A Desire to Win Her | Ongoing

Chapter 22

Exams are like loans which feel like the greatest burden on one's shoulders until it is not completely settled except that unlike loans, exams are never a choice but rather a compulsion.

The week-old schedule for the mid-semester exams would be finally over today; yielding back the happiness & license to the innocuous and distressed students to kickstart their old lives: full of fun, assignments & lectures. Today was the last exam and many students were anything but stressed about the pre-planned trips of theirs for the celebration of their last exam.

On the flip side, the exam break was a significant speed booster in case of Rohan's and Kavya's relationship as the abyss they felt during this exam week confirmed how much they had started admiring each other that the mere absence of each other for a week felt like countless years. Maybe this was what people share about love: a spell which doesn't allow either to live or die peacefully.

"All the best, Arvika," Dev susurrated beside Arvika and started reading his question paper concentratedly before Arvika could say Jack Robinson. She meekly replied a 'Same to you' and started jotting down the answers from the flip side of the question paper, as usual.

In this one week consisting of five continuous exam days of sitting beside Dev, Arvika had apprehended one thing that he wasn't the same Dev anymore. The Dev of standard eleventh who was a spoilt brat, who was a rebellious boy and who can forget, a stubborn teen. And forthwith, he was anything but the aforementioned boy; contemporarily, he was a perfect aristocrat who knew how, when and where to open his perfectly chiselled mouth. She had noticed how many supporters he had behind him, how many students worshipped him: there were many students and she had also perceived that she was the only girl who despised him out of all the girls of her college. She was always the odd one out...she didn't know why.

And who could overlook the modest act of compassion she had shown to him the very next day of the day when Dev had helped her solve the question of 'Ray Optics'. That day, Dev had forgotten to bring his magical-water containing bottle and because of the humidity trying to score full marks that day, he had got parched in the middle of the examination. Then as if Arvika had conjectured his thirstiness out of some divinely majestic powers, she had offered her pitcher to him followed by her minutest of smiles.

That was the day when Dev had once again fallen in love with her.

But the added unexpected element was the slight patch of coloured lip-balm that was adhered to one side of the peripheral of the bottle's opening. Dev had literally thanked his stars that day and later, he had sucked on that part while quenching his thirst from his love's affectionate droplets of H2O. And from that day onwards, he made sure of two things; first, that his bottle never encountered him whenever he was in the vicinity of his lady love and second, her bottle was now partially his.

Dev grinned mischievously like a Cheshire cat at his mastermind plan and after taking some sips of water, he continued his paper. 

While focusing her attention back on her answer sheet, Arvika too started her calligraphic writing on the paper and the time passed like a spur. The exams were eventually over and all the students swiftly dispersed to their decided places, leaving only two souls inside the classroom. One was busy finding the cap of her Reynolds pen and the other was busy playing with that particular cap only, knavishly.

"Where is that dhakkan?" she talked with herself while bowing down the desk, trying to relocate her lost cap. (cap of a pen)

"Here it is," Dev answered and then Arvika looked towards him and then at his hands which were busy playing catch-catch with her pen's cap. She sighed profoundly at his childishness. Who would say that this person was the President of IIET Delhi? Seriously?