The studio lights were still on long after most students had left.

Only four tables remained occupied. Someone’s soft playlist leaked from a single earphone. The air smelled of pencil shavings, leftover coffee, and the faint metallic scent of model-making materials.

Aarohi sat with her legs folded under her, hair tied in a messy bun that was already falling apart. Three pencils lay broken beside her elbow. A fourth was moving quickly across the sheet.

Maya stretched her arms. “We’ve been here for six hours.”

“Five hours and forty minutes. I counted.”

“That’s not better.”

Kabir closed his laptop. “I’m leaving before I forget what daylight looks like.”

Neha stood and packed her bag. “Same. Aarohi, come with us.”

“I’ll stay another thirty minutes. I want to finish the thermal break detail.”

Maya gave her a look. “You said that one hour ago.”

“This time I mean it.”

Kabir shook his head. “She’s lying. She’s going to stay until the security guard throws her out.”

Aarohi didn’t look up. “The security guard likes me.”

“The security guard is scared of you.”

Neha sighed. “Text us when you leave.”

“I will.”

“And don’t spill anything.”

“No promises.”

The three of them left. Their voices faded down the corridor.

The studio became much quieter.

Aarohi kept drawing.

She didn’t notice the door open again until a familiar calm voice spoke from a few metres away.

“You’re still here, Miss Sharma.”

She looked up.

Arjun stood near the front table, black shirt sleeves rolled, a folder in one hand. He must have come back after his meeting.

Of course he came back, she thought. He probably never actually leaves this building.

She sat up straighter. “Professor. I thought you had a meeting.”

“It ended.”

“And you came back here?”

“I left some sheets.”

“You could have taken them earlier.”

“I could have.”

A short silence.

Aarohi tapped her pencil against the table. “Are you going to tell me to leave?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“You’re working. I have no reason to stop you.”

She blinked. “That’s surprisingly reasonable.”

“I am often reasonable.”

“You hide it well.”

Arjun placed his folder on the front table and walked closer. He stopped a few steps away from her desk, looking at the drawing.

“The thermal break detail.”

“Yes.”

“Show me.”

She turned the sheet toward him. “I used a twenty-millimetre polymer spacer. The metal frame stops short of the slab. The wooden louvers continue past the break so the line still looks continuous from inside.”

Arjun studied it for a long moment.

She solved the visual problem and the technical problem in one move, he thought. Most students would have chosen one and ignored the other.

He spoke. “The spacer thickness is correct. The continuity of the louver line is intelligent. However, you need a vapour barrier at the junction. Without it, condensation will form inside the frame during monsoon.”

Aarohi leaned forward. “Where exactly?”

He pointed. “Here. Between the polymer and the aluminium. A thin membrane is enough.”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“You will next time.”

She looked up at him. “Is that your way of saying the rest is fine?”

“It is my way of saying the rest is acceptable.”

“I’ll take acceptable.”

“You should aim higher than acceptable.”

“I aim for ‘Professor Malhotra doesn’t immediately hate it.’ That’s already high.”

A faint pause.

Arjun’s voice stayed even. “I do not hate your work, Miss Sharma.”

She stared at him. “You don’t?”

“I criticise what is wrong. That is not the same as hate.”

“It feels similar when you’re on the receiving end.”

“Then you should separate the two.”

Aarohi rested her chin on her hand. “Do you ever say anything soft, or is your vocabulary permanently set to ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’?”

“Soft words are rarely useful in design.”

“They’re useful with people.”

“We are discussing design.”

“We’re also two people in an empty studio at eight-forty at night.”

Another short silence.

Arjun looked at the drawing again instead of her face. “Finish the vapour barrier detail. Then leave. The building closes at nine-thirty.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I’ve stayed later than this before.”

“I am aware.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been checking?”

“I walk past the studio when I leave. The lights are difficult to miss.”

He’s noticed, she thought. Of course he’s noticed. He notices everything.

She spoke more quietly. “I’ll finish in twenty minutes.”

“Fifteen.”

“Eighteen.”

“Fifteen.”

She almost smiled. “You’re very bossy for someone who claims he isn’t telling me to leave.”

“I am giving you information. What you do with it is your choice.”

“Information that sounds a lot like an order.”

“Interpretation is also your choice.”

Aarohi laughed under her breath. “You’re impossible.”

“So I have been told.”

“By me, mostly.”

“Yes.”

She looked down at the drawing again, then back up. “Professor.”

“Yes.”

“Why do you stay so late?”

Arjun’s eyes moved from the sheet to the dark windows. “There is always more work.”

“That’s not a real answer.”

“It is the only answer I have.”

“Do you ever go home on time?”

“Define on time.”

“Before the rest of the city falls asleep.”

“Rarely.”

Aarohi tilted her head. “That sounds lonely.”

A longer silence this time.

Arjun’s voice remained calm, but quieter. “Loneliness and solitude are not the same thing.”

“They look the same from the outside.”

“Most things do.”

She watched him for a moment.

He’s not cold, she thought. He’s careful. There’s a difference. I just didn’t see it before.

She picked up her pencil again. “I’ll add the vapour barrier.”

“Good.”

“And then I’ll leave.”

“Also good.”

“You’re not going to stand there and watch me, are you?”

“No.”

He walked back to the front table, opened his folder, and began reviewing sheets from the other groups.

The studio stayed quiet except for the sound of Aarohi’s pencil and the occasional turn of a page from his side of the room.

Fifteen minutes later she stood up, rolled her drawing, and packed her bag.

One pencil fell and rolled under the table. She knelt, retrieved it, and muttered, “Traitor.”

Arjun’s voice came from the front without him looking up. “You lose more pencils than most students use in a semester.”

“They’re free-spirited.”

“They are inanimate.”

“Not to me.”

She walked toward the door, then stopped.

“Professor.”

“Yes.”

“Thanks for the vapour barrier note.”

“It was necessary.”

“Still. Thank you.”

He finally looked up. “You’re welcome, Miss Sharma.”

She hesitated for half a second longer than usual.

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

She left.

The door closed behind her with a soft click.

Arjun remained standing at the front table. He looked at the empty desk she had just left — the broken pencils, the faint graphite fingerprints on the surface, the chair still slightly turned out.

She stays later than the others, he thought. Not because she is behind. Because she wants the work to be better. Even when she talks too much. Even when she arrives late. Even when she argues with every correction.

He closed the folder.

Outside, the corridor was dark except for the emergency lights.

Arjun turned off the studio lights one by one, until only the exit sign glowed above the door.

Then he left, the quiet of the empty room settling behind him like a held breath.