It had been months since that night — the night of their first kiss. The memory lingered like a sweet perfume, settling in corners of their minds when they least expected it.

Zoya stared out of the classroom window, chin resting on her hand, her notebook untouched. Aarfa was blabbering something beside her, but Zoya wasn’t listening. Not really.

She was lost in the memory.

“You’re going to ruin me, Zoya.”

His voice echoed in her head like a song she couldn’t stop humming. She smiled unconsciously, the kind of soft, silly smile that made people stare and wonder if she had gone mad.

Her cheeks flushed.

She tried to shake it off.

But then she remembered the way his hand had held her face so gently. The warmth of his breath. The tremble in his fingertips when he finally kissed her.

A tiny squeal escaped her lips before she slapped a hand over her mouth.

“Zoya?” Aarfa narrowed her eyes. “Why are you smiling like a cartoon?”

“I—I’m not!” Zoya lied, failing miserably.

“Thinking about someone?” Aarfa teased.

Zoya ducked her head into her notebook, mumbling something about class notes.

---

Across campus, Akif was equally hopeless.

He sat on the basketball court bleachers, sipping water, pretending to listen to Ayaan’s rant about exam pressure.

But his mind was replaying that night like a film.

The way she had looked at him — scared but brave. The way her lips trembled before they met his. The way she fit perfectly into the crook of his arm when they sat in silence afterward.

He smiled without realizing.

“Bro... what the hell?” Ayaan interrupted. “Why are you blushing like a dulhan?”

Akif gave him a glare. “Shut up.”

Ayaan laughed. “You’re gone, man. G-O-N-E. Gone.”

Akif didn’t deny it.

He remembered how she said, ‘Maybe I already have.’ And she had.

He hadn’t kissed anyone before her. Not like that. Not where it mattered.

Now? He caught himself smiling at the sight of clouds that reminded him of the dusky evening they first kissed. He caught himself replaying her laugh when she teased him. Her voice calling his name softly when no one else could hear.

He was in deep.

He knew it. And he didn’t want to come out.

---

That night, they both lay in their beds — phones in hand, texts half-written.

Akif: “Are you still thinking about that night?”

Zoya’s heart skipped.

Zoya: “Yes. Are you?”

Akif: “Every day.”

---