It wasn't wheezing. It wasn't desperate.

Tonight, he was hunting for LOL: Laugh Out Loud . A silly teen comedy. He needed it. His week had been a disaster: a failed chemistry test, a dropped tray in the canteen, and the crushing realization that his crush, Priya, thought his name was “Aaron.”

It was a start.

The boy—Young Arjun—laughed so hard he snorted. He slapped his knee. It was a pure, unguarded, magnificent laugh. The kind of laugh that happens before you learn to be self-conscious. Before you care about chemistry tests or what Priya thinks.

Arjun leaned closer. The boy on the couch looked... familiar. The same cowlick in the hair. The same way of chewing his lower lip when concentrating.

Current Arjun, age 27, stared. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed like that.

The pop-up vanished. The sound of Young Arjun’s laugh filled the room, layered over the monsoon rain. For a brief, impossible second, the two sounds merged—the chaotic rain of the present and the pure joy of the past.

Arjun groaned, burying his face in his pillow. “No... no, no, no.”