Meera: “You wrote that for the video, or for someone?”

He replies with a video—not a tutorial, but a personal one. Shot on his phone, shaky. He’s standing in front of his driving school at midnight. Rain.

She drives. He watches. They don’t speak.

He doesn’t smile. “Someone has to.” During a lesson on “smooth clutch release,” Meera keeps stalling. Ramesh puts his hand over hers on the gearshift—just for a second. She doesn’t pull away.