"So, why did you go straight to asking about incident 99? Wouldn't that be even worse?" Veer asked.

Kevin furrowed his brows, considering Veer's words in silence.

"That's a fair point; my bad," Kevin admitted his mistake. "So how do we gather this information without raising suspicion?"

"I agree that directly asking about incident 99 might be too personal for him. What if we..." Dep suggested a plan to 'naturally' coax that information out of Abhi.

...

"That sounds good," Kevin and Veer replied in unison.

///

A few minutes later, Abhi walked out of the school building and headed towards the tree where the group was sitting. He greeted them, saying, "Hey, I'm back." However, everyone seemed engrossed in a deep conversation and didn't notice him. He quietly took a seat beside Veer.

"Yeah, do you think this has something to do with the incident 99… Oh, hey! I didn't see you there, Abhi," Veer said, glancing over at him as if he had just paused from his conversation.

"Hey..." Abhi replied with an awkward smile. He began eating his midday meal, enjoying some of the Paneer Tikka that Veer had saved for him. "Thanks for keeping a share of your food for me," Abhi added.

"No worries, enjoy," Veer responded with a gentle smile on his face.

Veer, Dep, and Kevin exchanged glances for a moment. Dep then turned her eyes to Abhi, who was sitting opposite her, and spoke up.

"What happened today was crazy, right?"

"You mean the stuff with the president?" Abhi replied, a confused expression on his face.

"Yeah, we were just talking about that. Even after a few hours, I still can't believe what happened," Kevin said, looking straight at Abhi with his gloomy eyes.

"Yeah, a warning about a terrorist attack from the president on the first day of school is pretty wild," Abhi said with a small chuckle.

"Not just that; he even gave the students a task. Isn’t that just insane?" Dep said, raising her eyebrows in shock.

"Yeah, he talked about the task of gathering information regarding the terrorist attacks and all that," Veer added theatrically.

"Oh yeah, I was a bit scared when he mentioned it. I also noticed something: the teacher said that the informational video is extremely important for everyone, yet she didn’t call the roll to confirm who was present," Abhi pointed out.

"Probably because only one specific person's life was supposed to be influenced by that message," Veer mumbled softly, looking at the ground.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"What did you say?" Abhi asked, confusion evident in his voice.

"It's nothing; just forget about him. Let's talk about you. So, Abhi, you're from Rakvill yourself, right? Do you think today's video had something to do with Incident 99?" Kevin said in a subtly friendly tone, his usually gloomy eyes sparkling with an unusual glint and a bright smile on his face—perhaps too bright.

The three of them exchanged glances, subtly observing Abhi's reaction. They had planned to get him to open up about Incident 99 while engaging in a casual conversation to avoid raising any suspicion. However, the reaction they received was unexpected.

"I... I don't… I don't know..." Abhi stumbled over his words. His posture was relaxed yet completely still; not a single muscle twitched. His eyes appeared empty, fixed on the same spot without blinking. It seemed he was deep in thought, yet there was a void behind those dark brown eyes. Suddenly, his pupils dilated, eclipsing most of his irises.

A full ten seconds passed, and the three of them glanced at each other, concern etched on their faces regarding Abhi's frozen state of silence.

"Abhi... ABHI! Are you okay?" Veer asked, shaking him gently by the shoulder to bring him back to reality.

"I need to go today? Oh wait… yeah, I'm fine. Just phased out, I guess. Happens sometimes," Abhi replied, rubbing his eyes with his wrists as if awakening from a deep lucid dream.

The three felt a moment of uncertainty, wondering if they had pushed him too hard for information. Still, they signalled to one another to continue.

"No way, broski was just daydreaming that deep," Dep joked.

"Haha, it do be like that sometimes," Abhi replied with a yawn.

"Here, have some water," Kevin said, extending his water bottle toward Abhi.

"Thanks, mate, but I’ve got some water with me. I’ll be fine," Abhi politely declined.

"Alright, though I've wanted to ask you something," Kevin continued, setting down his water bottle.

"What is it?" Abhi asked, eyebrows furrowed.

"Why did you reveal you're from Rakvill? You're aware there are a lot of stigmas against people from Rakvill, right? Even if everyone assumes you came here legally, they might still treat you with indifference."

Abhi didn't respond immediately, drinking from his water bottle instead.

"Yeah, you could've just kept it a secret," Veer added, collaborating with Kevin to dig for more information.

As Abhi finished drinking and closed the lid of his bottle, Veer and Kevin exchanged eager glances, waiting for his response.

"Well, if I'm being honest… I just heard all of your colourful introductions, with loads of hobbies and interesting backgrounds. I couldn't think of anything special about myself, so I just blurted out my background in an attempt to sound interesting," Abhi admitted, looking down at the ground and fiddling with his hair in a shy manner.

Kevin, Dep, and Veer exchanged glances with each other.

...

...

...

And burst into loud and carefree laughter.

"Is that really so funny?" Abhi asked, looking mildly confused.

"No, we just… *still laughing*... thought there would be a deeper reason behind revealing your homeland to the entire class, ha-ha," Dep managed to say through her laughter.

"Well, that was all, ha-ha," Abhi replied with an awkward smile. They shared a few more seconds of laughter. As they calmed down, Dep noticed that Abhi had lowered his guard, and she seized the opportunity to ask more.

"Wait a second, I just realized another thing about your intro: you didn't say your last name. Is there a reason for that?" asked Dep, his tone soft and his smile genuine.

Abhi suddenly stopped moving again.

"*Cough* Uhm... *burp* Sorry guys, I have to go to the… I’m going to have to leave now. Let’s talk some other time," Abhi said hurriedly, avoiding Dep's question as he packed his things and jogged toward the school building.

.....