He groaned in frustration after being stuck in traffic for a good 20 minutes, the car he was sitting in didn't made a single movement.
He has to reach the Delhi event on time, he can't be late, he has to be there at 11 am anyhow.
He slumped back in his seat and let his head fall back to ease his frustration, but the sound of the engines of cars around him wasn't helping.
It had just been a mere ten seconds of shutting his eyes when he heard someone knock on his window.
As he opened his eyes he saw the most beautiful girl ever been created standing by his window, looking at him, HIM.
She soon made a confused face and asked him to roll down his window as for the past two minutes he was just staring at her thinking of her to be his hallucination.
But instead of rolling down his window he opened the car door and asked her to hop in, she shook her head in a No and gestured him to come out.
He couldn't understand the hidden why, so just stared at her with furrowed eyebrows. Giving up she sat in the car to make him understand, because standing in the middle of the road was not very intelligent.
"Hi", she greeted.
"Hi?", he said still being confused.
"Just so that you know you won't reach your destination if you keep going on this route, a group of three cows have taken up a major part of the road and won't move until the authorities take their sweet time to reach there and move them with a bait. Well, and the other lane is taken up the college students as they are on the strike, protesting against the increase of three rupees on their meals.", she informed.
"What? Then how am I supposed to reach on time, is Delhi always like this.", he complained being annoyed with the situation.
"Actually yes! Delhi is a whole lot of hustle and bustle. And talking about how you'll reach there on time, I would say come with me, I am also heading for the event only. You are also going there only, right?"
"Yes I am, but the question is how will you take us there, are you going to make me fly or something, or just squeeze in between cars, because honestly you can do the latter one with your body but my body won't allow me to shrink in size."
"Your sense of humour was always very poor Abhimanyu but trust me it has went down the sewage in the past eight months. Here, in Delhi we use a facility known as Metro, we'll take the metro and you can join if you want to.", the tinge of teasing was reflected in her voice.
As they made their way out of the car and towards the nearest metro station, he took upon himself to have a conversation.
"How far is the metro station from here?."
"Umm, just a walking distance of two minutes."
"So, how long have you been in Delhi?"
"Six months.", her two words reply.
"And you changed your name to Akira?"
"Yes, yes I did....", he saw a change in her demeanour but she just shrugged her shoulders to portray not much of a affect.
She was not comfortable with this topic he registered.
"How is everyone at home, Manjari anuty, Neil?", she tried to change the topic.
"Everyone is good, even I am kinda fine, since you didn't asked.", he said trying to elevate the tension and gained a smile in return.
"What about you? How's everyone at your home?", he asked to prolong this chat.
With that question being on page she increased the pace of her steps as if running away from this conversation.
"They all are doing fine I guess.", before he could add something, she said pointing towards an entry gate.
"We have reached the metro station, let's go in."
<>
"Alright, we'll have to change the line after six stations and then two more stations and we will reach our spot, a calculated twenty-six minute ride I would say. We have to head towards platform number 2 to get our metro ride.", she informed him.
"Okay, okay, I already have my metro card, I'll get you the token, you just wait here.", she instructed.
When she returned to hand him his token, he simply questioned,
"You didn't answered me."
"What?"
"How are you?", with his polite voice and the captive eyelock she could feel her armour of Akira almost falling off and Akshara emerging infront of him.
Breaking the eye contact, she composed herself.
"I am fine, actually quite good.", without looking at him, she continued,
"We should be get going otherwise we will be late."
He nodded and followed.
<>
The ride was all silence, with minimum talking and just glancing each other while passing a smile each time. Not getting a seat they were standing adjacent to each other.
Soon he noticed a man standing behind her leaning a little too much into her every time the metro jerked even a slightest.
And in this moment, all he wanted was to grab that man by his neck and smash his head on the glass partitions. But before he could take any such drastic step he saw her turning around this man.
Crossing her hands on her chest she looked the guy straight into the eyes, not even a single jerk was able to imbalance her feet, confidence was screaming from her posture, she remained still until the guy took the defeat and backed off.
Proud. Proud was the only feeling that was surrounding him right now, he was really proud of this girl- his girl.
She really was an Akira because the Akshara he remembered was so scared when a goon approached her when she was going to the medical camp, the same camp where she saved him.
He also remembered her episodes of loosing her balance every now and then, but now, not even the biggest jerks the metro took while stopping at each station was not able to move her.
His trance was broken when she said they have to get off at the next station to change the metro line.
<>
Finally after another two stations later they came out of the metro station.
"What now?", he asked being a new person in the city.
"We will take an e-ricksaw from here so that we can travel via service lane as the main roads are jam-packed."
Soon an e-ricksaw driver approached Abhimanyu to know where they want to go.
"We need to reach Delhi Prime Hospital.", Abhimanyu told him.
"Okay sir, please sit, it's quite a distance, you'll have to pay Rs. 150."
"Sure, it's ok--"
"What? No, he is new in the city, I am not, I know you charge per person Rs. 15 to drop till the hospital.", Akira interwined.
The driver was not pleased with her interference.
"Yes madame, but only when the entire rickshaw is full, that is 5 people."
Akira turned around and spotted a young man and his elderly parents who looked like heading towards the hospital only. She turned back and passed a huge grin to the driver which annoyed him even more.
As they sat infront of each other in the adjacent seats of the e-rickshaw, Abhimanyu passed her a guilty look of, "I had no idea about the pricing system here."
She too responded with a, "Its okay, I understand." look.
The entire ride he kept looking at her, the way her face shone in the sunlight, the way every now and then she will turn her attention on the street, her small strands of hair falling time to time on her face and she pushing them back.
It took every ounce of strength to control his desire to run his fingers on those strands and tuck them behind her ear slowly.
She really had changed he thought, as if it's the same face yet a very different person, a person who gained years of maturity in these past just few months.
He came back from his thoughts when the brake was applied on the rickshaw and they were informed of their arrival at the destination.
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A/N-
Nothing much just enjoy the chapter.
And follow the ritual of liking and commenting.
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