Distance, Kabir realized, was not as simple as creating it.
It didn't just separate.
It echoed.
The next few days passed in a quiet that felt unfamiliar.
Dev stopped staying after class.
Not abruptly.
Not dramatically.
He simply… left.
As soon as the lecture ended, he packed his things and walked out with everyone else. No pause. No waiting. No "Sir."
Kabir noticed it the first day.
He told himself it was fine.
The second day, he expected it to change.
It didn't.
By the third day, the absence had settled into something real.
And Kabir felt it.
More than he expected.
The classroom felt the same.
But it didn't feel the same.
There was no one lingering in the third row. No quiet presence waiting without asking. No soft voice breaking the silence after everyone else had gone.
Just empty chairs.
And Kabir, standing at the front, with nothing to delay him anymore.
He started leaving immediately.
There was no reason not to.
And yet—
he found himself looking back once before walking out.
Every time.
At the flat, things were quieter too.
Dev's door stayed closed.
No late-night knocks.
No hesitant questions.
No soft conversations that stretched longer than they should have.
Kabir told himself this was what he wanted.
Distance.
Clarity.
Control.
But control felt strangely hollow when there was nothing left to manage.
One evening, Kabir returned home and paused outside his door.
He could hear faint movement from Dev's flat.
A chair shifting.
Pages turning.
Life continuing.
Without him.
Kabir unlocked his door and stepped inside.
Closed it.
And for the first time, the silence didn't feel calm.
It felt empty.
Two days later, Rohan called again.
Kabir didn't answer the first time.
He did the second.
"You sound worse," Rohan said immediately.
Kabir didn't bother responding to that.
"What do you want?"
Rohan sighed.
"I came to check if you've destroyed everything yet."
Kabir's voice stayed flat.
"There's nothing to destroy."
A pause.
Then Rohan said quietly,
"So he stopped coming around."
Kabir didn't ask how he knew.
He just said,
"That's better."
Rohan didn't agree.
"I don't think it is."
Kabir's patience thinned.
"This isn't your concern."
Rohan's voice sharpened slightly.
"It became my concern the moment you started lying to yourself."
Silence.
Kabir didn't respond.
Rohan continued,
"You pushed him away, didn't you?"
Kabir's jaw tightened.
"I created distance."
Rohan let out a quiet, humorless laugh.
"That's a very clean way to describe it."
Kabir didn't react.
Rohan's tone softened slightly.
"Do you feel better?"
That question—
simple as it was—
landed heavier than expected.
Kabir didn't answer immediately.
Because the answer wasn't what it should have been.
"No," he said finally.
Rohan exhaled.
"Exactly."
A pause.
Then—
"You don't get to pretend this is just about responsibility anymore," Rohan said. "If it was, you wouldn't be affected like this."
Kabir leaned back in his chair.
"It's complicated."
Rohan didn't deny that.
"I know," he said. "But complicated doesn't mean you ignore it until it disappears."
Kabir closed his eyes briefly.
"It shouldn't exist in the first place," he said quietly.
That was the closest he had come to saying it out loud.
Rohan didn't respond immediately.
Then—
"Feelings don't ask for permission," he said.
Kabir didn't argue.
Because he knew that already.
That was the problem.
The next day, Kabir saw Dev in the corridor.
For the first time in days.
Dev was unlocking his door.
Kabir stopped a few steps away.
Dev noticed him.
Their eyes met.
A brief pause.
"Sir," Dev said, polite. Controlled.
Not the same tone as before.
Kabir nodded.
"Dev."
Silence.
They stood there for a second too long.
Then Dev looked away first.
"I have some work," he said. "I'll go in."
Kabir nodded again.
"Yes."
Dev opened the door.
Stepped inside.
Closed it.
And that was it.
No hesitation.
No lingering.
No unspoken pause.
Kabir remained standing in the corridor.
Long after the door had closed.
Because something inside him registered it clearly now—
This wasn't distance anymore.
This was absence.
And absence didn't feel like control.
It felt like loss.
That night, Kabir didn't work.
For the first time in a long time, he sat without opening a book, without turning on his laptop.
Just… sitting.
Thinking.
Or maybe not even thinking.
Just feeling something he had been avoiding giving shape to.
Because now it had one.
Clear.
Unavoidable.
He missed Dev.
Not his questions.
Not the routine.
Not the responsibility.
Dev.
And that realization didn't come with relief.
It came with a quiet kind of fear.
Because now—
he couldn't fix this by stepping back.
And he couldn't ignore it by staying silent.