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The thing about getting hurt is, it never happens when you expect it.

It wasn't during one of my late-night walks, or those chaotic coding classes where my brain cells melted. No. I got hurt while trying to chase a damn dog.

To be fair, he had my sandal.

I was simply walking back to the hostel when this street dog floppy-eared, tongue-out, absolute menace, grabbed one of my chappals and bolted. Naturally, I gave chase, flailing, yelling, hopping on one foot like an idiot possessed.

And then I tripped.

Right over a cracked pavement slab.

The dog escaped. My sandal did not. 

But my knee? 

My poor, innocent knee got the brunt of Mumbai's urban revenge.

I limped to the chai stall with a mix of blood, dust, and righteous indignation. Dev, of course, was already there. Sipping chai. Reading something serious on his phone, probably a journal about bones or surgical screws.

"What the hell happened to you?" he asked the moment he saw me.

"Street war," I muttered, plopping down beside him and wincing as my knee throbbed.

He leaned forward. "You're bleeding."

"Thank you, Sherlock."

He ignored my sass. "Let me see."

"It's just a scrape."

"You're limping."

"It's called dramatic effect."

But I didn't protest when he gently pulled my leg forward. Or when he knelt in front of me like I was some wounded princess in a college T-shirt and dirty jeans. His hands were careful, warm. He took a napkin from the stall, dipped it into the steel tumbler of water Bittu always kept nearby, and began dabbing the scrape.

It stung.

"Ow! Easy! I'm delicate."

"That's stupidity," Dev muttered, still crouched in front of me, his fingers brushing carefully over my knee.

I winced again as he dabbed the scrape. "Ow, okay, I think you're secretly enjoying this."

He looked up. "You need proper cleaning. Come to the hospital."

My eyes widened. "What? No. I'm not going to a hospital for a glorified scratch."

"I'm not risking a infection."

"I have Dettol in my room."

"I have better than Dettol."

I crossed my arms. "It's just a little blood, Dev. I'm not dying."

He stood up, brushed his palms off, and looked at me like I was a particularly stubborn file that refused to open.

"You're limping. You're bleeding. And I work at a hospital, Lisha. I'd rather clean it properly than hear you complain about tetanus next week."

I hesitated. The logical part of me agreed. The Lisha part of me, the one that panicked at clean, white walls and the scent of antiseptic, did not.

He saw the hesitation and softened. "Come on," he said, gently. "I won't even make you fill out a form."

That made me laugh despite myself. "Fine. But if you make me wear one of those sad blue gowns, I'm suing."

***

The walk to the hospital was slow, my limp exaggerated by drama and maybe pain, just a little. Dev didn't rush me. He stayed close, not touching, but close enough that I felt the hum of him next to me, like a silent assurance.

As we entered through the automatic doors, a gust of cool air hit my face, along with the unmistakable smell of hospital: disinfectant, faint sweat, sterilized metal, and something else like worry suspended in air. The floor gleamed beneath fluorescent lights, too clean, too polished, almost threatening in its perfection.

It was my first time inside Sanjeevan City Hospital.

And I felt wildly out of place.

Dev led me through a corridor, his stride casual, practiced. Mine was less graceful I stumbled slightly on the smooth tile and caught myself with a huff.

When we reached the casualty department, a nurse looked up from the desk and blinked at me.

"Did she fill the form?" she asked, already reaching for a clipboard.

"It's okay," Dev said, without pausing. "I'll take care of it."

The nurse stared. Then blinked again. Then looked at me.

And suddenly, I felt it.

Every single pair of eyes in the room turned toward us.

Orderlies paused. One of the interns actually whispered something to another. A woman with a stethoscope around her neck looked at me, then at Dev, then back again, like she was mentally updating her gossip folder.

"What?" I whispered, leaning closer to him.

Dev didn't respond. He simply held the door open to one of the empty emergency beds and gestured for me to sit.

"They're looking at us like I'm your pregnant wife," I muttered as I hopped up on the bed.

"Let them," he said.

He moved efficiently now. Rolling up his sleeves, washing his hands, snapping on gloves. There was something hypnotic in the way his body switched from relaxed Dev to Doctor Dev. Controlled. Sharp. Quietly commanding.

He cleaned the wound without speaking much. His fingers were steady, gloved and precise. The sting was dull now, overshadowed by the strange pull in my chest as I watched him work. He frowned in concentration, lower lip caught briefly between his teeth. He was gentle but methodical, dabbing antiseptic, pressing gauze, applying the bandage with the same care someone might use for a fragile porcelain crack.

And I... I was mesmerized.

"I take it back," I whispered.

He didn't look up. "Take what back?"

"That I've seen you at your most attractive. Because right now, this is unfair. You're like... hot in a life-saving way."

He rolled his eyes. "Shut up."

"I'm serious. You're like a medical drama. I'm having a moment."

He taped the final piece of bandage, removed the gloves, and tossed them in the bin without meeting my eyes.

Then, as he turned to the sink, I caught it.

The smile.

Reflected in the glass pane of the medicine cabinet. Small. Crooked. Pure Dev.

"I saw that," I said, grinning.

"Saw what?"

"You smiled."

"No, I didn't."

"You did."

He looked over his shoulder. "Must've been gas."

I laughed way too hard.

For a fleeting moment, the hospital didn't smell like antiseptic or echo with the weight of illness. It just felt like him faint warmth beneath all that silence and smoke, wrapped in careful hands and reluctant care.

He returned, securing the final gauze over my wound with quiet precision. Then he pulled a chair closer, sat down across from me, and for the first time, didn't hide behind his distance.

As I straightened, settling back on the edge of the bed, I saw his hand shift slightly toward mine.

Just a fraction.

A breath.

His fingers inched forward, hesitant, searching.

Then stopped.

Suspended in the air, barely apart from mine.

I turned to him.

He was already looking away.

"It's late," he said, voice low. "You should head back."

"Yeah," I murmured. "I should."

He gave a single nod, then buried his hands in his pockets, like if they disappeared, the moment would too.

I stood, walked out through the pale fluorescent quiet.

But the space between our hands still burned, ghosting me like a touch that almost was.