There was a bleakness in the way he laughed, there was a swallow look on his face, his eyes were tired, and his heart? His heart was never any use. Good people get to have bad hearts he had finally concluded.

Vivek walked out of the washroom, tucking his bottle of tablets safely in his pants pocket, painting a smile on his face, trying to get in a twinkle in his eye, but for the most part, no matter what he did, he looked sick ; because he was. He had been spinning his luck with Khushi for over two months now, and though she suspected him, she had stopped questioning him now, which made him feel more uneasy than before. Her curiosity, his secrecy, Arnav's lies they were taking a toll on her. She looked as sad and weak as he did, despite the fact that she was not sick, and he was. But ofcourse she didn't know that.

Entering the auditorium where the usual bustling of people and high energized activity was going on, he sought his way to an empty quiet corner, waving past people as he went off, taking out the script and retreating to read it. In his lost state, he hadn't noticed when a tall slender girl, with auburn hair and twinkling blue eyes had taken her seat next to him quietly observing him.

"Hi." She said, slightly tapping his shoulder, bringing him back from his reverie, who seemed momentarily baffled by her presence but quickly pasted a welcoming smile on his face, keeping down the stack of papers that was the script down on his thigh.

"Hi Casey" Vivek replied back in his pleasant friendly tone going quiet, as Casey began to fidget with her fingers, her eyes not meeting his like she was contemplating over something. He patiently waited for her to say something but she seemed to be sense-dead at that moment and far away in a land of her own.

Look into your heart - you will find
There's nothin' there to hide.

"Casey? (shaking her by her shoulder) What happened? Do you want to say something?" He asked her concerned, and though she was back to reality she looked confused like even she didn't know what she was doing here, until her expression changed like she had just registered what Vivek had just said, having an Eureka moment.

"No..I mean yes..I erm had to ask you something...(Vivek gives her a questioning look) I..I had to ask if you could help me with picking up those boxes please?" She finally said, stringing up a coherent sentence much to her relief, considering she really had backtracked on her original question in a matter of nano seconds. It was like someone had driven him over the edge and pushed him back from falling, as he let out a huge sigh of relief much to Casey's amusement even in her definitely rattled state of mind, him looking fairly amused by the ordeal.

"Yeah ofcourse, why were you so scared to ask me that? You do know I haven't really mastered the art of exhibiting my carnivorous side yet, or (giving a dramatic horrified expression) Have you finally discovered I am a vampire?" He said in a theatrical voice, grinning widely as she burst out laughing the tautness of her muscles and frightened look on her face ebbing away much to his utter comfort.

"Since you aren't really sparkling well I guess I didn't really figure that out." She said lightly, playing along, as he smiled at her, a real smile, not one of his plastered I-must-show-the-world' I am happy smile.

"So what do you need me to pick?" He asked her casually, though the idea of lifting heavy stuff did make him apprehensive, putting him in direct danger of being involved in a deadly coughing fit, or worse fainting. Oh his poor heart, his poor poor heart a parallel personality of his inside his head seemed to whisper, Not poor, downright pathetic man. He replied back furiously earning a throaty laugh from whatever in head instigated these responses his face contorting into an ugly expression that was half way between revulsion and anger.

Take me as I am, take my life.
I would give it all, I would sacrifice.

"Come" she said the earlier tension in her voice returning much to his complete confusion, she having had noticed that micro second change in his expression, though his smile was back again, forced as it was. He followed her over to the cartons that were piled on each other keeping them where she told him so, refusing to meet his eye. There was something completely off about her today that he couldn't quite put a finger on, and it was beginning to trouble him, much to his own surprise, since really he did sort of go high on his I-don't-care attitude' wildness these days.

"Really I was good with being the narrator you know. All this heavy work isn't very manly" He chided in an attempt to lighten the mood, only being rewarded with a ghost of a smile, as she walked away yet again bringing more cartons. He went over to take it from her hands but she was stubborn enough to hold onto it tightly refusing his help until finally he said to slightly pinch her for her hold on the boxes to loosen as he lifted them up almost collapsing with the weight, his heart panicking wildly inside him. Whoa. That's heavy. Was the first thought that came to his mind, but more so was the fact that all this while he had been carrying boxes that were almost weightless and by the looks of it she was carrying the heavy stuff. So what did she need his help with?

"I told you its fine, that I can carry it. You shouldn't have taken it from me." She said worriedly looking at him nervously all the way until he piled the cartons with the rest of the deposited ones bending slightly to adjust the boxes only to realize what a huge mistake that was. Rolling off his pocket directly at the tip of Casey's feet was his bottle of pills, which Casey after a brief look handed back to him wordlessly, her eyes still scrutinizing every inch of him to see if he was hurt somewhere.

"Thanks" Vivek said in a disconcerted voice, a huge lump forming in his throat. He had protected his secret, so earnestly for so long, and here they were a bottle of pills giving him away. Against all hope he just hoped that Casey wouldn't know what the pills were about or furthermore wouldn't question him about it.

"No problem. (Uncomfortable silence) So..you got any plans for tonight?" Casey asked timidly, successfully scraping off the earlier awkward silence between them, even though the smile on his face was clearly laced with anxiety and deep apprehension.

"Nope. Just gonna laze around, eat, the usual you know" He replied back vaguely waiting for her to proceed. Really this was becoming an interesting game of motive now, which amusingly was being headed by Casey.

Don't tell me it's not worth fightin' for
I can't help it, there's nothin' I want more

"Will you be able to come over to myself (Expression on Viveks face slightly waivers) or if you want me to come to yours..its just the creative department work for the photoshoot tomorrow, and I really need to do some urgent figuring out to do and.." She mumbled on, more to herself than him until he kept his hand on both her shoulders, stiffening her movements and drawing all of her attention towards him.

"I'll come. Relax. You don't..you didn't have to get so worked up about it Cass" he said softly, looking at her as she began to relax and nodded giving a breathtakingly beautiful smile. It was one of those moments when he astutely realized how pretty she actually was, and how he didn't even seem to pay attention to that merry fact, very unlike him. There definitely was something wrong with him. No shit Sherlock, the voice inside chided at him dryly yet again.

"So what time do you want me to come?"

"Uhh whenever you are free you know I mean whenever really."

"Casey seriously just relax will you? And tell me a time." He emphasized more clearly once again putting an arm around her, his touch sending shooting sensations of pleasure down her spine as she looked at him, and then again looking away shyly not sure how to react when a dream come true situation was what she found herself in right now.

"8:00 is good." She replied quietly and he nodded giving her his 24-watt bright as dentonic smile.

"It's a date" Vivek replied winking at her as a fellow classmate called her and blushing beetroot red she detached herself from him staring back at him smiling, rewarding her with a smile of his own, amused but most importantly thrilled with the whole situation. Chun was right he pondered over to himself, if he had to move on, Casey was the girl for him.

You know it's true:
Everything I do, I do it for you, oh, yeah.

***************************************************

Pacing about furiously, his eyes darting around the now fairly inactive classroom, he continued to keep his senses alert, mostly out of habit, but primarily because the nature of his work required him to do so. If you could say it was real work that is, he mentally chastised himself over it for the umpteenth number of time ever since he had agreed to do this.

The black-red walls of his room towered around him as he sat stiffly in the middle of the bed his eyes transfixed to particularly nothing on the wall in front of him. His room was small, well his make shift room was atleast, with just a bed and two side tables on either side, this room having had belonged to his older cousin. It was uninteresting to say the least, except for maybe the striking color combination of the room, but he could easily dismiss that too with the dark mood he was in.

He was leaving today, he reminded himself again, leaving behind this dream he had been living for the last two months, the best two months of his life, and even that was a very shrewd understatement. Reality always seem to wait just outside that invisible door that he knew existed, but only in his mind, and here it was knocking on his door, wanting to be allowed to enter in and envelope his life like it had all the time. But he couldn't really do that now could he? No he couldn't he decided firmly. There was no going back to his old life, he couldn't pretend like none of this happened, that all of this was just something that was a vivid simulation of his mind, and now the trance was over and he was finally awake.

"No!" He screamed, the echo of his voice hitting him squarely making his senses go berserk, as his own refusal to let reality came back hauntingly at him, taunting hundred times fold. It was true that he didn't want to go back to his own life, but not for the usual reasons you would think. Nikhil had a good life back in America, the life of a financially stable family, his father being in the upper ranks of the army, and his mother a prominent leading member of the board of directors of the pharmaceutical company that operated under her. And then there was the case of him using his good looks, to get everything more easily than perhaps most people, girls, fair enough grades, a definite spot in the talent parades what else could he want?

That exactly was the question he had asked himself countless number of times, and come up with a singular answer with no hint of dubiousness, it was all very crystal clear in his minds eye. Nothing. He couldn't wish or ask for anything more because he was blessed with everything until ofcourse that summer in Bulgaria where he had met her.

There's no love like your love
And no other could give more love.

Seeing her was like waking up, no, more accurately waking into a serenely enchanting dream that was now his reality. There she was beating the living day lights out of her brawling partner, or at least from his vantage point that's what it seemed, as he was standing inside the relatively very small room in the institute of martial arts for a reason unknown to him. The room was devoid of anything you could possibly pass off as furniture, he observed not to mention that the lights were dim, him having a difficult time adjusting to it, the gay coloured walls giving it the most un-interesting appearance ever. For him she was the only thing lightening up the place with her spirit, making him even want to stay here for another minute. Well yes there was the fact that his good for nothing cousin had sent him over to check on to that institute because he wanted to enlist, and he Nikhil, out of the sheer whims of boredom consuming him had agreed to do it, but really he could pass off something as a convincing story too and nobody would question it either, he already knew that.

"That was some kickass play you did there" He heard himself saying, his voice deeper and full of admiration which wasn't a very normal trait for it to exhibit, but brushing off his earlier trance mood, he looked at her fully now as she stood in front of him, her expressions not giving away whatever she thought of him, and no matter how much he tried to read in the faint lines on her face, which weren't necessarily scars he couldn't come up with anything absolute regarding her thought processes.

"Thank you" She replied back with a vary hint of a smile etching itself on her face her accent giving her away and she turned away stuffing her things inside her bag as he surveyed his surroundings but mainly her, maintaining a casual stance leaning against the door. Turkish. Interesting. He noted running through the quick check list of things that he had to ask, or know about her before she left. The privileges of being a jock. He had always been good at differentiating one accent from the other, and her accent unmistakably was Turkish. Very Turkish. Not very modern turkish he analysed.

"Turkish in Bulgaria is unheard of" He quipped only getting a brief glance of surprise from her, as she slung her bag on her shoulder and stood in front of him studying him curiously.

"American in Bulgaria unheard too" She said looking squarely at him, much to his surprise looking at him like she was trying to look through his soul, judge him, judge his weird mannerisms and actions.

"You don't know English very well" He voiced out his observation, biting on his lip instantly realizing how crude his remark sounded, earning himself a glare from her as she turned to leave only a second before he held her wrist lightly, halting her right in her tracks.

"Dont you want to know how I know you are Turkish?" Nikhil asked her softly somewhat flirtishly, the comical expression on his face betraying the seriousness of his situation.

"Leave me alone!" She sneered at him, detaching her hand from his hold, kicking him for good measure as she walked away with quick furious steps, her retreating back disappearing out of his side leaving him alone with his physical and mental pain.

Cartwheeling back to reality, he continued to stare into nothingness as talks of the elders chatting outside was only something he was dimly aware of at the moment. A knock at the door brought his resounding fears back, his heart choking with emotion but his voice was completely steady.

"Go away!" He said in a low, throaty dangerous voice burying his face in the gap between his legs beads of perspiration wetting the cloth of his track pants. Not to his surprise, the bulky man, his uncle, walked in sitting next to him looking at him unflinchingly with an intense gaze that was fixed on him, unwavering and sly. His Uncle always made him feel uncomfortable, there was nothing warm about his demeanor, nothing that would make him even likeable but there was something about, that aura of discipline and authority that always intrigued him, something that his father lacked, if he had to be honest with himself.

"What do you want?" Nikhil asked him in a hard voice, though the fear that emanated from him seeing him wasn't a feeling that was being completely betrayed here either.

"I have an offer to make to you. (Nikhil is about to protest) You are going to Stanford. There is someone I want you to keep tabs on, to get close to, and know everything about her life in and out. You do that, and I'll see that your girl is aided here." He heard his uncle set out the proposal to him in a brusque clipped manner, dismantling him only minutely taking him completely by shock. This wasn't something that he expected to hear really, specially from his Uncle, all of the questions that sprouting inside his head from every single thinking nerve cell of his halted on his lips as he studied the serious nonsense expression on his face deciding on his next words there and then.

"Okay."

A grunt accompanied with an annoyed, impatient voice brought him back to the present.

"Boy! Reply." The man on the other end growled, clearly sick of dealing with this annoying, irrational stupid kid. Regret was a strong feeling to have, but that was how it was for assigning a worthless boy like him to the task, not that he wasn't doing his job alright, but he was definitely not smart enough to pull it off cleanly, or so he thought.

"I am sorry..I was just..never mind. Yeah we are going to be flying to New York next week." Nikhil confirmed yet again seating himself on the neon colored chair trying hard to keep a clear head. Running a hand through his hair, he waited for his uncle to reply, an infinite set of thoughts running wild in his mind at the same time.

"I will make the necessary arrangements"

There's nowhere unless you're there
All the time, all the way, yeah.

"Will she..will you..will I be able to see her?" He asked her in an offhanded manner, though the excitement and hope in his voice was so clear, there was no possible way his uncle hadn't sensed it already. I am just another pawn in his plans, Nikhil noted grimly despite the positive feelings brewing inside him. He had tried to find out to the best of his abilities of why his uncle wanted to keep tabs on Khushi, about what would he want from an innocent 17-year old girl but in the end it had all turned out to be a futile search since he hadn't uncovered anything worth noting.

"Depends on how well you do boy" He replied back in a bored voice as the cigarette from his mouth crashed to the floor, earning a string of silent curses from him. Retrieving it back he stumped it dead fishing out another one from the box lieing ideally on the table next to him, and like a seasoned expert, lit it.

"What else do I need to do?" Nikhil asked rather apprehensively, not wanting to know what he really had to do now. Betraying and toying around with Khushi's trust was enough embarrassment, and now his uncle seemed to be making specific requests, which all the more baffled him to the relation Khushi could possibly have with this strange man.

"Get rid of the Raizada boy." His voice was strained with tension and icy cold, his hatred for the Raizada's rising back to the surface. He paced about his room standing in front of the window that gave him a luxurious view of the sight outside, his mind though poisoned with hatred. Those wretched Raizadas. They took everything from him, every single thing he cared about, they had disappeared leaving him to bask in his victory, but here they were back again somehow, entering his life like a storm. He had no patience for them, no sympathy for them, except for her, and he had stolen the only friend he had had from him too. Arjun Raizada had, and for that he would have to pay, all of them would pay for it. But for now it was enough to keep them away from Khushi, his child, his Khushi.

"What do you mean get rid of him? Kill him? Replace him? Eliminate him from Khushi's life? What?" Nikhil almost yelled stupefied by his Uncles latest request. So tracking Khushi was one thing, eliminating the love of her life was another, not that it really made any sense why his uncle seemed to give a rat's ass about teenage love. Really you would think a stoic, hardcore, unfeeling man like him had other more pressing troubles to deal with.

"Whatever it takes to get him away from Khushi, is what I ask for" he explained, his earlier resentment for Nikhil's utter lack of cleverness and stupidity coming back.

"She loves him" He said half heartedly, not really sympathetic for Arnav, though definitely he did sympathize with Arnav's cause even if his entire being was one douche activity after another. It was beyond him to separate lovers when in fact he was dealing with the same pressing situation and his Uncle knew that, why ask him to do such a thing then? That heartless freak, Nikhil remarked to himself angrily.

"All the more reason to get rid of him" The man replied in a highly controlled, uniform voice, pushing back all of his emotions, digging a rough grave out of it, till it was time to resurrect them and get them back on surface again. The nerve of him, he thought ferociously to himself, his fist clenched into a ball of savageness, how dare he be that close to Khushi?. But then again he knew and fully realized that Nikhil wasn't over exaggerating it, he had seen it with his own eyes, the bond they had, the comfort they gave to eachother, and there was that other boy too, the taller, defiant one, but narrowly calmer, he would deal with him later too.

"Why do you care Uncle?" Nikhil countered knowing it was the right thing to ask, but the wrong thing to ask from a man like his Uncle, but really if he was going to do something, not that he thought he was even going to consider doing this, he had to know why all of this mattered so much to his brick faced Uncle.

"You are forgetting your position boy." He replied in a low menacing tone disconnecting the call with those last words delivering the desired impact. He couldn't deal with this boys petty questions and unfathomable curiosity, if he couldn't sate it well, that was his problem, and he was always going to be answerable to him, his uncle.

At the other end of the phone call, a gloomy Nikhil whisked away his mobile inside his pocket, pondering over the latest turn of events. He knew for sure that he couldn't do what his uncle had asked him to, and with a sense of dread filling up inside him, he couldn't pay the price for disobeying him either. Stuck between two missile attacks was a perfect description of his current predicament, but he had to choose, and with a start he realized fully, he never had to. This wasn't so much as a choice, as a game of playing by the rule's, but the rules can be twisted cant they?

Look into your heart, baby...

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nav_bat2015-05-12 12:22:56