chapter 21

Now almost 20 months have passed since Ansh went to London, after the meeting of Ansh and Advaita 14 months ago, many things have changed between them now and this change is for good.

After that day, not much, but whenever Advaita calls him, Ansh picks up the call and obviously, being a quiet person, Ansh still doesn't talk much, but he definitely listens silently to whatever Advaita shares with him.

And on the other hand, the Pandit had said at the time of their engagement that their wedding date will be fixed after one year of their engagement but at that time Advaita's family did not know about Ansh going to London but now when Ansh is in London and everyone knows it is important for him so no one raised the topic of their marriage nor did they put any kind of pressure on Ansh.

The family is waiting for Ansh to return and only then they will take some decision regarding their wedding date.

🦋🦋

On the other hand, here in Mumbai ;

Many things have changed here too, firstly, Aaira celebrated her 18th birthday and she shares this birthday with her mother because luckily both mother and daughter have their birthdays on the same day.

And Neil took his family to Greece to celebrate their birthday as it is one of Aaira's favorite places and what better place to celebrate her 18th birthday than her favorite place ? So both mother and daughter celebrate their birthdays there and obviously the Mehra family was also with them in Greece for this celebration but without Ansh, Ansh's exams were going on and hence, he could not join them.

But Aaira spends this beautiful day having a great time with her parents and all families members at her favorite place.

Aaira is a girl who does not like big parties and this was also a reason why she celebrated this day only with her loved ones.

On the other hand, Aaira's college life is going on normally, Aaira and Reyansh are now in their 4th semester, whereas Aarav and Aadhriti are in the 6th semester.

Aarav and Adhiriti's college days are about to end.

But things have changed between Aarav and Aadhriti too and Aarav has entered the dating era with the girl he likes, luckily.

But yes, still Aadhriti is not saying yes to him officially.

So things change between them like this...instead of being a heartbroken lover, Aarav starts flirting with Aadhriti....Yes, his heart was definitely broken when he saw "My Love" call on her phone that day but after that he did not think much and whenever she came in front of him in college, he would tease her in the same way as he always did

Like this both of them reached their 4th semester but then one day an incident happens when Aadhriti is about to fall again in the college but as always, Aarav comes from nowhere and saves her.

Flashback start

" Arre aree, Aaram se chale, agar isi tarah girti rahi to kahin kisi din aap mere pyar me na gir jaaye...." He says and straightens her in his arms and Aadhriti moves away from him making a face.

And as usual she glares at him after hearing his flirting

" Huh, aapke pyar me girne se pehle, main kisi unchi imarat se na gir jaaun."

Aadhriti says teasing him as usual.

Well Aadhriti has also started liking talking to him, his flirting but still she likes to tease him

And there on hearing this Aarav glares at her

" Achha, to fir us imaarat se akele mat girna, apne boyfriend ko lekar kudna, ok ?" Frustrated, Aarav says this in irritation

But at the same time Aadhriti gets shocked hearing him associating her with a boy for the first time.

" Excuse me, mera koi boyfriend nahi hai." She clears it.

" Huh, liar...." Aarav says to which she looks at him, he is crazy, who gave him this wrong information.

" What liar ? mera sch me koi boyfriend nahi hai..." She clarifies again

"Well, if that's the case then whose number is saved as "My Love" in your phone?" Finally he asks her the question that has been running in his mind for the last 6 months

And Aadhriti gets shocked at first after hearing this but then a smile appears on her face.

" Will you talk to "my love" ?" she says to which Aarav looks at her angrily, what kind of girl is she, why would he talk to her boyfriend

But before he can respond, Aadhriti takes out her phone and calls the same "My Love" caller and puts the phone on speaker.

Well, there was no need for this but for some reason Aadhriti wanted to make it clear to him that what he is thinking is wrong, there is no one in her life

And Aarav gets shocked when he hears a woman's voice from the other side of the phone and in response Aadhriti addresses the woman as maa and then Aarav realizes that the "My Love" caller is none other than her mother.

Well, Aarav's heart fills with joy at that moment and also seeing Aadhriti's gesture of how she cleared his confusion

But further, after cutting the call, Aadhriti is about to leave from there but before she can do so, Aarav stops her by holding her wrist because from her gesture somewhere he understands why she gave the explanation...And even if Aadhriti's words aren't clear, sometimes something unsaid is enough to understand things.

Stopping her, Aarav comes in front of her and their eyes meet and without holding himself back any more, Aarav extends his hand of friendship before he can say anything else.

" See, first of all forgive me if you ever felt bad about something I said, but honestly, I want to tell you very clearly today that...I like you very much, will you be my friend?" He says extending his hand towards her, on which Aadhriti looks at him.

Well, his telling her that he likes her fills her heart with joy but at the same time she teases him by telling him again what he doesn't like

" Ok bhaiya." Accepting his friendship, she says this and immediately runs away from there, on which Aarav initially gets irritated that she is still calling him bhaiya but then he also smiles that at least he expressed his feelings to her and she accepted his friendship.

Flashback End.

And then from that day onwards things change between them, Aarav takes Aadhriti out occasionally, So sometimes both of them spend time in college and this thing between them does not remain hidden from Reyansh and Aaira.

And well that is also a different matter that spending most of his time with Aadhriti in college, Aarav is able to give very little time to Aaira in college now, he doesn't talk to Aaira like before and doesn't give her the time they used to spend earlier in Ansh's presence but Aaira has no complaints against him, she is happy for her brother. Yes, sometimes she misses their old times but she does not complain.

🦋🦋

So on one hand, spending almost one and a half year half in college together, in the same class, sharing the same seat, things are changing beautifully for the good between Aaira and Reyansh too.

Aaira anger towards Reyansh is also decreasing, She doesn't fight with Reyansh like before but yes she doesn't talk to him either.

She just talks to him as a classmate sometimes about things that happened in class and as both of them share the same bench so it is difficult for her to keep ignoring him.

Whereas, Reyansh also suppressing his feelings does not bother Aaira much and does not do anything that would make this calm flower turn into a volcano.

And he is happy with whatever time he gets to spend with her.

She talks to him sometime about subjects in class and that is enough for him.

And also an incident that happened with Aaira, is also a big reason for Aaira becoming soft towards Reyansh.

Flashback start

Both of them were in their third semester, at the beginning of the semester, their department went on an educational trip. Well till then Aaira ignored Reyansh as much as she could, and she also used to tease him by not listening to him for which he always used to warn her to stay away from her senior who was getting too close to her.

Even during that trip, Reyansh keeps stopping her again and again but to make him jealous and trouble him, Aaira doesn't listen to him and the result is that Aaira has to suffer the consequences of her that actions.

His senior Chirag takes advantage of the opportunity a day before the last day of the trip and takes Aaira to a secluded place saying that the rest of their friends are waiting for them there and Aaira gets convinced by his words and goes there, but on reaching there she is shocked when there is no one there and secondly she gets a shock when her senior proposes her to be his girlfriend, she is shocked by his action

But as she is alone with him at that time, she just refuses his proposal in a nice way and then she is about to go back from there but Chirag's ego gets hurt when she refuses and he stops her and starts forcing himself on her, telling her that she will have to accept his proposal.

Well, knowing her survival techniques, Aaira tries to protect herself as much as she can, She even slaps him, just to fuel his anger, but then Aaira in her efforts starts to weaken in front of his strength but all of sudden Chirag feels a strong punch on his face, due to which he falls straight on the ground and Aaira sees that Chirag has been hit by none other than Reyansh.

Well, Reyansh keeps his eyes on Aaira throughout the trip.

They stayed in a cottage there but that evening, on seeing Aaira missing even for a short while, Reyansh immediately went out in search of her and while searching for her, he comes behind the cottage where he gets furious after seeing Chirag misbehaving with Aaira.

He sees how Aaira is struggling to escape from his hold while hitting him.

Meanwhile, Chirag gets up from the ground and comes towards Reyansh to hit him back but before chirag can do anything, Reyansh starts hitting him non-stop, he hits him badly injuring him.

But seeing chirag bad condition Aaira stops Reyansh, on which he stops but he looks at Aaira angrily, he always warned her but this girl does not listen to even this small thing of his.

What if he doesn't get here on time? He doesn't even want to imagine that.

But further on, without saying anything, he holds her hand and starts walking towards the cottage, and as it was evening time, everyone was busy spending their time, so no one noticed them and coming inside the cottage, Reyansh drops Aaira to her room and goes straight to his room without saying anything and Aaira gets shocked by his behavior that why is he not saying anything to her now.

On the other side, seeing Chirag's half-dead condition, the professor asks him who beat him like this but Chirag does not take Reyansh's name because it was also a matter of his honour that first he got beaten up by a junior and secondly if he complains about Reyansh then Reyansh and Aaira will complain against him due to which the college can take any action against him....So, scared by that very thing, Chirag tells the professor that by talking about a fight with some local person of this place, he ends the matter right there.

Whereas about an hour after that incident, composing herself and not stopping herself, Aaira comes to Reyansh's room to say sorry to him because even though she keeps fighting with him, but she has enough sense that today when she is wrong and he has helped her, she should say sorry to him and thank him.

She is outside his room and takes a deep breath and is about to knock on his door, but she sees that the room's door is slightly open: And when she peeks inside, she sees that Reyansh is sitting on the bed and applying ointment on the wounds on his hands.

Well, after coming back from there the first thing he does is take a shower to calm down the anger burning inside him, and when he sits after changing, he suddenly feels pain in his hands and then he notices his injuries which he too had received while fighting with Chirag

But both his knuckles were badly injured due to which he was facing some difficulty in applying ointment on his wounds himself.

And seeing him like this, Aaira does not knock but directly opens the door of the room and comes inside and when the door opens, Reyansh sees her and wonders what she is doing here.

Well, his anger has cooled down a bit now, a while back he was angry at her for her actions, but now he is not angry at her.

" Are you okay?" Reyansh's question immediately fills her eyes with tears and her throat gets choked, It's he who's hurt, and that too because of her, and he's asking her if she's okay?

But she soon composes herself and then without saying anything comes close to him and sits in front of him on the bed

Reyansh looks at her but without saying anything, Aaira takes ointment from the first aid box lying beside him and starts applying it on his knuckles.

Reyansh looks at her who is applying ointment to him while silently looking down but he is shocked when her tears drop onto his knuckles, despite her efforts to control them.

Reyansh immediately lifts her face and sees her tearful eyes which pierce his heart but before he can say anything, she speaks when their eyes meet

" S...sorry." She speaks in a choked voice, she feels her chest is heavy due to which she is finding it difficult to even breathe.

She shudders to imagine what is going to happen to her, she is scared to think what would have happened if he had not come to help her in time.

" You don't need to say sorry, forget what happened and yes, don't tell anything to uncle and aunty, they will get tensed, everything is fine now...You also rest now." He tells her to which she looks at him and nods without saying anything.

" By the way can I tell you one thing...." Reyansh says to her to which she looks at him waiting for him to say further

" Please take my life, do whatever you want to do to me to vent your anger but please don't do all this again because of me, I know you were with him to make me jealous despite me stopping you but don't put yourself in such a situation again to hurt me, break my head with your hands but don't do all this again because of me." He requests her and she feels really guilty after hearing this.

" I am so bad then why do you do so much for me?" He smiles at her words

" First of all you are very good... he speaks but can't say anything further when she interrupts

" No, it's a lie, I am bad, I fight with you all the time, I say all sorts of things to you but you..." She is unable to say anything beyond this when this time he interrupts her.

" Well your anger towards me is justified and yes everything is still fine, you can still fight with me I will not say anything because I know that one day this anger of yours will end and maybe if nothing else, we will become friends again." He says in hope to which she is unable to say anything further. How is he so optimistic.

And that was the day between them from where Aaira's attitude turned soft towards him.

Now she doesn't fight with him at all but at the same time she doesn't talk to him openly due to some reasons but yes, the conversation that happens between them in the class on things related to the subject is enough for Reyansh.

And there, after coming back from the trip, because of never being able to hide anything from her parents, this time Aaira tells not only Avni but also Neil about what happened to her despite Reyansh forbids her, and Aaira also tells them how Reyansh helped her.

Meanwhile Neil and Avni get shocked to hear this but are thankful to Reyansh for saving their daughter.

And for this very thing, Neil and Avni also go to Reyansh's house to thank him for this thing.

While Priyal and Vishal are shocked to know about what happened with Aaira, but then they praise their son.

But at the same time, Neil was so angry with Chirag's actions that he was about to get him expelled from college but Aaira, being a student, understands the years of hard work a student puts in and asks her father to give that boy a chance forgiving him and Aaira also says her father that if that boy does something like this again then he can do whatever he wants with him.

Understanding this point of Aaira, Neil still goes to the college and warns Chirag that if he looks at his daughter again in wrong way, that day will be his last day in college.

Flashback End.

To be continued.........