"Say something?" Abhi asked as the rest of the table and as well the tables nearby kept on looking at the two in shock.
Surely it was a surprise, firstly with Abhi being quite known in the college due to his position and secondly him asking this question for the first time since the last two years.
"I... I don't know what to say?" the confused brain and stanza of Akshi wasn't able to understand what it was that she was supposed to say on this.
Surely a sensible side of her expected her to say Yes and so did the unreasonable one, but what confused her was, it was like for the whole while that she had been in the college and while she waited for him to come he didn't appear, and then all of a sudden he shows up and asks the most unexpected question.
"Say Yes-"
"Or May be NO?" Mehek said, as she completed the statement for Abhi who turned to her and glared at the smiling fiancé of his best friend.
"Akshi..."
"Wait a minute, let me breath..." Akshi took a deep breath and took hold of the glass of water that thankfully lulu had a presence of mind to offer her while the rest kept on staring at her.
Once assured she was in her best of wits she cleared her throat and said, "Abhi where were you since morning? I had been worried for you, and then you come up all of a sudden and ask me if I could be your girlfriend..."
"And why did you eat my paneer?" Aron asked in a very irritated voice cutting off Akshi's Rant.
Abhi looked at Aron with a menacing glare and said, "I will talk to you later on, and you..." he once again looked at Akshi and took hold of her hands and kissed her knuckles and said,
"I am sorry, I wanted to ask you yesterday itself but Kartik was busy pestering us and I might have not slept the whole night thinking how I would ask you only to sleep in the wee hours resulting in me sleeping in."
Abhi was busy scratching his head as he failed to see the cute smile that had appeared on Akshi's face.
Pulling her hands out of his, Akshi cupped his cheeks in her hand and leaned in closer and said, "Yes!" the small voice of Akshi made him look at her and leaned in a bit to make sure he heard right.
"Yes, I will be your girlfriend." The confirmation made the whole table to hoot out in and whistle in happiness, as Abhi pulled Akshi on his lap and hugged her tightly.
"Thank you... and I love you." Abhi kissed her cheeks as she Blushed and said she loved him as well.
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When the new couple walked back to the classroom, this time much to Abhi's irritation not hand in hand, as Akshi kept on talking with Shikha about certain things that were yet to be done, with nothing to do than to obey, Abhi followed the girls with a dejected look.
'So much for having a girlfriend!'; He thought as his lips pouted in disappointment.
But, As soon as they walked inside the room, it was filled with loud cheering. It seemed truly the news fly faster than the wind in their college.
Taking the best of the situation, Abhi quickly nudged Mehek aside and held Akshi's hand as she narrowed her eyes at him, as the later smiled. Finally satisfied that she was near him, as his with the whole world as the witness.
Their beautiful time was broken when Parthiv walked up to them and quickly pulled Abhi in a tight hug and said, "Finally this man here got some balls... but dude please I want my event to roll off well, I just hope you two wont sneak out just like that anywhere."
The whole room busted out in laughter as Akshi quickly pulled out her hand from Abhi's hold and walked towards the corner of the room where her work awaited for her, all the while muttering how stupid the guys could be.
Once everyone was finally back to work, with no more the lime light on the two, did Akshi finally looked up from her work , her eyes searching the tousled mob of black hair, and once they reached their destination, she felt as if a heavy weight was lifted off her shoulders.
Akshi kept on staring at Abhi, her eyes she felt were never straining as it always did when she looked at a thing for a long time, it was as if she was meaning to remember each and every small detail of his, and as she looked upon she felt her expression changing every time his did.
It reminded her of her school days, as how she used to look at him just like the way she did now. How he would pucker his lips while nodding as if understanding a thing very well but in all he would be confused as hell, Or how he would have that confused look on his face with those oh so many cute little frowns on his forehead when something unexpected happened. Or how he would have those long strides every time that he was happy or excited to be somewhere.
Akshi surely knew what did every different details of him meant, but when he would be looking right into her eyes the way he would always do, it was as if she would have lost her thinking ability, her presence of mind would get lost in those mesmerizing pools.
"The way you are looking at him, I swear if I were him I would have thought you were a creep." As much as the sudden voice should have terrified her, it was rather the words that did the job.
With her small eyes bulging out like sockets she turned and looked at Karishma who sat beside her cutting out props for photo booth.
"Tell me you don't mean what you said." Akshi replied as she as well took hold of her brush and dipped it once again in the paint, trying to look as casual as she could.
"No ... I mean yes, you do like him and all that shit, but damn girl your gaze was intense as if... I don't know, for a moment it made me uncomfortable, it was as if I was disturbing your private moment." The two laughed as Karishma winked at the Akshi, trying to lighten her up as she seemed quite tensed up.
After a lot while, when finally Parthiv called out for the remaining peeps in the room did finally Akshi looked up from her work, all she realized was most of the room was now empty and silent.
Shruti somehow was as well comfortably working; with Mehek and Priyanka working on the laptop, Karishma writing something in her book, Juhi, painting the posters, and many others working on their own respective jobs.
Akshi let her gaze once again linger back to Parthiv who stood on the dice ready to make an announcement, when she felt a presence behind her. She was about to turn around and look who it was, when she felt a warm breath on her neck as words fell on her ears.
"Don't move, or else I will have to move from here." a small smile appeared on her face as she recognized Abhi's voice. It seemed weird as it had been just 3 to 4 hours they had last talked and seen each other properly, yet it seemed like decades. It made her question was it the new promotion in their relationship status or was it always the same.
She never got any time to answer as Abhi raised another for her.
"After this thing gets over, can I drop you back home and if it's okay we can as well tell kartik about us being together?"
Yes it was important to let kartik know what all was happening around, but that was only when she had wrapped up her mind on the things. Akshi couldn't really answer to his question, but it was necessary to give a reply at least till the small announcement was over and they would be able to have a proper conversation.
Hence with a small nod Akshi looked ahead as Parthiv took a deep breath and adjusted his hair the way he always did before voicing out his thought, a nervous habit of his which Mehek had pointed out to her a few days back.
"Since many aren't here right now, but what I have to discuss with you all is quite important. I want you all to inform the others about this I am sure our grapevine are strong and positive, and what all that is being discussed here will be shared in the same way."
The crowd chuckled at his dramatic statements as Akshi heard a small nautanki from Abhi. The small word brought back so many memories of her school days, she made a mental note to talk about her friends with Abhi as soon as they were out of this place, but that was possible only when Parthiv was to end his meeting.
"This evening I had gone to principal ma'am with the report of our pre-event and to ask her what did she thought of our event, and to say she was happy would be an understatement. Principal ma'am and many of the faculties were happy with the show that we had put up for them!"
The whole room was filled with loud hooting and claps, the news was something that we all were anticipating, but to receive it as well, had another level of satisfaction and happiness.
Parthiv once again called out for everyone and said, "Hence, now that we are done with our first event, I and our convener we thought that why not contribute to the society for the good deed that we are doing... see before every big that has to start we at home give something to the needy ones and seek their blessings and good wishes, TEDx is similar to those big things and new beginning of our life.... "
"hence why not we as well contribute something to the needy ones, we have thought that we will contribute some amount of money and will donate the said amount to some NGO and will spend some time there, this we are planning to do this Saturday, hence you all have time till Thursday think about it, ask your friends if we should do this or not and let us know."
The whole room was filled with murmurs; charity was something which Akshi had never done voluntarily at a huge amount. A bit here and there was all that she had contributed, surely this plan sounded good and exciting to her!
She quickly turned towards her right and raised her eyebrows at Mehek as if asking her what did she thought of it. The girl as silly as she was, quickly stood up from her place and walked towards Akshi and sat beside her and said,
"And this guy here asks me why do I love him?" the girls laughed at the statement, while Parthiv winded up the meeting.
Once assured there were no more announcements or things to be discussed, Akshi stood up from her place and went off to help Juhi and others with arranging things and discussing what else was it that was to be done the next day.
"I will look into the cover up charts, if anyone wants to help me out please do join, and Shikha what else is left to be done?" Akshi asked as she noted down certain things in her diary.
"The X CHART, gosh man the design for the stage is yet to be done, the x for stings ... I guess we will require more, and then I believe we will have a few more things for this charity event now.. . I swear it's really nice, but damn why they have to put these things on us!!" the way Shikha was exhausted had everyone pity her, but at the same time she looked so cute with all the whining that she did.
"Aweee, never mind, lets distribute this work among the whole committee?" karishma said in a sarcastic tone, but that surely sounded as an escape from excessive work for the creative's.
Akshi quickly walked to karishma and said, "What a brilliant idea, listen, these posters they are going to be made for the kids, hence why not we make cartoons, cartoons from our times, and the current ones. More over everyone keeps on asking us for some work to paint or to draw, these sketches won't be that difficult, why don't we make each of the committee members including Parthiv and ma'am make these posters, they will be handmade for the kids and will only increase the sentimental value towards them in our eyes."
The whole clan sat there in silence for a while each of them contemplating what Akshi said.
"The idea is good, but will it work?" Juhi asked.
"It has its pros and cons why not go with a trial and error period, like let a set of five people do it first, seeing them the others will voluntarily pitch... but I think this needs to be a surprise till the morning." Muskaan smiled as the rest agreed and huffed out a breath as another problem was tackled for the day.