Surbhi whirled and turned to face Nitya, holding out the glass of coffee she had prepared for her. Staring intently at her face for a second, she spoke.
"Baby, are you thinking about Siddhant again? I'm asking you once again to let it go, he is not worth it. He doesn't deserve anything from you; not even an iota of your attention anymore. He must have accumulated good karma in some past life, due to which he had been blessed with you as his friend for all these years; but now he has shown his true colours- and not a moment too soon. Just forget about him, like you do with your nightmares. Trust me, if he ever tries to reach you, I will be the one to beat the shit out of him- so don't worry about that. And most importantly, I talked to Samarth, who confirmed that neither of them got admission into your department. Just go and enjoy the first day of your college; you know na, I still need to pack! Mukul and I will be leaving for our college trip tomorrow evening." Surbhi was speaking out loud everything that was on her mind; Nitya knew she got riled up whenever her used-to-be-friend's name popped up and it was best to let her ramble on until she calmed down.
"Yes, mumma," Nitya replied when Surbhi had finally slowed down to a whisper, grinning ear to ear. "You know what, sometimes I get really confused about who my real mother is!"
Surbhi gave her a death glare and was about to say something when suddenly Nitya's phone started vibrating. 'Headache No.1' flashed on screen and as Nitya was going to pick the call, Surbhi looked questioningly at her. A horrified look appeared on her face as the realization dawned and she asked pleadingly, "Please tell me he is not in your class once again!"
"Yes he is! And relax, he is not as bad as you assume him to be; wait, let me answer the call first."
Nitya picked up the phone. "Hi Kanan...yeah, I will be coming to college today...oh, thanks for your concern but I don't think it is necessary though…okay thanks then, see you in college. Yeah, bye!"
She hadn't even disconnected the call yet, when she heard Surbhi's commanding voice, "Explain!"
"Okay so that was Kanan, and he was concerned that I might be late for college. So he was insisting on saving a seat for me; and was assuring me that apparently, he is not going to tell anyone that his Mehul sir is my own brother!"
Nitya summarised her phone call instantaneously, but before Surbhi could react, the cell phone vibrated loudly on the counter : 'Headache No.2'.
Surbhi almost spilled the coffee after seeing that name, luckily Nitya was fast enough to grab the mug from her hands. It took her a couple of seconds to recover from the shock, and after that the first sentence uttered from Surbhi's mouth was "At least don't tell me that he is with you as well! I mean, please."
"Unfortunately yes! He is there as well; and let me answer, or he'll show up right here on our doorstep." But it had already disconnected by that time, she was going to redial when the phone started vibrating in her hand, she really disliked chiming ringtones.
She quickly picked up this time, "Ahm! Sorry, I was….ah okay…yes I will be coming to college…no-actually…umm, it's okay! Listen, I mean-oh, okay bye...yeah see you there! Yeah, I will be there in half an hour...bye!"
This time Surbhi didn't even bother to open her mouth; she just kept glaring at her best friend with a deadpan expression.
Nitya took a deep breath and began, "Okay. So when I tried to apologize for not receiving the call, he simply said that he could understand that I had been getting ready for the first day of post-grad classes, as I wouldn't want to get late on the first day- AS IF I'M EVER LATE TO MY CLASSES ANYWAY! Then he went on, saying that he will be reserving a seat for me if I might get into traffic on my way there, in a hypothetical situation of course. I just wanted to let him know that Kanan would also be saving a seat for me. But as usual, he didn't even bother to listen to it. Now tell me, how can a single person be in two places at the same time without Hermoine's time-turner?! Nevermind, then he also went on to say that he would keep it a secret that Mehul bhaiya is my sibling. I mean-wow, haven't I got such a nice set of classmates, whom I don't even consider my friends; but both of them have assumed themselves to be my best friends as well?!"
She finally completed the whole story without pausing, as if she had been rapping. Surbhi just looked at her face and started laughing hysterically. "I mean, I also want to know how you're gonna manage to snag the time-turner from her, or manage to sit in two different seats without it! And poor Kanan and Atharv, what is gonna happen to their wretched hearts when their rainbow bubble bursts? Now hurry, otherwise you will actually be late for the first class!"
"Okay ma'am!"
*********************
"Girl? Which girl? Hey, you're lost again! Are you going to tell me now, or should I wait till Christmas?" Dae Jung asked, looking straight into his friend's eyes.
Ji-Hun gulped, wondering if he was doing the right thing. It was just a dream after all, and Dae Jung tended to get stressed out very quickly. He decided not to tell him anything at that point, after all he wasn't even sure if the dreams would continue. He would revisit his decision in case it happened again and hold out for a while longer.
He smiled and replied, "Yes DJ, it's about a girl. I mean my dream girl, I really want to date the most beautiful girl in this world. Do you think I will be able to find her?"
Dae Jung swung his arm in order to prompt him to speak up, but froze mid-air when they heard Kaoru's voice coming from the hall. "JI-HUN! DAE JUNG, wake up! We have a really important meeting today, you guys will be late, Hurry up!"
"Okay hyung!" Both of them shouted in reply.
*********************
An hour later, they were in the meeting room with Yeoubi, their manager.
"Okay, I think it's clear to everyone now. We will be going to Italy for almost one and half months for the concerts, and after that we will return to Korea for 20 days just to touch base. Then, the tour will continue to different countries, so we have three months to prepare, starting today. Let's get it done."
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