Echoes of Midnight
521 Words
🌙 Rudra’s POV
Devgarh nights were quieter than the days deserved. The streets outside Rudra Mehra’s house hummed with the distant sounds of scooters and dogs barking — but inside, it was still.
Rudra lay stretched out on his bed, one arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling fan that turned in slow, lazy circles.
He’d fought countless guys, faced down cops, gotten suspended twice — but none of that lingered in his head the way one sentence did.
“I’m a fan. A big one.”
He chuckled under his breath. Fan? Of me?
The words replayed again and again, carrying her tone — calm, confident, almost amused. She hadn’t stuttered, hadn’t backed off, hadn’t looked scared.
No one ever looked at him like that.
Usually it was fear, curiosity, sometimes admiration — but never that kind of fearless warmth.
Kabir’s voice echoed from earlier that evening when the guys had hung out after she left.
“Bro, that girl’s got guts.”
“Maybe she hit her head,” Aman had joked.
Dev had smirked, “Or maybe she sees something we don’t.”
Rudra had brushed them off then, but now — alone — he wasn’t so sure.
He turned over, scrolling through his phone, pretending not to think about her smile. But his mind betrayed him.
The way her eyes didn’t flinch, the curve of her grin, the certainty in her voice…
He sighed and muttered to himself,
“Fan of a gangster… what nonsense.”
Yet, for the first time in a long while, Rudra Mehra went to sleep smiling.
And that, in itself, was dangerous.
🌌 Aanya’s POV
Across Devgarh, under the same sky, Aanya Kapoor lay awake too.
Her sketchbook sat open beside her — a half-drawn figure that suspiciously resembled a certain boy with stormy eyes and a crooked smirk.
She traced the outline with her pencil, grinning to herself.
Her phone buzzed with Jiya’s message:
Girl, did you seriously tell him you’re his fan?
Aanya replied:
Yup 😌
Then turned the phone face-down, hiding her blush.
Every time she closed her eyes, the scene replayed — him looking at her with that half-surprised, half-confused expression.
For someone who terrified an entire college, he’d looked… almost shy for a second.
She laughed quietly. “Who would’ve thought Rudra Mehra could look lost?”
But beneath her laughter, something else stirred — curiosity that went deeper than attraction.
She wanted to understand him.
The way he carried silence like armor.
The reason behind that calm rage that made everyone step back.
She whispered into the dark,
“There’s more to you than everyone thinks, isn’t there?”
Outside, the wind rustled the curtains, the city lights flickering through the window.
Aanya smiled to herself, feeling that strange mix of excitement and calm — the kind that only comes when you know something’s beginning.
“Let’s see who you really are, Rudra Mehra,” she said softly.
And somewhere, in another part of the city, the boy she couldn’t stop thinking about turned in his sleep — smiling faintly, as if he’d heard her.
- Writer
