
After all those consecutive years of studying, stressful semester exams, late-night lab assignments, and the constant underlying worry about missing the grade cutoffs, this was the absolute last day.
“Come on,” Joy said, tapping his shoulder.
Goutam looked ahead.
The other three were already moving quickly toward the glass doors of the main administrative building.
He picked up his step, hurrying after them.
They reached the side entrance just as the secondary bell echoed from the tower.
Sayan immediately let out a long breath, wiping his forehead.
“We made it.”
“Barely,” Sarthok muttered, adjusting the folder under his arm.
Joy looked at Sayan, his tone dry.
“We would’ve been here fifteen minutes earlier if you hadn’t insisted on stopping at the square.”
Sayan frowned, his shoulders dropping.
“I hadn’t eaten anything substantial since six in the morning.”
“You ate two slices at Goutam’s place.”
“That was sweet cake.”
“It was still breakfast.”
“It wasn’t enough to sustain a walk,” Sayan argued.
Joy gave him a flat look.
“Forget it.
Just move your feet.”
Sayan followed them into the main corridor, still mumbling under his breath.
“I only wanted one paratha.”
“And that one paratha took ten minutes at the stall.”
“It was Auntie’s special paratha,” Sayan said defensively.
“She doesn’t rush the frying.”
Goutam smiled, walking between them.
“You two can continue this debate after the event.
They hurried down the central hallway toward the grand auditorium.
Inside the hall, the ceremony had already officially commenced.
The principal stood at the central wooden podium, speaking into the microphone about the students’ next transitions and the responsibilities of entering the workforce.
Some students in the front rows were listening carefully, their heads nodding.
Others were sitting perfectly still, likely thinking about the job applications or the train rides waiting for them that evening.
A few whispered quietly to each other whenever they thought the invigilators and professors looking down from the stage weren’t paying attention.
Goutam and the others reached the wooden double doors outside the main hall.
Joy leaned forward, looking through the small glass panel embedded in the frame.
“We’re in trouble,” Joy whispered, pulling back.
Sarthok glanced at him over his glasses.
“How bad is it?”
“The introductory speech already started.”
Sayan sighed, leaning his back against the wall.
“So?”
“So the doors are closed, Sayan.
We’re late.”
Goutam looked at the heavy brass handle.
“Let’s just go in quietly through the rear row.
Nobody will notice.”
Joy nodded slowly.
“Yeah.
Keep your head down.”
He pushed the door open.
The four of them stepped inside, their rubber soles quiet against the linoleum flooring.
The low hum of ambient conversation in the back rows didn’t stop immediately, but within seconds, several students nearest to the aisle turned their heads around to see who had entered.
A professor sitting near the stage wing noticed the movement.
Then another faculty member looked over.
The principal paused halfway through his sentence, his voice dropping as his gaze shifted away from his notes and directly toward the rear entrance.
Goutam froze in the aisle.
Sayan stopped right behind his shoulder, his breath catching.
Sarthok quietly muttered, “Great.
Fantastic.”
Joy didn’t turn around, his voice barely a breath.
“Just keep walking to the empty corner.
Don’t stop.”
The four of them made their way down the side aisle toward the vacant seats in the back row, while several hundred pairs of eyes silently followed their progress across the room.
Goutam kept his gaze fixed entirely on the wooden backrest of the seat ahead of him.
He wished, for once, that Sayan had listened when everyone told him to ignore the food stall.
But there was no going back down the hallway now.
They had made it inside the hall.
That was the only thing that mattered.