Rags To Royals (Royal #1: Book 1) | ✔

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"I'm not sure," I shake my head uncertainly.

"Then why cross the line?"

"Well, I said you can choose to not answer."

"What's the point if I get offended? You'll know it's a sore spot for me." The key jiggles as he takes them out of his pockets and unlocks the doors of the science laboratory.

I open my mouth to retort but fail to come up with a response, so I helplessly settle on saying, or rather asking, "Why are you like this?" And I'm not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned. Did the accident cause him to loose his social skills?

"I'm perfectly fine." He twists the knob and opens the door, nodding at me to enter first. I walk inside, immediately followed by him. The door automatically falls close behind us.

"One can't even hold a normal conversation with you," I say, pointing to his right as he searches for the switch. The dark laboratory floods with bright lights.

"What are normal conversations?" He prods. "Asking if you've had lunch, or wondering if we can hang out on weekends or talking about some movie we watched last time together. That's normal conversation, Esther, not asking a question that might offend the other person and then blaming them for being sensitive." He opens the cupboard to take out the apparatus.

I put my backpack down to help him. "We're not close enough to have such type of conversations," I take the beakers from him and put them on the counter.

"But we're close enough for you to ask me a personal question?" He turns with the test tube stands, his eyes locking with mine. I blink at the sudden, unexpected proximity. His faint scent of lavender tickles my senses so strongly that I almost forget we're still in the laboratory and he's my greatest nemesis as of now.

"You don't even know what the question is," I take the stand from him and turn away. He concentrates on safely transferring remaining glass apparatus on the counter before shifting his undivided attention to me.

"What is it?"

I curl my hand around the edge, worried about crossing the line since he already made it clear he's not looking forward to hearing an offended question. But then he stands this attentively, blazer discarded, sleeves rolled up, his hands shoved in the pockets of his dark blue slacks, his light brown eyes, that for some reason never seen to go along with his features, pinned on me with utmost dedication to capture each of my movements.

"Who was Virat Rajawat?"

It's not plainly evident, but there's a change in his body language that I don't miss. His shoulders go stiff, eyes lose that playfulness and jaw slightly twitches.

But he's saved from answering when the teacher walks in, unaware of the tension in the room as she instructs us to transfer the apparatus to the centre table.

"It's okay, you don't have to answer." I whisper, walking past him with the burner and test tube stands. He brings the remaining things to the table.

"Let's start with the second practical. You can get your phones out to record it if you want." She suggests.

"Oh, is that allowed?" I quickly return to my backpack that's stuffed in the rack and get my phone from the front pocket.

"Of course not," she chuckles. "But we've to take advantage of whatever we've access to. YouTube might help you but I feel this will make it easy to remember the practical since you already saw me performing it in a physical environment." She hangs her dupatta and puts on her lab coat and gloves.

I nod, opening my camera and switching to the video option before fixing my phone in a place where it can capture the video perfectly.

"Shourya, read me the title, beta," She glances over his shoulder while getting out the solubles from the glass shelf.