5.1 Known By His Name

By the second month, Aarav knew the girls' building well enough to move through it without looking for Riya first.

He knew the crowded staircase after Marathi period, the library timings, and the corner near the office where students waited after forgetting an ID card. He could go for water alone and sit with Anaya and Kavya even when Riya had an extra Class 10 lesson upstairs.

Still, new girls sometimes called him "Riya's brother" before remembering his name. A substitute teacher once asked whether he was visiting.

Mrs. Patwardhan arranged a girls' building ID card on the same blue lanyard used by the rest of his class. His white shirt, belt, socks, and shoes already matched the common school colours. He continued wearing navy trousers.

The new ID did not stop every question, but teachers and staff no longer had to guess why he was there.

One afternoon in the library, a girl from another bench brought him her geography notebook.

"Can you show me the mountain ranges once?" she asked. "Your map was good."

Aarav moved his atlas between them and showed her where the labels should go. The following week, another girl borrowed his notes for a map test.

He was becoming known for something other than the transfer.

5.2 Walking Beside Them

As the term continued, Aarav stopped walking two steps behind Anaya and Kavya between classes. He walked beside them.

At lunch, he passed his poha to Kavya, borrowed Anaya's extra spoon, and joined their arguments without waiting to be invited.

He talked more too.

"Seriously?" he said when Kavya gave an unlikely reason for unfinished work.

"Arre baba, keep the scale straight," he told Anaya during chart work.

One evening, Aarav was telling Mother how the substitute teacher had mistaken him for a visitor when Riya stopped folding her uniform.

"You have started talking exactly like Kavya," she said.

"No, I have not."

"Same tone also."

"Don't be stupid," Aarav replied.

Riya pointed at him. "See?"

Mother smiled into her tea.

Aarav did not notice these changes while they were happening. He sat closer to his friends, became more expressive while talking, and stopped forcing his voice to sound rough. He was no longer guarding every movement.

5.3 The Dark-Blue Hairband

Mother had delayed Aarav's usual haircut while he settled into school. After several months, his front hair reached his eyes whenever he bent over a notebook.

Riya gave him a plain dark-blue hairband for studying at home.

"Only for keeping the hair away," Aarav said.

"Only for that," Riya agreed.

The hairband stayed in his pencil pouch. He did not wear it at school every day. It came out only during a long test or reading period when the front hair would not stay away from his eyes.

The first time he used it during a science test, he worried that everyone would look.

Nobody did. Everyone was busy writing.

After the test, he returned it to his pouch. The hairband was an occasional practical item at school. The small clips remained at home.

5.4 The Class Photograph

Near the end of the term, the class photograph was taken.

Aarav stood in the second row with his school ID visible. He used the dark-blue hairband because the photographer kept asking him to move the front hair away from his eyes.

When the photograph arrived, he studied it for a long time.

His face did not look strange among the others. His small smile did not look borrowed. The navy trousers were the only obvious difference in the row.

He placed the photograph carefully back inside its cover.

He did not know what that feeling meant yet.

But he no longer looked like someone who was only visiting.