tantrayaan

  They arrived outside Boggs Hall just before ten, joining the trickle of freshmen gathering for CS 1331: Intro to Object-Oriented Programming.

  Ravi checked his printout again. “Room 104. Let’s get good seats.”

  They filed in and found the lecture hall mostly empty - a wide, tiered room with soft blue seats and long desks, perfect for spreading out.

  Bharath sat in the middle row, three seats from the center. Jorge plopped beside him. Ravi sat behind them.

  The room buzzed with quiet anticipation.

  Students flipped open notebooks with trembling hands, propped up bulky Dell ptops like they were defusing bombs, and checked their folders for the sylbus again and again - just in case it had magically changed in the st two minutes.

  The room buzzed with low-level panic, caffeine, and the unmistakable smell of someone’s forgotten egg sandwich.

  And then - She walked in.

  Like a glitch in the simution.

  Marisol.

  Wearing a navy Georgia Tech hoodie that somehow managed to be both casual and runway-ready, tucked just right into a pair of fitted bck jeans that made time itself pause. Her hair was tied back in a sleek ponytail, gold hoop earrings catching the light with every step. She scanned the room like she was looking for someone - or just deciding who deserved to live.

  Half the css stopped breathing.

  A pencil dropped. A ptop fan kicked into high gear in what sounded suspiciously like panic.

  One guy in the front row actually adjusted his posture and tucked his shirt in without moving from his chair.

  Someone behind Bharath whispered, “Is she lost?”

  “No way she’s in CS,” another muttered. “That’s a finance major. Or aerospace. Or dreams.”

  Bharath, for his part, forgot how chairs worked.

  He was sitting normally one second, then suddenly ramrod straight like someone had installed new spine firmware. His hand froze on his pen mid-word. He didn’t even know what he had been writing - possibly his name over and over.

  He had drawn a heart around the word algorithms.

  Kill me now, Bharath thought.

  And then - to his complete surprise, as if summoned by the sheer force of his hormonal panic - she smiled.

  And started walking toward him.

  Not in his general direction. Not toward someone behind him. Not to the door. To. Him.

  Jorge, sitting to his right, elbowed him so hard he nearly dislocated a rib.

  “What the hell is happening?” someone whispered like they were witnessing a miracle or the birth of a new religion.

  Bharath couldn’t answer. His brain had put up a ‘We’re Closed’ sign.

  Marisol reached their row, scanned the empty seats, and - with the ease of someone who had clearly never known social anxiety - slid into the one right next to Bharath. She dropped her bag with a soft thump and turned to him.

  “Morning,” she said, casual as a breeze.

  “Morning,” Bharath replied, somehow managing not to squeak. His voice cracked internally, but externally? Smooth as silk.

  “You’re in this css too?” she asked, already unzipping her bag.

  “Yeah. You too? Fancy seeing you here? What are you doing here?” he replied, immediately hating himself for saying something that stupid.

  “Smooth!”, gasped a guy behind him.

  She chuckled. “We literally talked about it at the bookstore yesterday.”

  “Right. I remember now.”

  He absolutely didn’t. Her sitting next to him was blowing his mind. He hoped that the extra spritz of Wild Stone he had on would help with his confidence.

  Jorge, meanwhile, was now vibrating like a suppressed earthquake. His face was locked in an expression that read I will mock you for this ter but right now I am too impressed.

  But Bharath didn’t notice.

  Because what he did notice - what he couldn’t not notice - was that the entire row of guys behind them had gone eerily silent.

  Like birds before a thunderstorm.

  They weren’t even pretending not to stare anymore.

  Not at Marisol.

  At him.

  One guy in a faded North Face hoodie mouthed “Damn.” Another nudged his friend and whispered something that made them both burst into grinning disbelief.

  There was reverence in their gaze. Confusion. Maybe even awe.

  Bharath had gone from “Indian guy with average notebook” to “mysterious alpha who pulls goddesses in CS lectures” in about six seconds.

  He didn’t know what he had done. But he was never changing seats again.

  Marisol leaned in slightly, her voice low. “You think she’s gonna go hard on us on the first day?”

  “Hope not,” Bharath replied, a little too fast, a little too earnestly, like a man who had just remembered what words were.

  She gave him a sideways gnce and a small, approving smile - the kind that short-circuits nervous systems.

  The air around them shifted. Not heavy. Not awkward.

  Just… charged.

  Behind them, someone whispered, “Bro. Did he save her cat or something?”

  Someone else muttered, “He must be Bill Gates' illegitimate son.”

  Meanwhile, Jorge pulled out his notebook and, without looking up, scribbled one word across the top of the page: Legend.

  And Bharath - barely breathing, pretending everything was normal - smiled faintly and opened his own notebook.

  He had no idea what the css was about anymore.

  But whatever this was? He was in.

  At exactly ten, the door closed with a soft click.

  A woman in her mid-fifties walked to the front - short grey hair, sharp gsses, and the kind of posture that suggested she tolerated no nonsense.

  She picked up a stick of chalk and wrote in neat block letters:

  PROF. HELENA STONE

  CS 1331 – OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING IN JAVA

  She turned to the css, adjusted her gsses, and spoke in a clear, clipped voice.

  “If you are here by mistake, this is your st chance to escape.”

  A few chuckles.

  “If you are here on purpose - congratutions. You’ve chosen the career path that combines math, logic, caffeine addiction, and existential dread.”

  More ughter.

  Bharath smiled, finally rexing into his seat.

  Marisol leaned over and whispered, “I like her already.”

  He nodded.

  Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

  Professor Stone wasted no time.

  By ten minutes into the lecture, the word “Object” had already been written on the board in multiple pces, along with its mysterious cousins: Css, instance, and encapsution.

  “An Object,” she said, pacing across the front of the room like a general before battle, “is a package. It holds both data and behavior. Like a student. Name, major, GPA - those are properties. But that same student can register for csses, drop out, change majors. Those are actions - methods.”

  She paused and scanned the room. “If that went over your head, don’t panic. This css exists to unpack that mystery. Slowly. Painfully.”

  More nervous chuckles.

  Bharath didn’t ugh.

  Because he was... getting it.

  Somehow, it all just made sense. The way she diagrammed things - a stick figure beled “Student” with arrows pointing to boxes that said .register() and .getGPA() - reminded him of flowcharts from the coding competitions back home.

  Maybe it was because he’d spent that summer reading Ritchie Kernighan’s books like his favorite novel. Or maybe he was just wired for this.

  Either way, he found himself nodding while the girl to his left - Marisol - was scribbling furiously and whispering, “What the hell is encapsution again?”

  By the end of the hour, Professor Stone had walked them through the sylbus, the grading scheme, and a dire warning about pgiarism that somehow involved a gif of a cat crying behind bars.

  The bell rang.

  Students began gathering their things.

  Marisol groaned. “That was a lot.”

  Jorge leaned over. “You say that like it’s over. I bcked out during the middle twenty minutes.”

  Ravi popped his head between them. “I understood three words: ‘Java’ and ‘Attendance mandatory.’”

  Marisol turned to Bharath. “Please tell me you were lost too.”

  Bharath hesitated. “I mean… not really?”

  They all turned to look at him.

  Even Jorge - mid-shoulder stretch - stopped and narrowed his eyes.

  “You understood that css?” Ravi asked.

  “Yeah, kind of?” Bharath said. “I mean, the way she broke it down - it just clicked. I’ve read a bit of this before.”

  Marisol squinted. “Wait. Are you one of those kids?”

  “What kids?”

  “The ones who finish assignments before css. The ones who prepare.”

  Bharath looked guilty.

  “Dios!,” Jorge said. “We’ve brought a teacher’s pet into our group.”

  “I’m not - !”

  “It’s too te,” Ravi said. “We’ve seen your true form.”

  Marisol crossed her arms, grinning. “Well then. I guess we’re going to have to steal your notes.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” she said. “We are forming a study group, and you are the central asset.”

  “That sounds... like a threat.”

  “It is,” Jorge confirmed.

  “Absolutely,” Ravi added.

  Bharath held up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine. You may borrow my notes.”

  “Borrow?” Marisol echoed. “You’re cute.”

  Jorge threw an arm around Bharath’s shoulder as they walked out of the lecture hall. “Welcome to the most academically desperate band of idiots on campus. Our motto: If you succeed, we all get an A.”

  Outside, the sun was higher now, baking the pavement with Georgia heat. Students swarmed across the quad in crisscrossing lines, everyone with somewhere to be, caffeine in tow.

  They lingered just outside the steps of Boggs Hall, surrounded by the smell of cut grass, fresh concrete, and whatever strange perfume the vending machines emitted.

  “So, when’s this study group thing happening?” Bharath asked.

  “Tonight?” Ravi offered.

  “Too early,” Jorge said. “Let’s give the illusion of independence for at least two days.”

  Marisol pulled out her almanac. “Tonight. Don’t put off what you can do today to tomorrow. Student center. We’ll pretend it’s casual. You show up with your notes. We ask you things. You expin everything. I gre at you. Jorge eats chips.”

  “Why do I have chips?” Jorge asked.

  “You just seem like you’d bring chips.”

  He thought about it. “That’s fair.”

  Ravi nodded. “It’s settled then. Bharath, our nerd guru, will guide us through the jungle of objects and csses.”

  “I don’t know if I’m qualified - ”

  “You’re the chosen one,” Marisol said, patting his shoulder. “Don’t fight destiny.”