"I have rejected the suitor which mother and father chose for you recently," Vidyut's choice of topic startled Vindhya.
She wasn't expecting this conversation to take place right now. With raised eyebrows, she looked at him in further enquiry.
"Do you trust me?" he asked her in all seriousness.
Vindhya nodded her head without any hesitation.
At her response, his lips curved upward in an affectionate smile and he patted her head, "I want the best for you. I know that you were hurt by that jerk but he belongs to your past now. I won't let such a thing happen ever again. When the time is right, I will help you choose the right guy. You just concentrate on the competition for now."
Vindhya found herself tearing up despite trying hard to maintain her composure. She nodded and lowered her eyes, not wishing for him to see the pain which had emerged in her eyes due to Yash's reference. She was immensely glad that he had said no to their parents. Even though she had been harping upon the fact that she was over Yash and wanted to move on, she knew that she wasn't ready yet.
Clearing her throat after few moments, she sought to change the topic and told him about what happened at the competition the previous day.
Vidyut was in deep thought for some time before he said, "Don't overthink it. You should never refuse if help is being offered voluntarily at such a crucial juncture but don't let your guard down even for a second, no matter how much you trust the person."
She nodded her head. As expected, her brother's thoughts were completely in sync with her own. She was glad that he had come to see her today.
Night before Day 3
Mriga felt as if her head had been filled with wool. For the past thirty-six hours, she had only been looking at maps, figures, names and more. But at this moment, she was sure that she didn't even know her own name, forget anything else. Was this it? Was she going to fail?
Yash looked at her miserable face and suppressed a sigh.
This girl!
"Can you stop feeling sorry for yourself? You do know that there are forty-four other girls who are working hard, if not harder at this moment," he chided her.
She gave him a death stare and replied, "It's easier to preach than practice, no? You have been lording over me for the past two days now and feeling pretty smug about it. I don't expect sympathy but you can at least be nice towards me or is that too tough?"
Yash didn't know how he stopped himself in that moment from going over and gathering her in his arms. But he knew that he couldn't do it at this moment. Sitting in the shade of the big lamp, half of her face was in shadow, highlighting her lips and the pout residing on them at this moment. A tendril of her hair was stuck under her chin, making him curl his fingers in his palm, lest he reached out to feel it.
"Let's go," he said, suddenly standing up.
He realised that she had reached her saturation level and it was futile to do anything further.
Mriga looked at him as if he had taken leave of his senses and didn't bother moving her butt from the cross-legged position which she had been sitting in on the floor.
"I think that if you continued sitting here, it would be tough to distinguish between the floor and you soon enough. Just because the physical assessment is over, does it mean that you would behave like a slug henceforth?" he goaded her deliberately.
"We are going for a walk to shake away the cobwebs from your skull," saying so, he extended his hand.
But she brushed him away and got up with a hmph… he wasn't sure but he could feel her curse him under her breath.
They had been preparing in the outside periphery of the Admin building till now. Due to the security issues, Yash was never invited inside the place and the boys had used the excuse that they had got the permission to use only the courtyard for the purpose of practice.
As soon as they took a few steps onto the path towards the other buildings, Abhirath reached them. He was carrying two glasses of Mriga's favourite kesar milk.
"Is it finished?" he frowned and directed the question towards Yash after Mriga took a glass from his hand and moved away.
"She has reached her limit. Anything we do now will only be counterproductive," Yash shrugged his shoulders.
He was feeling upset because he had thought that he might get these few precious minutes with her where they weren't going to discuss strategies and quizzes. But now with Abhirath's presence, it wasn't going to be possible.
Abhirath looked at Mriga who was wandering around with a dazed expression on her face.
"What do you think are her chances?" he continued speaking to Yash in a low tone.
Even though he didn't like the guy, he couldn't change the fact that Yash knew Mriga better than him and also that he had put in a lot of effort in preparing material and information for her to learn from.
When it came to the second stage, Abhirath was worried about was the lack of preparatory time which Mriga had got versus the others. Even during the holidays, she had been on the internship and though it helped her in enhancing her physical skills, she had lagged behind in the theoretical field. Currently, her lack of knowledge of a few things wasn't giving him jitters. But they had simply run out of time.
Yash studied the guy in front of him carefully.
Seeing his genuinely concerned expressions, he suppressed the angst inside and replied neutrally, "We can't change the facts. The only hope is that she manages to get right what she knows. The things which she hasn't learnt are out of our hands, really."