The following Saturday, Ayaan was the first to reach Room 17.

He pushed open the door with his usual energy.

"Good morning, fellow prisoners!"

No one answered.

He frowned.

One chair was empty.

"Where's Vihaan?"

Mrs. Sharma looked up from the attendance register.

"He won't be coming for a while."

The room fell unusually quiet.

"What happened?" Aashi asked.

"He injured his knee during practice yesterday," Mrs. Sharma replied. "The doctors have advised him to stay off the court for several weeks."

Akruti lowered her eyes to the sketchbook in her lap.

Reyansh stared at the empty chair.

Yash absent-mindedly tapped his fingers against the desk.

Only Ayaan broke the silence.

"He'll be fine," he said, though he wasn't sure if he believed it himself.

That afternoon, the room felt incomplete.

The jokes didn't last as long.

The conversations faded too quickly.

As they packed their bags, Akruti quietly tore a page from her sketchbook.

It was a pencil drawing of the seven chairs in Room 17.

One of them was empty.

She folded the sketch carefully.

"I think..." she said softly, "we should visit him."

For the first time, no one needed convincing.

Room 17 had turned strangers into friends.

Now, one empty chair was enough for everyone to feel that something important was missing.