Chapter 2 THE MIDTERM WAR

POV OF TARA VYAS

The library was a battleground.

Not the noisy, chaotic kind. The opposite—silent, tense, surgical. Pages turned like clockwork. Pens scratched across notebooks like scalpels carving out futures. I lived for it.

Until he walked in.

Kian Raheja, in all his arrogant, monochrome perfection.

White shirt. Black jeans. Neat laptop bag. A machine dressed like a man.

He clocked me immediately—of course he did—and took the seat diagonally across. Close enough to irritate. Not close enough to justify homicide.

I ignored him. Tried to.

My mind was buried in neuropsychology flashcards. His presence was buried in my spine.

Fifteen minutes passed. Then:

“You know you’ve been stuck on the same card for eight minutes, right?”

I didn't look up. “You know you’re not the voice in my head, right?”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

I clenched my jaw. He knew exactly how to needle me—calculated, quiet strikes like a chess prodigy playing blitz.

I flipped the flashcard. “Midterms are in four days. Shouldn’t you be charming someone else with your passive-aggressive flirting?”

“That wasn’t flirting,” he said casually. “If I flirted, you'd know.”

My pen snapped in half.

His smirk widened just enough to qualify as a federal offense.

I stood up. Grabbed my bag. Walked to the far side of the library like I wasn’t fleeing a crime scene.

Behind me, I heard him whisper to no one in particular:

“Vyas: 0. Raheja: check.”

I was going to destroy him.

Not metaphorically.

Academically. Socially. Professionally.

I’d beat him in this midterm if it was the last thing I did. I didn’t care if he was smarter, faster, richer, taller, cooler—

Actually, I did care.

I cared enough to bury that smirk six feet under a pile of my perfect grades.

POV OF KIAN RAHEJA

Watching Tara study was like watching war strategy.

Every movement was planned. Efficient. No wasted motion. No distractions.

No mercy.

I didn’t come to the library looking for her.

But when I saw her, I couldn’t not sit nearby. Something about rattling her just… soothed my soul.

She pretended not to care. Classic. But her pen cracking like a brittle bone told me everything I needed.

She hated losing control.

And I loved being the reason she did.

What she didn’t know—couldn’t know—was that she’d already gotten under my skin. Not in a romantic way. Not even close.

More like… a virus I couldn’t debug.

Every time I aced a paper, I checked hers first.

Every compliment from a professor felt incomplete unless she didn’t get one.

She was competition in its most addictive form.

Midterms were in four days. And Tara Vyas was studying like her life depended on it.

So I studied harder.

I wasn’t going to lose.

Because if she beat me—even once—it wouldn’t just hurt.

It would haunt......

What's gonna happen? Something interesting......

Looking forward to all my dear reader's comments and plz share your point of view on my 2 lovely characters. 愛してます

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