The corridor outside 12-B smelt of wet socks and fried chili. Monsoon had wedged itself into every shoe and school bag; fungi were probably holding elections in the lockers. Aarav stood at the noticeboard, hair dripping like a half-pressed tap, reading the freshly printed sheet:
ECONOMICS GROUP PAIRS & COUNTER-GROUPS
Aarav Mehta and Priya Desai for the topic "Impact of Gig Work on Mumbai Youth"
Critics: Kabir Shah,Ananya Rao, and Tara Kulkarni
The paper was still warm from the staff-room printer. Warm and already accusing.
"Counter-group?" Priya's voice behind him, sharp enough to cut bread. "Means they get to tear us apart in front of the whole class?"
Aarav's tongue felt heavy. He managed a nod. Thirty percent of the term grade has been Mr Mhatre's idea of fun. Last year, a counter-presentation had ended with someone crying into their pie-chart.
Kabir appeared, sliding on the slick tiles like this was a bowling alley. "Yo, project partners-by-proxy," he grinned. "Hope your data's watertight. We bite."
Ananya whacked his arm with a file. "Ignore him. We're only brutal if you use Comic Sans."
Tara said nothing, eyes flicking between Aarav and Priya the way people check traffic before jaywalking.
Priya's fingers tightened around her water bottle. "We're fine," she lied. "Plenty of primary data."
"Cool," Tara murmured. "See you fourth period." She walked off with sneakers squeaking out a private Morse code.
Aarav realised he'd been holding his breath. He exhaled, and the corridor felt smaller.
Library staircase,during break time. Rain clattered on the tin roof; students sat lined along the steps like pigeons on a wire. Priya found Aarav two landings above the fiction racks, earbuds in, scrawling numbers on a crumpled printout.
"Need the demand survey," she said, hand out. "I'm making the slides tonight."
He pulled the buds out. "I haven't finished coding the responses."
"You've had four days."
"I've had memes of my face photoshopped onto Tere Naam Salman circulating,excuse me for being distracted."
Priya's cheeks burned. "You think I'm enjoying this? Half the school believes I leaked your stupid playlist to prove I'm 'over you'. My DMs are a circus."
"Are you?" he shot back. "Over me?"
The question hung between them, stupid and raw. Downstairs, someone dropped a metal tiffin; the clang echoed like a judge's gavel.
Priya sat two steps below him, hugging her knees. "I didn't share the link, Aarav. I made the list for you, not for… whatever this is."
He picked at the paper, ripping micro-tears. "Then who?"
"Tara had my pen-drive for the Sociology notes. Maybe she copied everything without looking."
"That's your defense? 'Maybe'?"
"I'm trying here," she whispered. "You're not the only one bleeding."
Aarav's throat worked. He wished he could hate her cleanly, but the song list kept replaying in his skull with every track a breadcrumb back to moments he'd rather forget. "We still have to present together," he said finally. "Let's keep the blood off the slides."
"Fine." She stood, wiped her palms on her skirt. "Send me the CSV by midnight. No Comic Sans, or Ananya will murder us."
During the fourth period, the Bio lab was emptied after enzyme tests. Mr Mhatre had booked it for "rehearsal space"translation: gladiator pit. Microscopes shoved aside, whiteboard wiped of mitochondria jokes. Kabir, Ananya, and Tara commandeered the front bench; Aarav and Priya set their laptop opposite like defendants.
Kabir clicked a pen. "Opening statement: gig work is exploitative, not liberating. Agree or perish."
Ananya rolled her eyes. "We're critiquing method, not declaring war. Relax, Karl Marx."
Tara opened her notebook: neat sketches of supply-demand curves beside doodles of crows. She tapped the page. "Your sample size is sixty and that's too thin for significance."
"We're surveying more," Priya said. "Target two hundred by weekend."
"Time crunch," Kabir mused. "Also, self-selection bias and only your Instagram followers replied."
Aarav felt heat crawl up his collar. "We're using snowball sampling, documented limitation. We'll state it."
"Good," Ananya nodded. "Transparency buys goodwill."
Kabir leaned back on two legs of the stool. "Speaking of transparency, is there any reason your playlist went viral the same day you collected emails for the survey? Sample contamination, no?"
Priya flinched. Aarav's pen snapped, blue ink blooming on his thumb. "That's irrelevant," he muttered.
"Not if personal drama skews data," Kabir said, softer now. "Look, I'm not here to humiliate you. But if the class smells blood, they'll rip you apart. We're trying to armour-plate your project."
Tara shut her notebook. From her pocket, she produced a tiny USB,the same purple moulded plastic Priya had bought at a stationer in Andheri. She placed it on the table like an offering.
"I copied everything," she said. "Didn't check contents. My kid brother took it to his tuition and plugged it into the class computer. Auto-play opened the playlist. Someone screen-recorded." Her voice shook, but she kept going. "I'm sorry. Really."
Silence, thick as formaldehyde. Ananya exhaled through her teeth. Kabir righted his stool, the joke gone out of him.
Aarav stared at the drive. One small rectangle, big enough to sink them. He felt suddenly tired, the way you feel when fever breaks. "Not your fault," he told Tara. "Could've been any of us."
Priya's eyes glistened. She blinked fast and turned to the whiteboard. "Let's fix the sample bias. Kabir, can you share your follower list? Different demographic."
"Sure," he said, surprised. "We'll crowd-source."
Ananya uncapped a marker. "We'll draft questions together with neutral phrasing and no leading adjectives."
Tara pulled up a stool. For the first time in days, the air felt usable.
By seven, the lab had emptied again. Rain had eased to a metallic drizzle that hissed against the ventilators. Aarav saved the updated file and closed the laptop. Priya zipped her bag, hesitating.
"Coffee?" she asked, eyes on the floor. "There's a new tapri outside the back gate. They keep Malabari khawa—tastes like Christmas."
He considered. Phones in their pockets buzzed with fresh meme tag, probably. The wound wasn't closed, but it had stopped festering.
"One coffee," he said. "We'll split the bill. Like unbiased data."
A ghost of a smile crossed her face. "Deal."
They walked out, leaving the whiteboard crowded with multicolored arrows, a messy map neither of them could read alone. Behind them, the marker dust hung in the air, waiting for tomorrow's monsoon to wash it clean.