Chapter 2: First Collaboration

By the second day of the workshop, the six of them had agreed on a concept:

“Unspoken.”

That was the name of their project — an exploration of everything people feel but never say.

It was Vihan’s idea, born out of a quiet sketch he showed Jinal. A faceless figure made of tangled lines, holding a heart in their hand, unsure where to put it.

Jinal had stared at it for a long time before whispering, “I could write something for this.”

Vihan only nodded. That was enough.

Their group gathered on the third floor of the arts building — a large studio filled with mismatched chairs, whiteboards, and floor cushions. Rain tapped against the windows as a soft background rhythm.

Parth dropped his guitar case with a dramatic sigh. “Okay team, let’s make something unforgettable. Or at least something that doesn’t make Jeel throw it across the room.”

Jeel rolled her eyes. “If it’s basic, I’m out. Don’t test me, Rockstar.”

“You wound me.”

Shikha, seated near the piano, gave a quiet laugh. Parth turned toward her, grinning. “See? She gets my vibe.”

“She’s polite,” Jeel shot back. “There’s a difference.”

Vishwa watched it all with mild amusement. He was already flipping through a set of photographs he’d taken the previous weekend — city streets, old hands, broken windows. “I have some visuals we could layer into the projection,” he offered. “Things that feel... forgotten. Like memories we never speak of.”

Jinal looked up. “That fits. The whole Unspoken idea. Like images that make people feel something they can't name.”

Jeel leaned forward. “What if we pair each image with a single line of poetry? Minimal words. Maximum emotion.”

Shikha added, almost shyly, “And the music can rise beneath each image. No lyrics. Just feeling.”

Parth nodded, impressed. “Okay, okay, we’re doing something here. I can start composing a soft acoustic progression — nothing too loud, just enough to hold the mood.”

Vihan turned his sketchpad around, revealing more abstract drawings — each one slightly distorted, like fragments of someone’s emotional landscape. “These can be transitions between the visuals.”

Everyone fell silent for a moment, looking at each other with something like realization: they weren’t just building a project. They were building a connection — raw, real, and unfiltered.

---

As the hours passed, something shifted.

Jeel stopped rolling her eyes at Parth’s comments — though she still called him out with sharp wit. But she also listened when he played something on the guitar and gave thoughtful feedback, even if she pretended not to care.

“You know,” she admitted once, tapping her pen against her chin, “You’re not completely unbearable when you’re focused.”

Parth grinned. “Careful, Jeel. That almost sounded like a compliment.”

“It wasn’t.”

Meanwhile, Vihan and Jinal worked like they shared the same silence. She wrote in fragments, reading them aloud only after he finished sketching beside her. It was like they were telling one story in two different languages — but somehow, they always matched.

“Do you always draw emotions like this?” Jinal asked quietly once, her fingers resting near the edge of his page.

Vihan hesitated. “Only when I don’t know how to explain them.”

She nodded. “I write for the same reason.”

Their hands touched, just barely, and neither of them pulled away.

---

On the far side of the room, Vishwa and Shikha sat cross-legged near the piano.

He was showing her a photo — a candid moment of a little girl standing in the rain, arms open, soaked but smiling.

“What do you see in this?” he asked.

Shikha studied it carefully. “She’s not afraid to feel. Even if it’s cold. Even if she might catch a fever. She’s just... open.”

Vishwa smiled. “That’s what I thought, too.”

She played a soft note on the keys — then another. “I think I can write something that feels like that photo.”

“Show me?”

She played a few gentle bars. Vishwa closed his eyes. “That feels like a memory.”

“I think it is,” she whispered.

---

By the time the clock struck 6 PM, none of them wanted to leave.

They’d barely noticed the time. The storm outside had passed, leaving streaks of orange light against the windows.

Jeel stretched her arms and stood. “Not bad, Group Four.”

Parth chuckled. “That sounds dangerously close to praise.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

Vihan gathered his sketches quietly, glancing once at Jinal. She met his eyes, smiled, and said, “Same time tomorrow?”

He nodded.

Vishwa stood beside Shikha, holding her umbrella. “I’ll walk you down?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”

Parth slung his guitar over his back, turned to Jeel. “Want to race me to the canteen?”

“You’ll lose.”

“I’m counting on it.”

As they all exited into the soft light of the evening, something unspoken had already passed between them — a beginning stitched with threads of art, tension, kindness, and something tender that none of them had names for just yet.

But soon, they would.

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End of Chapter 2 ✅

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