A month passed after the nightmare incident, moving slow and fast all at once. Like the steady unraveling of a tightly wound thread, like the soft but sure pull of an ocean current. Saanvi and Darshik were changing, shifting—together. Close, but not close enough. 

The tension between them had settled into something warm, something patient, something waiting. Conversations no longer felt like obligations but like small, stolen pieces of something bigger. Something fragile but real.