Arjun wasn't a fool. He had noticed.

It was hard not to.

Anjali Khanna, the loudest voice in the room, the pampered princess who always had an opinion ready—even when no one asked for it—turned into a stammering mess whenever he walked in.

The first time it happened, he thought she was just being dramatic. But it kept happening. Over and over.

From bold to bashful, fiery to frozen—her transformation in his presence was impossible to ignore.

Whenever he visited Rahul, she would mysteriously appear with some excuse—bringing coffee she didn't make, pretending to read a book upside down, or hovering near the living room pretending to clean nonexistent dust from the shelves. And at home, when she came over to hang out with Muktha, he'd find her suddenly sitting stiffly at the edge of the couch like she was in a board meeting instead of a family home.

She didn't say much. She didn't need to.

Her eyes spoke volumes.

They followed him. Studied him. Memorized him.

Arjun wasn't blind to that kind of gaze—it was the kind he'd seen from countless women before. But from Anjali, it made him... uncomfortable.

Very uncomfortable.

Not because he hated attention. No. He just couldn't wrap his head around the why. Why her, of all people?

Anjali was, in his eyes, everything he didn't want in a partner.

Spoiled. Dramatic. Utterly pampered. The kind of girl who once refused to eat dinner because her favorite nail polish shade was discontinued.

And now... she was following him around like a lovestruck kitten.

He'd spent his entire life building his identity on discipline, focus, and hard work. He wasn't like the other rich boys who partied every night and flirted with anything that walked in heels. He had goals. Standards. And he'd always imagined being with someone who was grounded, mature, and someone who wouldn't cry over a broken nail.

Which is exactly why Anjali's attention irritated him.

It felt childish. Shallow. One-sided.

And yet... it was there. All the time.

What made it worse was that he wasn't the only one who noticed.

Muktha—his sister, Anjali's best friend—saw it all and chose to stay silent. She adored Anjali and quietly hoped things might one day change. But Rohan... oh, Rohan had the instincts of an overprotective lion when it came to his baby sister. He didn't miss the shift in Anjali's demeanor either—and he didn't like it.

Still, they both chose to watch from the sidelines, letting time do what it always does—reveal truths.

But Anjali? She remained blissfully unaware.

Too naive to notice Arjun's discomfort. Too young to read between the lines of his silence. She was drowning in her own romantic daydreams, believing that her quiet love, her stolen glances, her subtle presence might one day be enough to melt the iceberg that was Arjun Singhania.

He, on the other hand, was trying his best to ignore it. Hoping it was just a teenage phase she would grow out of once she entered college and met boys her own age. Boys who would actually want the attention she was trying so hard to give.

But fate, as always, had other plans.

Anjali, now done with school, had one decision to make: where to go next.

While the world was her oyster, she refused to look beyond the city limits. Her only condition for college? That it must be close to where he was. Because her world didn't revolve around dreams, degrees, or even herself anymore.

Her sun. Her stars. Her gravity—was him.

But she didn't know.

Didn't know that her little love story, so carefully nurtured in her heart for years, was standing on a shaky edge.

She didn't know that her illusions were about to crumble.

Because sometimes, the heart dreams too big for reality. And sometimes... reality hits back harder than we ever expect.