The classroom felt unusually silent that morning.
Not peaceful.
The uncomfortable kind of silence that appeared before a class test.
Pages turned hurriedly.
Pens tapped nervously against desks.
Someone behind Anaya kept repeating trigonometric formulas under his breath continuously.
[\sin^2 \theta + \cos^2 \theta = 1]
Anaya sat near the corridor window quietly with her mathematics notebook open in front of her.
Differentiation formulas filled nearly every page in rough handwriting.
Half the steps were scratched out repeatedly.
She had stayed awake late solving questions from an old reference book because yesterday's lecture still irritated her.
Especially that ignored doubt.
Even now,
just remembering it worsened her mood again.
"Did you study limits?" Alisha whispered while opening her notebook anxiously.
"A little."
"A little means?"
"Enough to pass maybe."
"That means no."
Anaya almost smiled faintly,
but before she could reply,
the corridor outside suddenly became silent.
Aarav entered the classroom.
Same calm expression.
Same cold atmosphere.
Without greeting anyone,
he placed the register on the desk and began writing questions across the blackboard immediately.
[\lim_{x \to 0} \frac{\tan x - \sin x}{x^3}]
The moment Anaya saw question two,
her irritation returned instantly.
Wonderful.
Exactly this.
The same concept she had struggled with last night.
"You have forty minutes," Aarav said calmly.
"Start."
Immediately,
answer sheets began rustling across the classroom.
Anaya tightened her grip around the pen and bent over the paper silently.
The first question went smoothly.
[\frac{d}{dx}(x^2+3x+1)=2x+3]
Fine.
At least differentiation still made sense today.
But question two completely ruined her flow.
She stared at the limit expression for several seconds.
Then slowly began solving.
[\tan x = \frac{\sin x}{\cos x}]
First step correct.
Second step fine.
Third step—
wrong.
Again.
Anaya crossed out the line irritably.
Why did this stupid question keep getting ruined at the same point every single time?
The sound of footsteps slowly moved between rows.
Aarav was checking students silently while the classroom remained buried in nervous scratching sounds.
Anaya kept her eyes fixed on the answer sheet stubbornly.
She would solve it herself.
No matter how long it took.
The footsteps stopped briefly beside her desk.
For one second,
Aarav looked down at her half-solved calculation.
Then calmly said,
"x cube dekho."
Nothing else.
No explanation.
No pause.
And then he walked away normally.
Anaya stared at the crossed-out step immediately.
A sudden wave of irritation rushed through her chest.
Of course he would notice mistakes.
Only mistakes.
Never the effort behind them.
She pressed the pen harder against the paper.
Fine.
If the method kept failing,
she would solve it differently.
Anaya turned the page and started again from another approach she had once seen inside an old mathematics guidebook.
Longer.
More irritating.
But possible.
Her rough work quickly filled half the margin.
[\tan x-\sin x\sin x\left(\frac{1}{\cos x}-1\right)]
Step after step,
she forced herself through the solution stubbornly until finally the answer matched.
Only then did she breathe properly again.
When the bell rang,
students immediately began complaining.
"That paper was impossible."
"I'm definitely failing."
"Question two killed me."
Anaya silently submitted her answer sheet without looking toward the front desk once.
As she walked back,
she could still feel irritation burning somewhere inside her chest.
Not because the question was difficult.
Because somehow,
every classroom interaction with Aarav managed to ruin her mood for the entire day.
And she hated that.
Lunch break became noisy after the test.
Students argued over answers while revising physics formulas for the next lecture.
[V = IR]
[\frac{1}{f}=\frac{1}{v}-\frac{1}{u}]
Anaya sat near the corridor railing quietly with her physics notebook open,
trying to revise ray optics derivations.
But after every few lines,
her concentration broke again.
"x cube dekho."
The same calm voice replayed irritatingly inside her head.
Anaya shut the notebook harder than necessary.
Khadoos.
Why was he always like that?
By evening,
heavy rain had started falling outside.
Water struck the balcony railing continuously while cold wind entered through the half-open window beside her study table.
Anaya sat surrounded by:
rough notebooks
chemistry practical files
physics derivations
unfinished mathematics questions
Yet she had barely studied properly for the last twenty minutes.
Because her mind kept replaying the morning again and again.
The ignored doubt yesterday.
The cold correction today.
The same emotionless face.
Anaya suddenly threw the pen onto the table in frustration.
Why was she even wasting time thinking about this?
It was ridiculous.
He was just a teacher.
A strict,
irritating,
unnecessarily cold teacher.
Then why did every small classroom moment stay inside her head for so long?
Annoyed with herself,
she pulled the physics notebook closer again.
[P = \frac{W}{t}]
Focus.
Just focus.
But even while rewriting formulas,
that same irritation remained somewhere inside her chest quietly,
refusing to disappear.