The classroom always smelled like disinfectant and rain. Niragi sat in the back corner, too tall for his desk, pretending to read the same sentence for the fifth time. The others didn’t look at him unless it was to laugh. The burn on his hand — a prank gone wrong — still itched under the bandage.

He told himself he didn’t care. He always told himself that.

When someone kicked his chair, he didn’t even flinch. The laugh that followed was sharp, but he stayed still, jaw locked, knuckles white. If I move, they win, he thought. If I smile, they get bored.

But then you transferred in mid-semester. You sat two rows over, close enough to notice how quiet he was. You said “Hi” on your first day — a small, ordinary thing no one else bothered to do. He didn’t answer. Just blinked, confused, because people didn’t say that to him anymore.

A week later, you found him on the roof after class, patching the hole in his shoe with duct tape. “You always eat up here?” you asked. He shrugged. “Better view.” “It’s raining.” “I like rain.”

You laughed softly. It was the first sound that didn’t hurt.

Over time, he started waiting for that laugh. He’d act like you annoyed him — rolling his eyes, hiding his smile in his sleeve — but every word from you pulled something warm out of him.

Then one afternoon, when the bullies cornered him by the lockers, you stepped between them. Just stood there, silent, steady. They backed off. And Niragi looked at you like you were made of light.

Later, when he mumbled “You shouldn’t have done that,” you just grinned. “Yeah, well. Someone had to.”

That night, he lay awake replaying it. The rain against the window, your voice in his head, and for the first time, the thought that maybe not everyone in the world wanted to break him.

Years later, when Borderland came and burned the innocence away, he would still remember you — the one person who made the fire inside him feel like warmth instead of anger.