After the parent-teacher conference, Nikita did not drop out. She simply disappeared from everyone's notice—alive, in the room, but unapproachable. Her vacant seat beside her was a barrier no one could breach. Seeing her slip away like that should have calmed me, but it did not.
Something colder filled its space.
I lost interest in miscellaneous people—their smiles, their opinions, even their phobias. I started regarding everybody differently, like pieces on a board you can shift when you please. Somewhere along the line of revenge and weariness, I'd discovered people were tools. Useful, temporary, disposable.
Gossip started going around once more, this time about me. Krishanu's changed. He's getting into trouble. He's not that same boy who topped the exams. Even the teachers hushed, saying I was having a "tough time." Perhaps they were correct. But I'd already discovered how little others' concern counted.
I was stressed, though—quietly, deeply stressed. My head was always full. Sleep came in fits. I assured myself I just needed distraction, something—or someone—to draw me away from my own mind. So I began… talking to people. Lots of people.
They referred to them as relationships, but they weren't. They were all brief, quick, and superficial. I altered the way that I spoke, the way that I smiled, the way that I listened. Every new face was a new problem to figure out, another opportunity to determine how much words could warp someone's heart. Initially, it was out of curiosity. Then it was routine.
One of them was an upperclassman—intelligent, cocky, belonged to a clique that believed they owned the hallways. Her friends disliked me; they came to "warn" me once. But the image of them standing there awkwardly before me only served to make me smile. Rumors about me had spread—about the altercations, the taping, the so-called backup from 12th-graders. They soon took off, and I discovered something potent: fear is more effective than charm.
That awareness set something within me alight. I no longer required fists. I could combat with words, with quietness, with focus given and withdrawn.
I wasn't cruel, not exactly. I didn't insult or shout. I just learned where to press, how to twist a sentence, when to walk away so the silence said the rest. Watching someone stumble to keep up with my pace gave me the same rush the old fights once did. It was control—clean, invisible control.
Sometimes I reminded myself I was just trying to forget. But the reality was less complicated. I enjoyed the game. I enjoyed watching how easy it was to be liked, trusted, and feared in the same moment.
PK saw it first.
"Man, you're famous now," he said, chuckling half-heartedly. "Every class has stories about you. You beat delinquents, terrorize seniors, and break hearts. You're basically an urban legend."
I grinned. "Urban legends don't take finals," I told him.
But when he walked out, I gazed at my own reflection in the window glass. The smile no longer reached my eyes.
The power was exhilarating, yes—but accompanied by a hollow quality. Every conversation, every flare of attention, came to an end with the same ringing thought: What now? When the thrill had subsided, there was silence once more.
One night, I met a girl I'd cut off weeks before. She stared at me as if she'd just seen a spirit, and then—silent—turned away. Her glance stung harder than any blow I'd ever taken. For the first time, I could see the pattern: I was hurting people just as I'd been hurt.
I reminded myself to quit. But the following day, I kept doing it all again. The ritual wasn't just a habit—it was something I'd based my equilibrium on. I didn't know how to be normal.
There were nights when I messaged Mayank. He'd text jokes back, boasting about his new school, his new classmates. He'd make fun of me for being too solemn. I never told him what I was actually doing. Perhaps I was embarrassed, or perhaps I didn't wish for him to realize what I had become. He still regarded me as the same old Krishanu—the silent topper who could defend his friends. I didn't wish to destroy that version of myself, even though it was already lost.
By the year's end, I was first at top, I was surrounded by others but utterly alone. Everyone knew my name, but nobody ever actually spoke with me for more than a few minutes. I had made my life into a show—a delicate balance of intrigue and threat that everybody marveled at from afar.
Late at night, sometimes, I'd see my reflection staring back and think that was what it meant to be growing up: to learn to hurt before being hurt, to learn to play before being played. It terrified me, but it also reassured me. Perhaps this was who I was now.
I didn't know then that this stage—the games, the gossip, the empty triumphs—was only laying the groundwork for something greater. Something that would challenge what little of me remained human.
But for the moment, I continued to smile.