Fate, as it does, decided to teach Arjun a lesson on a Tuesday. He was rushing for a bus, phone wedged between ear and shoulder, arguing with a client. The bus lurched. The phone flew. It described a perfect, horrifying arc and landed face-down on the pavement with a sound like a dry twig snapping.
She looked at his black, tactical, scarred Armoured Bumper. "And you have… priorities."
"It says you're clumsy. And that you finally listened to your big sister."
He’d bought the phone with three months of freelance coding money, a slate-blue slab of possibility. For the first week, he carried it like a holy relic, refusing to put a case on it. "The engineers designed the curve," he told his sister, Meera. "A case would be a crime."
"What?"
Arjun winced.
But two weeks later, he dropped it again. Getting out of an auto-rickshaw, it slipped. This time, the case hit the concrete with a satisfying thud . He picked it up. The case was scuffed, a corner slightly chewed. The phone inside was perfect.
"You have good taste," he said, nodding at her phone.