Chapter 8

Batool Imran

@nav_bat

One week at school, without seeing his face, to the least even talking about him, was troubling her to the core, for pretty much unknown reasons, which were resulting in violent mood swings from her side, and an extremely frustrated mental state. For the umpteenth number of time now, she shrugged her shoulders, and started shaking her head violently, all the time fiddling with her pony tails to get away the thought of him out of her head. Almost automatically, her eyes drifted away to the empty window seat, next to Karan, on which a week earlier she had seen him for the first time, quiet and as indulgent as ever, doing his work, without the least of interest in anything going around him. Had it been the boring Biology lectures, or the rough fall, she hadn't had the best time with him, and their encounters had always been of the low pitch but still she wondered, what was that about him that caught her attention so much as to think of him, when only days earlier she had promised herself that she wouldn't talk to him as much even think about him.

Landing her sight back to the open history book in front of her, which was adorned with black and white pictures from World War I, she looked at it disinterested, for the first time in a history class. History was her favorite subject, and as much as anything troubled her, she would seek her solace in learning history. But today, even that did not seem to help, or more appropriately nothing had been going right, in her life since the time she had returned from his home.

"Fine. (making a face) Fine, I am sorry for what I did, I shouldn't have you tripping with books in your hand (getting up from the bed, smirking now) it would have been better if they were rocks"she laughed out loud, violently changing the expression of victory on Arnav's face, to deep annoyment. He moved his hand forward to catch hold of her, before she fled away, but to her utter bad luck, Arnav's baseball bat lie under the bed, half of its side that was painted black, outside, causing Khushi to trip and fall with a large thud on the bed, directly in Arnav lap.

She kept her eyes tightly closed, shifting in his lap now and again. Her arms were winded around his neck firmly, giving tingling sensations to her having come in contact with his warm skin. She covered her ears with her palms for a verbal lashing from Arnav. 1 minute. 2 minute. But nothing came from his side. She slowly opened one eye, and then the second only to see Arnav cutely staring at her face, and slightly amused at her silly antics. His molten bronze eyes bore into her caramel brown ones, hitching both of their breathes, none being able to acquire oxygen properly lost in each other eyes.

Without conscious control, she withdrew one of her hands which was tied around his neck, and brought it upwards to touch the ugly scar which was exposed even through the ill applied band aid. And circled her fingers around the scar, a deep grieved expression on her face, causing him to twitch his nose unexpectedly at her soft touch on him.

"Is it too bad" she asked softly, and this time out of genuine concern.

"Maybe."He said quietly, losing his brain state to the wonders her touch was doing to him. Slowly she moved a little away from him, flustered at her sudden actions, withdrawing her hand from his neck and simultaneously from his forehead, shifting uneasily on his thigh. Her restless movements caused him to snap back from his trance, taking him a little while to restore his demeanor. As she shifted and backed away, from she unknowingly put a little to much pressure on his right thigh, resulting in him letting out a painful'Ouch' from his mouth.

Concern grew back on her and she quickly moved away from him, standing next to him, and before he could even react, she started rubbing his thigh, to soothe the pain she had caused.

She shook her head once again, trying to gain mental control over her thoughts. Why did that fall have such an effect on her? How many times had she tripped and landed into a boys lap? A thoughtful expression came to her face, as she tried to recollect forgotten memories. Flushinga bit, she declared to herself, None. She had always been the boy girl, maintained her distances with girls, as she thought they were just jabbering mouths, who only knew how to back bite and gossip, which apparently to her were things that least interested her. All her sixteen years, or more precisely, fifteen and a half year of life, she had stick with boys, but never had such a feeling consumed her, merrily because she realized, that she had always been close to them in that friendly manner, and never really searched unknown grounds in that regard of how it felt to feel something different for someone of the opposite sex, that was not friendship. From the time they had met, she had developed hate terms with him, which itself was very unlikely as it was usually girls who would be victim to her hatred, or let's say, revengeful ideas. Boys were a seldom option, except for a little crazy ones like Ted and Rahul she hadn't had much troubles with boys around her. But Raizada, had somehow trodded onto this fixed pattern of hers, which was disturbing to such an extent, that she was on the verge of tagging herself crazy already.

Vivek saw her self consumed expressions, which had been with her since the past week, or more to his thought processes, since the time she had returned from saying sorry to Arnav. He was worried about the fact, that she had become extremely quiet after that, was usually indulged in reading books, just a word here and there, and she would rush home without having much of a talk. How he mentally cursed himself for sending her there, something surely drastic had happened over there, to have her mood get so surprisingly calm. Well not exactly, she would get hyper quite often, and he didn't mind her, ranting away continuously, and venting all her bottled up anger on him, which as surprising at may sound, was all about him, Arnav. He had not failed to notice, the way she kept staring at his unoccupied chair throughout the day, even before leaving class she would look at that chair, turn her head away and then leave. It was almost shocking to him, that she would verbally express her hatred for Arnav to him, all the time, but only to contradict her actions, which seem to tell an entirely different story.

"Khushi", he tapped her shoulder concerned, and determined to get an answer out of her this time."

"Yeah?" she replied, briefly taking a break from her world of thoughts, and turned her head to face him, which held an expression of utter concern and worry.

"Vivek what happened?" she asked, when he stayed quite, and tried to read her eyes. She blinked them away, feeling a bit uneasy at him looking at her like that.

"Are you going to tell me or not?" he inquired seriously to her, to which she only shot a confused blatant look her way.

"Tell you what?"

"About what, happened that day when you went to Arnav's house?"

She stammered a bit for the answer, like she had been doing since the past days, whenever he brought this question to her. "I told you, I said sorry and came back".

"It took you 4 hours to say sorry? I messaged you at 4:00 and you replied me at 8:30 saying that you just arrived. What in the world happened in between?" he stated flatly the facts, expecting an answer from her this time.

"Okay fine. I accept I hid things from you. But I didn't feel right about them myself", she said a bit of irritation in her voice, however confusion and defeat, overshadowing the irritation.

"Tell me now then" he said eagerly, waiting for her to respond to which she just briefly shook her head, and with her hands gestured him to be quiet, and that she would tell him everything after the class.

"You sure are going to, I am not letting you go anywhere without it". He told her sternly, to which she gave him a faint smile, and turned to face the teacher who was almost at the end of the lecture.

" '.And so as per the decision of the League Of Nations, and the victorious Allied forces, Germany was held the sole aggressor of the war, and suffered severe punishments, along with supporting state Austria, Polland and Turkey, under the Treaty Of Versailles" Khushi heard Mr.Irani stating the end result of the first World War.

"But Sir the Treaty Of Versailles, was improvised in a later version of Treaty of Lussaine, on the demand of the Indians of the sub continent" she heard a familiar voice from behind, a smart question being raised, and like her the entire class turned their head towards the door from where the question was subjected to the teacher, by a perfectly physically healthy, well dressed Arnav Singh Raizada.

The entire class gaped at him standing there, to which he passed a smirk there way, and as the teacher walked towards him, he said Good Morning, and asked his permission to enter the class. Having seeked permission, he took his seat next to Karan, who passed him the widest of smiles, and shook his hand, while he, Arnav, concentrated on passing the most venomous look at Khushi. Realizing how weirdly she had been gaping with her eyes and mouth forming perfect 'O' she recovered out of her state of shock, and blinked her eyes, looking away from him and at a Vivek who was subsequently amused at her odd reaction.

The teacher having questioned Arnav about his well being for sometime, asked him to repeat the question to which he gladly with a straight face repeated his question passing another look at Khushi.

Nudging Vivek, with her shoulder she got his attention, and he raised his eyebrows at her "Why the hell is he passing me those ugly looks",she said almost stammering, fully aware of how Arnav's gaze was fixed on every action of hers.

"Who knows, he is crazy you know that." Vivek said not giving much importance to her very serious question.

"I mean first he makes, a danm God dramatic entry out of nowhere, then tries to put me down, by asking smart a** questions in history, and now these ugly looks subjected my way, what is up with him?" she rambled to herself unaware that how silly she sounded to the people around her, who kept looking at her and giggling away insanely.

Pinching a giggling Vivian in front of her, angrily "Oh hello, what is it with you now? Do I look like a clown to you? Why are you laughing?"

"Who said I was laughing at you?" he replied back, his back to her, still giggling away endlessly.

"You, I tell you.." her blood pressure shot up, hearing those stupid people around her were busy making fun of something she was hardly aware of that she was doing. Before she had even time to think of a sensible answer, Vivek starting poking her elbow, receiving a fiery glare from her. Timidly, he pointed at Mr.Irani who was with any annoyed expression staring at Khushi, and all the nonsense she had put up in the class.

"Yes Khushi, would you like to answer Arnav's question?" Mr. Irani said in a very stern tone to her, shaking her a bit with his icy expression and steely tone.

"Yes..yes..sir.. could he please repeat the question again." She said flustered, and stammering due to her absent-mindness in the class.

"It would be better if you pay attention in the class instead of pinching stupid giggling fools (passing a glare at Vivian who immediately made a straight face)" Mr. Irani snidely remarked, to which Arnav's evil grin widened seeing Khushi openly embarrassed like he had been a week later, limping away in the school, seeking his best friends aid to walk.

"But you may as well answer the question. (looking at Arnav)Arnav, would you please care to repeat your question for her". The teacher said once again, bringing a determined look on Khushi's face which earlier was projecting an ugly scowl, seeing Arnav's immense happiness at her embarrassment.

Arnav repeated the question, and after few minutes of thoughtful thinking the answer clicked to her, and she replied "The Treaty Of Versailles had been primarily subjected to all the participants of the war, to attain peace amongst the two forces, that is Allied and Axis forces. However, it should be noted, that Germany and Austria were given severe punishments, but the matter of Turkey, was still to be resolved, due to the hesitant behavior of the British government. Thus, Turkeyholding great importance, as the Muslim Ottoman Empire of the Indian Muslims of the Sub Continent, the decision was revised, and the Treaty of Lussaine yet declared Turkey to suffer the same fate as Germany andAustria. This received severe opposition and a new Treaty known as Treaty Of Sevres was brought into effect which too received serious opposition, resulting in the launch of revolt movement in Indian, namely The Khilafat Movement" she paused a bit having giving the background information, and this time it was her turn to smirk at an obviously annoyed Arnav. "Thus, The Treaty Of Versailles, and Treaty of Lussaine both held different objectives, and shall in no regard be compared with each other." She concluded her answer, getting an overwhelming appreciative response from the class. The earlier expression held on Mr.Irani's face faded away with her exceptionally well formed answer, and was replaced by a smile of acknowledgment, and appreciation for her vast knowledge.

"Well done Khushi. That was a perfectly well formed answer. I hope it answered your question Arnav." The teacher complimented her in sheer appreciation, as the scowl on Arnav's face just grew by every second that she was being praised. She narrowed her eyes, and gave him a one sided smile, openly challenging him, that she was no less then he was.

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Aakash stood at the entrance of the class a mischievous smile on his face, as he knocked at the door to get the attention of the teacher. Being back from another one of his daily visits to the principles office, he straightened himself up, and cleared away his ears, after being victim to the principles continuous rants this time for breaking the security cameras in the school grounds. As Mr. Hashmanidrew his attention towards the student at the door, he immediately let out a grunt, and with a tightened reflexes allowed him to enter in.

Swinging his almost weightless bag on one arm, and the other arm freely moving in mild air, he took his seat, which appeared to be the only unoccupied seat in the overly populated class. Keeping his bag on the desk, he took out his journal, which was one of dual nature, as the work of every single subject would go in there, without any sense of where to start or where to end. Taking out his favorite ball point from his box, along with his calculator, he busily got to work solving the numerous amounts of questions listed on the white board.

He was done with half the questions when he looked up from his copy, and took the opportunity to see the students around him, mentally looking for a new victim to his teasing. Seeing everybody busy in work, he chose to subside his earlier intentions and was about to resume back to work, when his eyes caught sight of the girl sitting next to him. A Girl, he realized. For the first time since he had entered the room, he had concentrated on himself and on techniques to annoy the teacher, never considering the person he was sitting next too.

Now that he took the opportunity to notice her, it came to him, that she was a new attendant to the class, beautiful, with sleet black hair, tied up in a high pony tail, just like his sister would, the sleeves of the uniform, sticking to the skin of her arms, her collar curved in an disorderly fashion, but the most amusing thing was the expression on her face. The end tip of the pencil, was in her mouth, see sawing here and there, and out of her mouth time and again, as she busily tried to solve a question, a thoughtful expression all over her face. For the third time in the last fifteen minutes that he was noticing her, he saw her flipping the pages of the book to the answer script, and upon realizing the mismatch in her answer and that of the book, sighed for a countless number of times yet again.

"Try using differentiation" he said helpfully to the girl, to which she turned around and nodded thankfully at him, rubbing away her previous solution in full force, and trying the new suggested method. After about 10 minutes of furious tipper tapper on the calculator, and endless amounts of calculation itself on the faded piece of paper, she smiled a glad smile to herself, having confirmed the answer from the book, and her own derived answer to be correct.

"Thankyou" the girl replied to him timidly, to which he just smiled, and made a mental note to know more about this girl.

"I haven't seen you before, are you new?" he said, trying to inquire more about this lady next to him.

"Oh yes, I just switched my subject from Computer Studies to Additional Mathematics." She replied softly, not all that much looking up to him, working her way towards the next question.

"I have been in that class too for quite some while, I didn't see you their either." He informed her, causing her to finally put her pencil on the desk and look up to him making brief eye contact, after which she shyly looked away and started fiddling with the corner of her skirt.

"Actually, I just joined this school, two weeks earlier" she told him casually, gaining a bit of comfort talking to this new nice fellow, who she in her daze of solving questions hadn't even realized, him sitting there.

"Oh," he managed to say, "So why the change in subjects? I mean, Computer Studies is far easier than Additional Mathematics."

"Erm yes I know that, but my cousin and parents told me, that it doesn't have enough credits". She said now getting totally comfortable talking to her new stranger friend.

"True.", he murmured, trying to rack his brains to keep up with the conversation that seemed to be withering away by every second of silence that passed in between them.

"What's your name?" she asked him coyly, bringing him back to the real world, and out of his world of thoughts that failed to inspire him anymore.

"Aakash", he said extending his hand towards her, which she promptly shook giving her own name, "Me, Payal".

He smiled at her, receiving a smile from her in response, and finally having found 100 different ways to keep up with the talk started rapid firing her about her few days in this school. "Must be quite lonely out here, without much company, its not easy here at Stanford" he remarked, going back to his first day, three years earlier, in the same school, when he been surprisingly very quite, but with time, the color of the surrounding had gotten into him, liven up his spirit, and brought to full light the naughtiness and he mischief inside him.

"Not really, my younger cousin and I joined together, so we keep each other company during the recess, and in classes I just do my work. I share some classes with this really nice girl, Anjali, so I befriended her". Payal replied still smiling at Aakash, who at the mention of Anjali made an amused expression on his face, confusing the hell out of Payal.

"She's my sister". He said, equally amused at the shocked reaction that she gave him upon the revelation, as he was when she had mentioned Anjali's name, that too as 'nice'. Hadn't he been new to her, he would be ROFLing on the ground, thinking of different ways to explain her, in what a dire illusion she was in to think of Anjali as 'nice'.

"She's your sister?," she asked him evidently surprised, to which he grinning away furiously, bobbed his head up and down, confirming her doubts.

"Oh so, then you must be the brother she talks about being a pain in the a**", she murmured to herself, but fortunately for Aakash, he had pretty sharp ears, like his younger brother, and caught her words.

"Don't believe her, all she does is blabber, as if she's any better than me" Aakash scorned, but brushed off the topic away, as Payal arched an eyebrow towards him.

"So, what's it with this cousin of yours? Is she having a good time" he said, in a futile attempt to get past the uneasy topic of her and Anjali's endless bad mouthing against each other at their backs.

"Not really. She had her class shifted only last week, although she did make a new friend, but evidently she bumped into some rude fellow, she supposedly now hates to the core". Payal answered his question, normally, making a mental note in her mind, that her friend, and his brother, were just like typical siblings, of the opposite sex, so them bad mouthing each other was not much of a surprise.

"Which grade?, What's her name" Aakash asked suddenly interested in their talk of this new girl.

"10. Khushi".

"Is she Khushi Kumari Gupta?" he asked highly amused, at the co incidence, which he intercepted to be true, after the brief way Payal had summarized the events in her cousins life.

"Oh yes. Do you know her?" she replied back, at the familiarity her new made friend had with her cousin.

"Not really, but she happens to be in the same class as my younger brother, Arnav". He told her excitedly.

"Oh, she didn't mention any Arnav to me, just two boys, Vivek and some Raizada".

Hearing the mention of their surname, Aakash unable to control his laughter, started laughing his head off, getting intensely crazy looks from the rest of the class, and an immediately flustered Payal, who traced it down to be her fault of saying something amusing, that had him laughing away till his sides ached.

"Sorry, for my nonsensical behavior, but she must be referring to Arnav by saying Raizada. (controlling his laughter) actually our surname is Raizada" he said chewing on his words, which kept coming out in an inconsistent flow, in between constant laughter.

"Oh", was all she could mange to say, and a small smile spread across her face, as she noticed the cute expressions that seemed to be changing on his face, all having one common factor of being amused.

Just as he was done laughing, and gave her an apologetic look at his sudden outburst, the bell for the period being over rang, and both of them collected their books, keeping them up in their bags, and having discovered during their small 'out of the class' talk that they had shared the same class, walked away together, to their next class, which turned out to be Sociology.

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