His Favourite Book

Chapter 47 - Mystifying Cases

"Your hostel's warden contacted us. Where were you last night?" A lady spoke with a raised voice over the call.

"Maa, I was just— I was at my friend's house to... study... we have exams coming up so we thought—" Muskan had been thinking of reasons to avoid getting scolded by her elders. At last, she couldn't come up with any excuse to cover up her night with Abhimanyu in the alley.

"That's why a boy drops you off in broad daylight?"

"Maa that—"

"SHUT UP! Do you understand what it means for a girl your age to be out all night?!"

"Maa please listen to me..."

"Stop offering excuses! Do not take unfair advantage of our trust in you!" Muskan's parents went on to roar at her till she could no longer bear any more soundwaves in her ears.

That night seemed to have been long for everyone. Muskan had to hear all the demeaning spells on herself from her mother for not being in her hostel room all night.

Abhimanyu was busy explaining to his father how the driver had to leave for a family emergency and being drunk, he couldn't drive himself home last evening. He claimed to have slept in his car all night.

Kartik stayed in the hospital, pulling an all-nighter. After clashing with Aashna and Abeer, he could not help but distract himself from the icky thoughts and instead indulged himself in taking care of Khushi. Anyone could make out from his expression that he regretted telling others about his late sister and that Khushi reminded him of her.

With no signs of sleep in her eyes, Aashna returned to her apartment and tried thinking of all the possibilities she might have hurt Kartik.

Abeer, on his desk, in front of his commissioned digital art, was drowning in the guilt of ruining Aashna and her friend's relations.

Girisha's chest and spine kept violently heaving due to an overflow of emotions that had, in turn, resulted from having seen Gauri in such an upsetting condition. She never wished to have any extended interactions with Dhruv. But when she finally did, it all ended up in an irreversible bad situation.

Gauri kept Girisha close to her chest, giving her all the time to cry it all out, while constantly caressing her fierce back to calm her down gently. All the while, Gauri couldn't stop thinking about the legal repercussions she would have to face after she almost murdered Dhruv.

- X - X - X - X - X -

[Next day]

Even by morning, Aashna could not summon enough vitality to commute to her University. She handed Muskan the duty of checking the results of her research competition's college round.

The day's classes only saw Muskan and Abhimanyu amongst the known characters from this story. Well, far away somewhere, Kartik's snores echoed through the hospital's corridor. Not soon after, one of the corridors of the university witnessed echoes of footsteps. Muskan's feet halted when she turned around and saw one hasty Abhimanyu stomping from the other corner of the corridor.

Muskan was still down because of all the yelling she got from her parents. Initially, she had blamed Abhimanyu for keeping her out all night. But then, putting herself in his shoes, she realised that he was a victim too. One thing she was glad for, was that they were finally on good terms after that night. At least Abhimanyu wouldn't be hating on her thereon. The corners of her lips curved as Abhimanyu got closer to her. Both of them were supposed to check the results. Just as Muskan extended her palm and opened her mouth to greet Abhimanyu, her shoulder was sidelined by his arm.