FF// Untold Stories; Note Pg. 18 + Link to Ch. 6 (Pg. 20) - Page 10

Originally posted by: pakpearl

OK..

But at least tell me if I've ever been one of ur readers ??

I don't think u r Sabi..

I think you are.

Sabi who? 😆

Originally posted by: kizh72

I'm looking forward to the various explanations of this chaos by all the participants in it😆

P.S: OCD and long hair don't go together or long hair should be neatly tied away😆

Well, here's hoping that Arnav discovers all new meanings of OCD in the days to come to cope with that. 😆

Originally posted by: pakpearl

Arnav doesn't like to be scrutinized ..to be controlled n being judged..

Khushi is doing exactly the same ..

Arnav doesn't like to be distracted..

N this 's exactly what Khushi..rather her hair is doing..

Why can't he just stop the vehicle by the roadside to push the button ..

Khushi chooses the exact moment to not only open her eyes but to hit the intruder with full force..

I think it's Anjali who utters these typical ASRish phrases..

Because he overestimates his multitasking capabilities.😆

Originally posted by: mayabhi

Omg! That is a very awkward situation.. Khushi wud b thinking that arnav is a perv. Which it wud have to anyone. And arnav wud b irritated abt the whole situation. But wud he explain it? Or wud Khushi listen? How r they going to complete this journey from the middle of nowhere?

Pls do update soon.

Thank you for leaving behind your thoughts!

Originally posted by: AnExIPKwriter

I think you are the resident Sherlock Holmes referred to in the comment above 😆 So sweet, thank you! Glad you enjoyed :)

More like a wannabe Sherlock Holmes 😃

Originally posted by: bakwas_serial

Sacarsm,dry humor with more than tad bit of sadness at Khushi state ( her marriage was more important to her parents than her happiness 😏). Look forward to how you take this forward.

Your writing style reminds me of another writer😊

Thank you so much! Welcome to the story :)

Chapter V : Chills in the Hills

"A bad day with coffee can be better than a good day without it"

After Arnav's loud exclamation, that had barely fallen short of triggering an avalanche in Nainital, Khushi had reciprocated with an equally loud- "What is WRONG with you", which had been reciprocated by a louder "ME? What is wrong with ME? You would have bloody KILLED us damn it!", which had been followed by both of them flying out of the respective sides of the car in matched fury, slamming the doors behind, with the troupe at the back scurrying out in haste after them. While Lavanya now stood beside Khushi who was breathing fire on one side of the car, Aakash and Anjali were busy assuaging an equally riled up Arnav at the opposite side, with the Scorpio parked in the middle like a wall between them.

"Okay, I am seriously reconsidering my enthusiastic decision of becoming a part of this trip," Aakash said, as he leaned his back on the car and popped a chewing gum into his mouth, "because, you know, back then, I didn't realize I would be potentially trading my life for this."

"She is insane." Arnav fumed. "She would have killed all of us. Can you see how dangerous this route is? What person in their right mind would scream and literally push someone behind the steering wheel like that in a moving car?"

"Bhai", Anjali interrupted, "I get the screaming and the pushing bit, but what were you trying to do there? I mean I'm sure she didn't just wake up randomly, and pull you towards herself, and then push you towards the windshield. Now that would have been really concerning." She took a moment to process that imagery in her head.

Arnav felt heat rising on his face. Have you ever generously offered bread crumbs to a bird, only to have it consume it merrily and then fly above your head and shit on it? The karmic cycle of the universe likes to play its cards really close to its chest that way. This is precisely why he hated any and all interaction with the human kind. Try to do something good for someone, and what you would get instead would be a near death experience and an embarrassment for a lifetime. No way was he about to confess that his OCD over her hair flailing around had triggered enough concern for him to try to lean in and roll up the window. He could see what these two would make of this well enough.

"I was doing nothing." He replied and looked with disgust at the coffee stain on his shoes and the helm of his trousers. Another thing that was going to constantly be on his mind hereon.

Anjali refused to settle for it. "No but when my eyes opened, you were definitely leaning towards her side. So assum-"

"I was trying to roll up the window!" Arnav cut her short in exasperation. "Okay? The master switch wouldn't work so I had to do it manually, which would take all of 5 seconds, so I didn't bother parking, slowed down the car, and tried to just lean and take care of it which I would have, if the reincarnate of Frankenstein herself was not sitting next to me."

"Okay, but why?" Aakash asked. "I mean why was it so urgently needed to roll up her side of the window?"

He would be damned if he ever agreed to one more trip in his life again.

"Because it was interfering with my driving. The wind was interfering with my driving."

"The 'wind' from her side of the window was interfering with your driving?" Aakash raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Dude, didn't you own a Harley Davidson during college? Did the 'wind' not interfere with the riding?"

"Very funny Aakash. Enough with the questions, both of you. I don't want to hear one more word about this." He snapped.

"Sir, yes Sir" Aakash gave him a mock salute while Anjali continued to look at her brother with considerable skepticism.

"Bhai why are you stroking your jaw that way though? Did you hurt yourself?" she asked finally, with some concern.

Arnav removed his hand from his face and rolled his eyes. "That woman has a thick skull. Literally and figuratively."

"Okay, what just happened?"

"You tell me what happened Lavanya. I cannot believe he would do something like this." Khushi fumed, wringing her wet muffler to try and squeeze out coffee from it. "I know men well enough, so you know I was keeping a constant check over his driving, and everything was going fine, and I dozed off for ten minutes and the next thing I know is that he is right in my face, the car is moving, and then I did the first thing that occurred to me in the situation."

"I don't get it", Lavnaya shook her head in disbelief. "Why would he do something like that? You have worked for him for so long, has he been this weird always?"

"See Lavanya, all the interaction I have ever had with Arnav Singh Raizada has been something like this-

"Goog morning Arnav"

"Good morning Khushi"

"Khushi, be there for the meeting"

"Okay Arnav"

"Arnav would you go through these before I send them out?"

"Cool. Keep them here, I'll get back"

"Goodnight Arnav"

"Goodnight Khushi"

-and then "Go to hell Arnav" under my breath. Now put this conversation on loop and that is all I know of this guy. And you know what?", Khushi continued as a horrifying epiphany donned upon her- "I was sleeping really restlessly throughout because I could feel constant tickling on my face. I just thought it must be my hair but d-do you think he-?"

Lavanya widened her eyes in consternation as she caught on Khushi's implication, but then having an objective vantage point over the situation helped with reasonable brain work and she shook her head in dismissal. "Now come on, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. He may be a loon, but he would have to be a next level loon to do something like that. Maybe it was nothing. He might have just dropped something-"

"LIke his brain? No, he might have been drunk. Maybe he was drunk? Why would he need to roll up my window when the one on his own side was wide open for any other plausible reason? I should have known better. Oh God Lavi, I should never have slept. I have seen Shyam and trust me we could have killed someone and then-"

"KHUSHI!" Lavanya gasped at her friend. Of course, Khushi's nerves and hyper reaction suddenly made sense to her friend. Every over the top reaction out of the otherwise sensible Khushi almost always traced it's way back to that asshole. "This is not about Shyam! He is not Shyam. It was not your fault. And I am sure Arnav has an explanation for this okay? Sweetie I'm sorry but you need to stop constantly projecting the past on your present like this."

Khushi took a deep breath and nodded. Maybe she had overreacted. Arnav hadn't been looking at her when she had opened her eyes after all. And it hadn't been the best decision to assault someone like that in a moving car. Maybe he wanted a better view from her side of the window, her side of the hills were prettier after all. Although jeez man, he could have asked. She would have just switched sides. What a child.

"Yeah well, anyway," she shook her head, "you may be right. Although you're my friend, okay? You don't get to root for Arnav Singh Raizada in this story."

Lavanya grinned. "Absolutely. Blewhh Arnav Singh Raizada. Gaah. Blweehh", she made gagging noises with her mouth, and Khushi burst out laughing. What would she do without Lavanya.

After a group huddle, Aakash, Anjali and Lavanya had come to a conclusion that it'd be in the best interest of their collective prolonged mortal life on the planet, that Arnav and Khushi be rested at the back, while Lavanya would take control behind the steering wheel. Lavanya had insisted that it was the surest way of assuaging any apprehensions that Khushi had and calming her down.

Meanwhile at a distance, Arnav had been channeling all his concentration on the coffee stain on his shoe and was wiping it with his handkerchief, disgust writ all over his face. Khushi on the other hand, was looking perplexed at her phone, which after a healthy dose of caffeine inebriation, had its screen frozen and completely unresponsive. When hitting it randomly on her palm several times like a maniac didn't help, she looked in agitation towards Arnav standing on the farther right, doing some weird thing to his shoe.

"My phone won't work"

Arnav raised his eyes to look at her face passively, then went back to cleaning his shoe, shaking his head. "There is coffee all over my shoe."

"Two problems of absolutely equal proportion, obviously" Khushi bit out in disbelief. Arnav did not respond to that. "Ugh, this is such an inconvenience. I was tracking our route and everything. How am I going to do that now?"

"Yes, a truckload of help your 'tracking' was doing for us. In a few days, you would surely have us successfully in Egypt" Arnav said nodding his head. "I wouldn't grieve the loss of so much uselessness if I were you."

"Well excuse me if I have more than two people in my life who worry about my existence and a phone holds more utility for me than random apps." She retorted, even as she felt a slight stab of pain in her chest at how untrue that was.

"Then try hitting it some more. You obviously seem to think of maniacally hitting electronic gadgets as some breakthrough hack in the engineering universe."

"Well do you have a better idea?" Khushi scoffed. "The coffee has messed it up, seriously, I don't even remember keeping that coffee mug in the holder like that, which idiot would do that?"

Arnav stiffened at that. and looked sharply at her. "Yes, all of this has obviously happened because of that."

"You're right, all of this hasn't happened because of that. It has happened because of that" she gestured her hand leisurely bottom to up pointedly across his form.

The cheek of this woman! The sheer audacity. Arnav fumed, handkerchief in hand and coffee stain on shoes momentarily forgotten. "I was thinking that maybe it was sleep that brought your rationality to a grinding halt, but good to know of this spectrum of consistency you maintain".

"Right, as if I got any sleep at all" Khushi guffawed. "Even before I woke up to your kind endeavors to drive us off the mountain edge to our death, I was extremely restless what with the strong cold breeze coming through the window which by the way you know, for all the other stuff you did, you could have just rolled up if you were watching."

Arnav wondered in that moment whether if the Karmic cycle was really on a vacation, he could squeeze in a murder within that window period. "You've got to be kiddi-" he began, only to be interrupted by Aakash, who accompanied by Anjali and Lavanya, was now standing next to him.

"Seriously guys. How have you both managed to work together, like ever?" Aakash spoke in wonderment and the women beside him seemed to echo his thoughts. "If you two are done, may we now proceed? Lavanya and I will take the front seats, she'll drive. You both can get some rest."

Khushi shot a look of gratitude towards Lavanya, who smiled back reassuringly at her and then walked with the rest towards the car. She and Arnav both simultaneously extended their hands towards the door handle, and Arnav was just about to draw his hand back when Khushi interrupted him.

"No no. It's okay. You take the left side. I'll get in from the other end. I have seen a hill station before" she said to him in a manner of fact way, and before he could respond, turned around and began walking away to the opposite side of the car.

Arnav, who had by now given up all hopes of deducing logic from her actions, stood with a look of absolute confusion behind her. Seen a hill station before?...So?....What? Shaking his head and giving up on trying to figure the woman out he muttered a small "unbelievable" under his breath and got into the car.

Lavanya took control of the steering wheel, adjusted the rear view mirror and looked towards Aakash who was smiling at her. She smiled back, her pretty dimples digging deeper into her cheeks.

"Well, not the best initiation to our acquaintance I must say," Aakash said smilingly, "but I do hear that people who meet over near death experiences tend to bond quicker."

"Is the so?" Lavanya asked, laughter in her eyes as she registered his flirtation.

"Well, I am counting on it" he replied.

Anjali meanwhile settled herself, sandwiched between Khushi on one side and her brother on the other. This could be interesting, she grinned to herself, then fished out her phone and opening her Instagram took a selfie and captioned it- "Chills in the hills" #whattaystart #adventure #Nainitaal. Putting her phone back in her handbag she crossed arms over her chest, and rested her back comfortably on the leather headrest. Now someone would have to break this ice inside the car, so they could enjoy the ice outside it, wouldn't they?

"So Khushi," she began cheerfully, "what is my brother like in office?"

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Hope you enjoyed the update :) Thank you for your reviews guys, really appreciate them!

So, "WHAT THE " was indeed uttered by Arnav himself.

Good one G 👍🏼.

My heart is going out for Khushi. Every little interaction with men reminds her of the time she spent with Shyam. What has he made her into? On top of that he has the audacity to call her and complain that it is all her fault.

OCD is not an easy thing to deal with either. I know it is no where near the ramifications of her past, nevertheless it is a problem.

Akash is competing with Lavanya for best buddy award. They are the kind of people you want to be with.

I loved Khushi and Arnav's banter over a dead phone and coffee stained shoes and trousers.

Hmm, Khushi where will you put a coffee mug other than a cup holder?

Arnav if a moving object bothers you so much while you are driving, please sit in the back seat and go to sleep buddy.

It is a good thing, Khushi's phone is not working. Otherwise the creep might call and mess up the little fun Lavanya is planning to indulge Khushi with.

Can Anjali break the ice between them in the next leg of the car ride?

Waiting to know.

Cheers......

Love these characters. Poor Arnav. He can never fess up, too embarrassing. Khushi has trust issues and is haunted by her past. Hopefully she can move forward.

Nice update, though very small...

Waiting for a longer one next..

Arshi fights, as usual, are a treat..

Love

Vandie