Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya?

What's Going On?

Alia P.O.V.

Our shoot was finished and we were back home. It had been three and a half months since I'd moved in with Varun meaning we had just about a month and a half left before we could tell our parents it just didn't work and be done with it. 

Varun was behaving strangely though. Ever since we'd come back, things had been odd between us. They weren't bad but very, very weird. He seemed to be determined to spend time with me, even lying to Natasha and telling her that he had shoot to spend the day at home chilling with me instead. 

I brought it up twice but it seemed to offend him; he asked me if it was a crime for us to spend time together. Of course, there was nothing I could say to that so I just shrugged it off, deciding to be happy that we had the time to spend together and not question it. 

About two weeks after we returned, Shashank and Karan called us into the office to show us the trailer. Given that we'd just finished our final song shoot two days before, I thought it was a bit fast but, from the looks Shashank was giving me, I figured he knew something was up. I hadn't told anyone but Shaheen yet but I'd had offered for some Hollywood fils that would be filming in London. I hadn't really been considering taking them but now the opportunity was beginning to seem like a good one, especially since my sister had told me that she does her best writing in England and was considering moving there for a while. The only drawback was that filming started in two months - right when our movie was slated for release. 

I had the feeling Shashank somehow knew about it and wanted to start promotions as soon as possible. Given that Varun's last film had released just after we'd left for our outdoors shoot, we were just about in the clear to start promotions without having concerns about boring people. I figured we had about a week at most before the trailer released. Just as the thought came to mind, Karan voiced it. 'We're releasing on the 17th December.' he stated, pausing for the glance me and Varun shared as though he'd anticipated it. 'We know it's short notice but it's only two months until the film releases; if we want to have a chance at a proper promotional tour, we need to release the trailer within the week.' he explained. 

'I thought Dharma's been cutting down on promotions though?' Varun asked. 

'As a general rule, yes. But given the scale of this film and the extent of your combined fanbases, we thought it would be to our advantage to do a full promotional campaign.' Shashank told us. 

'Okay. How do we do the trailer release announcement?' I asked. 

'And please don't say a live chat. It's become overdone.' Varun said, reading my mind. 

'I probably should've seen that one coming.' Karan muttered, getting a laugh from Shashank - who probably had seen it coming. 'Fine, no live chat... do either of you have any better ideas?' 

'What about not announcing it? Just have a trailer launch?' I suggested. 

'Idea has merit.' Shashank agreed. 'But what about media coverage?' 

'Let the media in on it.' Varun put in. 

'And if it somehow gets "leaked"?' Karan questioned. 

'Come on, we can trust these people. We've been working with them for years now and none of them has ever let anything slip.' I persuaded. I got three incredulous looks. 'I mean movie related.' 

'I don't know. It might get bad response if we do something like that.' Karan mused. 

'What bad response?' Varun asked. 'If anything, it'll stop the trollers from preparing anything.' 

'Yeah. Plus our fans are used to us springing things on them like this. They usually like it.' I pointed out. 

'Come on Karan. It's a good idea. Start promotions off with a surprise like this. It's unprecedented.' Shashank convinced.