Ishq Ki Kahani (#1)

Chapter-27: The First Love {1M Special}

I had not once thought about her in the last five years. In fact, I had completely forgotten about her existence until he mentioned her now. Suddenly, the vision of our first meet flashed before my eyes.

FLASHBACK TO 10 YEARS AGO:

{ZAIN'S POV}

It was our last year in school, today was a school fair as tomorrow would be the debate competition. After beating several teams and school, we were in the final, each team had three members, ours was Mahir, Azaan and I. Those two had dragged me, to attend this fair which was taking place in the rival school, the one we would be competing against tomorrow. I was walking through the corridors of the school building which was restricted to all the students for the day, but I had to get away from all the crowd. I was looking for their library- I had heard they had the best library among all the private schools. When I turned round the corner to get in the library, I walked straight into someone, who in turn had been holding lots of small, stacked boxes which were about to fall along with her.

But I caught her and her boxes, steading her. "Thank you! You caught me!" She said loudly keeping the boxes on the table beside us. Now I could see her properly. She was wearing her school uniform- a total goody-two-shoes. Light brown twinkling eyes, wavy black hair tied into a ponytail and a sharp nose. Her pink lips however did not stop moving, she was saying something but I had gone into another dimension, it seemed like everything stopped and she was the only one with me.

"Excuse me-?" She snapped her fingers at me and I stepped back into the moment.

"I said thank you. Usually when someone says thank you- you're supposed to say welcome. But I guess it's fine. You're from the other school right, every single person I have met there is arrogant and spoilt anyways-" but I interrupted her, "Do you always talk to strangers so much?"

She rolled her eyes at me, and all I ever wanted to do for the rest of my life, was stare at those eyes. "So what if I do? If you don't want to listen then don't" she replied offended but there was a sound of walking footsteps towards us, and she looked at me with her big eyes, muttering, 'RUN' but she herself held my arm and dragged me to the library with her.

The library was actually huge, she dragged me behind one of the last shelves, pulling me with her, as she stood rigid against the bookshelf with me covering her.

"Why did you pull me like that! And why are we hiding? Are you-" but she interrupted me immediately, putting her hand over my lips, "Ekdam Chup! Shhh"
(Absolutely quiet! Shhh!)

The footsteps grew louder and she removed her hand from my lips, we could tell, that the person had entered the library, but it was so huge, I doubted he would get to us. But the girl in front of me had her eyes shut, I could freely admire her features. Just looking her took my breath away, my skin still tingled with goosebumps from where she had touched me.

After a few moments the footsteps retreated back, the girl in front of me, checked again and signaled me to come out, as she was now freely started roaming around the library. "Wait here for a few more minutes, to be sure, they have left. I'm pretty sure it's one of the guards. I hid us because we are not supposed to be here idiot! You're from the other school but me, I could get detention for this and mind you- I have the model student reputation here. I helped you only because you helped me saving my boxes. Shit! My boxes are out. I hope he didn't get suspicious about it though. You're welcome by the way." She said rummaging through the bookshelf as I followed her like a lost puppy. In this case, I was lost. But wait had she called me an idiot- I was used to being called the genius not an idiot.

"So what is the model student doing here breaking school rules?" I questioned.

"I just finished arranging those boxes which you saw outside, couldn't do it in the crowd. Plus I need to get books for tomorrow's debate competition against your school. I don't know who I'm against but I've heard they're really good. But yes one advice to you- if you want to bet on the winners, bet on me, I never lose." She winked at me, stacking two books in my hand.