"Karanvir has a thar as well!!!!" Kush argued with his twin. Maahi timidly stood alongside them, scared and apprehensive. For a second she thought to make an excuse and take a day off from the college but then she can't stay forever inside her house, she'll have to go to the college anyways. But she can't stand the creepy Karanvir. She didn't know what his problem was, like why on earth was he bothering her like that. She had never ever done anything to wrong him, she doesn't even talks to him. Suddenly the bus honked in the distance and she stiffened. Clasping her bag tightly she waited for her bus to stop near her. The bus smoothly halted close to her and she embarked the bus. Waving at her friend she sat on her usual seat and looked outside the window. It wasn't a bright sunny day for sure. The overcast sky was laden with heavy grey clouds which hung upon the entire city, ready to burst into heavy showers of rain anytime. The wind blew westwards and was cold, it skimmed the foliage which rustled eerily in the near silent downs. She propped her chin in the palm of her hand and gazed at the beautiful city. The sweet smell of recently blossomed wild flowers drifted across the downs, the early morning dew was still fresh upon the blades of grasses and glimmered like tiny diamonds upon the bed of green. Within 10 minutes they had covered the distance between her stop and the bus stop. The majestic downs vanished and now she could see only a large park and distant hills flanking the stop. And unfortunately, her eyes landed on an open wily jeep on which sat her biggest nightmare, THE CREEPY KARANVIR, along with his doltish friends ofcourse. His deep piercing stare hooked on her. She quickly averted her eyes and busied herself in her phone. A minute later she heard a soft tap on her window. Casually looking over she found Akhil- the cute guy, grinning down the window. She courtly slid the window open.
"Yes." she said politely. He beamed from ear to ear cutely. He extended his hand towards the window and she could see something purplish and shiny peeking out from his fist.
"For you." he opened his fist and there was a Cadbury chocolate sitting proudly upon his palm. She quietly shook her head.
"No, thank you." she declined politely. He pouted.
"Please, my little sister has born today and I am giving it to everyone...... please take it." his puppy dog eyes were the star of the show. Although she wanted to refuse but seeing that look in his eyes she kinda felt bad to decline. She nervously extended her fingers and softly took the chocolate from his hand. He grinned joyfully.
"Thanks." she whispered timorously. He smiled and ran back to the creepy Karanvir who was eyeing her with a weird satisfaction. She didn't look at Karanvir for as long as they were on the stop and she had a feeling that he was seriously displeased with that, not that she cared. Half an hour later the bus started and she peacefully listened to some music as the bus sped off to the college.
When the bus screeched to halt on the university's bus stop, the first thing Maahi observed was that Karanvir was walking towards the stop after parking his jeep in the parking lot. She quickly climbed down the bus with vaishali and continued talking randomly with her just to ignore him. A covert peek at her left revealed a pissed off Karanvir and she really couldn't assess why the hell he gets mad when she's ignoring him. Nonetheless, she still overlooked and marched straight towards her building. Karanvir didn't follow, which was a relief.
Professor Sethi was lecturing on Annelids, the obnoxious segmented worms including earthworms and leeches. Professor was briefing about the characteristic features of the phylum before he takes the class to the lab to demonstrate with the help of a preserved specimen about the body structure and other features of the animal. Casually her eyes shifted to the door and she gasped loudly. Outside was the creepy Karanvir, propped against the sturdy parapet and busy in his phone, atleast for the moment. She quickly withdrew her eyes off him and looked into her notebook. After some time when she looked up at the door then he was gone. She sighed in relief.
"Students get your bags, we're moving to the lab." Professor said loudly. Maahi shouldered her bag and started moving out of the door. Just a little ahead she saw Karanvir sitting on the stairs, surrounded by his foolish friends. Her heartbeat raced upon finding him staring fixedly at her and smirking to himself. She turned her eyes away timorously and ran towards her professor to stick around him.
Inside the lab, the professor was handling the container in which the specimen was kept. It was a nasty looking dead earthworm, its rear end coiled slightly inwards.
"As you can see students, this earthworm has so many segments on its body which is why it is placed in phylum annelida. The internal organs are found in an ordered segment. For instance....."
"We're coming in Sir!!!!" a loud voice boomed inside the lab. Maahi turned back and saw Karanvir along with his friends standing at the door. Her stomach churned at the sight of him. Professor frowned. This isn't a way to talk to a professor but you can't expect anything much better from the next in line mafia king.
"What happened????" asked professor gruffly. Maahi looked at Karanvir, transfixed.
"The entrance gate is closed, it won't open before lunch......can we sit in???" Karanvir said insolently and the girls of her class giggled. Professor cursed him under his breath but nodded grumpily. Karanvir and Co. strode inside and sat on the second row where Karanvir was sitting just behind maahi, well there was a narrow gap and a huge table which separated them, much to his dislike. Professor resumed the class but maahi would no longer have the comfort as before. She could feel Karanvir's eyes on her all the time which was both scary and irritating.
"Anybody has any question???" asked professor as he reached for the specimen of a leech. Akhil- the cute guy, was the only one to raise his hand. Professor frowned.
"Sir, if I mix earthworms in Bhalla's pudding, will he die???" the classroom burst into laughter as professor glared at him indignantly. Bhalla clouted him on his head.
"I'll give you the specimen, try it out yourself." professor muttered peeved. Akhil grinned. Maahi stood up and professor smiled down at her.
"Sir the......." there was a lot of noise at the back, a group of boys were cackling over the preserved phalluses of several barnacles. Maahi looked down as in this noise she surely couldn't ask professor what she wanted to ask. Karanvir's eyes hardened.
"OYE!!!!" he yelled and the noisy boys immediately fell silent. There was visible terror in their eyes as Karanvir glared savagely at them. Once the class had went silent, he looked back at Maahi, his eyes soft and gentle. Maahi quickly looked at her professor.
"Sir um.....you were to tell me the name of the book." said she softly. Professor nodded as if suddenly remembering everything.
"Yes ofcourse, stay back after the class and we'll discuss about the notes as well." he said, she nodded and sat down. Karanvir and his friends didn't leave and disturbed the entire class for the whole time, but there was one good thing that during their entire presence there was no shortage of humour. Akhil, besides for being the cutest guy of the town, was fairly a good humourist and you can watch him and bhalla fight all day. Bhalla was a serious looking fellow and it was akhil who knowingly trifled with him, in return bhalla always ends up smacking him across his face. And then there was Karanvir, silent but precarious, he wasn't much of a talker and except for bhalla none of the other boys readily opened their mouths in front of him. Akhil and Karanvir shared a special bond, atleast she feels so. During the entire lecture, Karanvir was leering evily at her. On one occasion when she was studying the specimens inside the cabinet, he quietly stood alongside her and stared upon her creepily. She stiffened when she saw his colossal frame standing next to him, she did right by running towards her seat.
Maahi stayed back to take notes from the professor while the rest of the class, including Karanvir, had moved outside. When she had taken the notes, she moved outside but on the turn of the corridor she stopped short. On her face was the creepy Karanvir leaning against the wall alongside his friends. His face lightened up instantly when he saw her standing before him. She threw her eyes down and trotted towards the staircase. Behind her she could feel him stalking her, keeping a fair distance between them. She heard his friends chuckling lowly behind her. She increased her pace and descended the stairs fastly. Following that, she made her way to her friend's building, ran up the stairs and dashed inside her classroom. Vaishali stood up anxiously when she saw maahi huffing and puffing vigorously.
"Maahi what's up." she asked fretfully. Maahi trudged towards her before throwing herself on the seat near her. She told her everything about the creepy Karanvir and vaishali was boiling with anger.
"I'm gonna kick him in the balls...... bloody Karanvir!!!" she hissed out vehemently. Maahi sat quietly in fear.
After the lunch, she goes straight to the library to issue a book. She moved inside the library, went inside the hall 1 and started searching for the book in the long shelves. Suddenly, she caught the book on the uppermost shelf. She stood on her toes, extended her arm to reach the book but the shelf was way too up. But still she showed perseverance and kept on trying to reach the book. All of a sudden, she discovered a muscly arm snaking up towards the shelf and dexterously bringing the book down from the shelf. She wheeled around and stopped short. On her face stood Karanvir with her book in his hand. His big figure literally made a joke of these huge shelves while she felt like a timid rabbit in front of a lion. He extended the book towards her. She gulped before slowly reaching out for the book. Carefully she took the book taking every measure to not brush her fingers against his. Her heartbeat was racing wildly in her chest as they were standing too close in the narrow space between the two bookshelves, so close that she could hear the sound of his heavy breathing. She felt warm for some reason in his proximity.
"Th-Thank you." she whispered and ran towards the librarian's desk. Behind the desk of the librarian was a small window and in the immaculate glass she caught his reflection, watching her passionately while blushing intractably. There was an evident happiness in his demeanor and she didn't know why was that. Nonetheless, she filled entries for the book and left quickly. She walked towards her building and thankfully he didn't follow. The rest of the day went peacefully with him not lurking around. After the classes, she descends the stairs, moves towards the entrance and gasps loudly on finding Karanvir outside the gate. His face lightened up like a bulb on watching her coming out of the entrance. He was alone this time. She gulps and clutches her book tightly to her chest and trudges towards the stop. She could feel him following her, prowling behind her like a savage beast on the hunt for his prey. Quickly she made her way to her bus, climbed inside and sat on her seat. She didn't dare climb down as Karanvir was wandering about the stop. He had found a suitable spot for himself from where he could easily watch maahi and that being the bus across maahi's bus. She tried to busy herself in her phone and overlook him by and large. However once or twice her gaze landed on him to find him watching her tirelessly. She shuddered. The driver came inside sharp at 4:30 and started the engine. She looks in the front to find Karanvir missing. The driver revvs up the engine and the bus speds off to her home. During the journey, however, she finds Karanvir following her bus on his jeep. She is spooked as she feels that he'll surely follow her to her home as well. She tried to not look outside the window but somehow she did ended up making eye contact with him which in turn would develop that cryptic smirk on his handsome face.
When her stop came, she timorously climbed down and shivered on catching sight of his jeep and him. She clasps her bag tightly and moves towards her home. The sound of the heavy engine could be heard from behind and she knew that he was following her. Instead of walking she started running and thankfully the speed of his jeep didn't increase, he was atleast not trying to scare her although he was scaring her badly. Running she went inside her house and didn't even spare a second glance at him. When her little figure disappeared inside the house, karanvir breathed a sigh of relief. She safely reached her home, he revved up the engine, wheeled the jeep to the right and sped off to his mansion.
Maahi was packing her stuff for the morning when a message popped up on her phone. Casually looking at the screen she found an unknown number. She opened the message and gasped.
"Good night beautiful" the message read. She shuddered in fear. Quickly she switched off her phone and hops in her bed to sleep.
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