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Nikhil Goyal was bored.

Utterly, totally, spiritually bored.

He hadn’t been able to catch a single glimpse of that senior all week — and believe him, he had really, really tried.

From waiting around the hostel entrance like a suspiciously well-dressed security guard, to casually wandering through the departments second-years had classes in, to “accidentally” spending an unreasonable amount of time near the pathology block — he had tried everything.

But no luck.

Not even one microscopic sighting of Mr. Pretty, Pressed, and Permanently Bitchy Senior.

He tried to tell himself it wasn’t personal.

It really wasn’t.

The fascination he had — it was about the principle of the thing, not the person. He was addicted to the thrill of defying and dismantling this ridiculous so-called senior–junior hierarchy. That was it. The hierarchy was stupid. Challenging it was fun. Calling it out was the reward.

It wasn’t about him.

It had to be that.

So Nikhil, being Nikhil, decided to test the theory.

He deliberately walked through the paths first-years were “not allowed” to use.

He deliberately went to the central library.

He deliberately went to the indoor badminton courts.

Nothing.

In the hallways, he walked with his chin held high. He didn’t offer any senior greetings — much less a quivering “Good morning, boss” or “Good morning, sir.”

He waited for someone to snap.

For someone to react.

For someone to flare up.

One senior — a lanky guy who seemed far more invested in his Marrow notes than Nikhil’s revolutionary campaign to dismantle medical hierarchy before lunch — just gave him a long, exhausted look and walked on, utterly uninterested in whatever performance Nikhil had going on.

There was no thrill.

No spark.

No aggravated, sharp voice biting back at him.

It was like poking a bowl of lukewarm, days-old pudding. No resistance. No personality. No gratification to be gained from it.

Which was extremely offensive, frankly.

Maybe the previous senior had just been too lenient.

So he tried again — this time with a stricter one.

A third-year. Rumor had it he was very serious about the whole senior–junior dynamic. Perfect.

Nikhil passed him in the corridor and didn’t greet him properly.

“Hey,” was all he said. Casual. Almost friendly.

Nothing.

The senior just gave him a weary, disapproving look — the kind a librarian gives a noisy patron — and walked away.

There was no aggravated, cute voice.

No adorable blush spreading across tanned cheeks in anger.

No sharp, furious eyes flashing like someone had just personally insulted his entire lineage.

No small, tightly wound frame vibrating with barely contained indignation.

No pressed shirt sleeves rolled up in irritation.

No “What is wrong with you?” in that clipped, dangerously polite tone.

Nothing.

And that was when it hit him.

The high of chasing wasn’t baseline.

It had never been about chasing seniors in general.

It was about chasing that specific senior.

Alone in his room one afternoon, Nikhil finally admitted it to himself.

He had never been great at denial. His brain was annoyingly straightforward. He didn’t experience the dramatic emotional blindness other people seemed to indulge in. He could see things — especially things like this — with almost uncomfortable clarity.

It didn’t take long for the pieces to fall into place.

For something to click quietly in his mind.

Yes, that senior was bitchy.

He was petty. Rule-obsessed. A tyrant in training.

He glared like he actively wished Nikhil’s next breath would be his last.

But.

He was also…

Cute.

In a sharp, pretty, adorably intense, catty way.

The kind that made Nikhil want to poke him again and again, even if it meant getting snarled at and scratched for it.

The memory surfaced with irritating clarity.

Aarav’s flushed, furious face.

The way his eyes had flashed — dark and incandescent.

The way his small frame radiated barely contained irritation, tinged with genuine indignation, as if he had been personally wronged in a deeply heinous way.

As if Nikhil had committed a crime against civilization by existing within a five-foot radius.

It was addictive.

That reaction.

Real. Unfiltered. Electrifying.

Only that senior could give him that.

Nikhil had always been comfortably bisexual. He’d dated both guys and girls before. It wasn’t a secret. He wasn’t hiding it — but it wasn’t a headline about his personality either.

It was a plain and simple fact about him.

Like the color of his eyes.

Or his favorite food.

He wasn’t attracted to a specific gender or a rigid type. He was attracted to spark. To personality. To fire.

And right now?

That senior — with all his catty mannerisms, explosive temper, and perfectly ironed shirts — was ticking every single one of Nikhil Goyal’s boxes.

He didn’t like him.

You don’t “like” someone who glares at you like you’re a public health hazard.

But he was viscerally aware of one undeniable fact.

He was attracted to him.

The desire to disobey and poke him wasn’t just rebellion anymore.

Maybe it never truly was.

It was the simple, magnetic pull of wanting to provoke someone you find devastatingly attractive. Of wanting to see that expression again. And again. And again.

He wanted to see the fire in Aarav’s eyes.

He wanted to hear that clipped, aggravated tone.

He wanted to be the only one that senior yelled at like that.

He wanted to be the only one who could make him so angry his face reddened like he was blushing.

The fact that the reaction was born out of fury?

At this point, almost irrelevant.

But the problem remained.

The target had vanished.

The cat Nikhil desperately wanted to poke and get scratched by was nowhere to be seen.

Leaning back on his bed, staring at the ceiling, Nikhil sighed dramatically.

This was… certainly a problem.

One he would have to solve very, very soon.

Because the gremlin in his mind was getting restless.

And restless gremlins?

They get creative