Tatters of pride

Southern zilla

His reaction gave her hope. Upon leaving Ujjwala's room, she had debated whether to confront Yash or not but finally, she decided to give him a chance to realise and show his intentions towards this association.

"Apparently, your father didn't like the sight of me, so much so that he wrote a letter to my parents giving them a long-woven tale about you wanting to travel abroad for further studies and hence the unsuitability of a matrimonial alliance between us in the near future," hurt was fairly evident in Vindhya's voice.

She looked at his face after saying the words. Much to her delight, he looked shocked. Did this mean that he hadn't been a party to it? She waited patiently for him to react.

Yash couldn't believe his ears. He wanted to ask her to repeat what she just said. Did his father really come through for him? He still remembered the heart-to-heart talk which he had held with Harshvardhan, a few nights ago. It was after a real exhausting day in Vindhya's company and he had lamented to his father in a rather pitiful manner, probably had even begged him to get him out of this situation but his father had not given any indication that he would aid him in such an unexpected but effective way.

Without even being aware of it, a beaming smile spread on Yash's face. Unavoidably, it was noticed by Vindhya, turning her face turn ugly. Exerting her willpower, she stopped herself from saying anything further and walked off from there. There was only so much disregard that she would tolerate from anyone, even if that was the guy whom she liked!

"I will make him regret his decision. Preferring a lowly girl over me, he doesn't know what he has done," she thought to herself darkly.

A part of her knew that her defence mechanism was kicking in belatedly. She should have guarded her heart better, as she had managed to do for all these years. Now, all that was left to do was to hold onto the tatters of her pride, at least in front of others.

"Was my presence that unpalatable to him? Did he not like me even a bit?" her heart squeezed painfully as she reached the room where her maid was ready with the bags packed.

Northern zilla

There were only a few days to go before Mriga left for the Eastern zilla. Though she had been spending most of her waking hours in Shaurya's company, it could not be termed as 'quality time' in his eyes.

Shaurya's whole being trembled at the thought of what lay ahead but what was giving him the maximum agony was the idea of separation from Mriga. During the past hundred or so hours, he had seen her each and every nuance at close quarters.

He knew that she preferred sleeping on her left side. Her eyebrows twitched involuntarily whenever she tried to lie. Everytime she came back from a bath, she smelled like a strawberry and he believed that henceforth, he would never be able to see the fruit without being reminded of her. She had the bad habit of puckering her lips when confused and that expression surfaced especially during the political science lecture which Bela gave them.

All in all, the recent days had been a slow series of delicious torture. He didn't know whether he was being rewarded by seeing all this or tormented because it would no longer be within his touching distance in the near future.

"Ahem… Veer?" Mriga's questioning voice reached him.

With a start, he realized that he had been staring blankly into space for some time now.

"Yes, I was just wondering about the topic which Guruji has asked us to write about. Did you need me for something?" he asked.

Mriga looked at him suspiciously before shaking her head and going back to her task.

"Mriga, a letter has arrived for you from the Gurukul," her father came and handed it over to her.

"Oh! It must be the details regarding my internship," she said as she took the letter from her father.

Once Raghu left from there, Shaurya snatched the barely-read letter from her hand and started to go through it. She frowned at his bossy behavior but didn't say anything. She had become used to it. The guy behaved as if he was not her senior but her owner! The worse was... she let him get away with it!!

"Amrapali is a good mentor. Be sure to learn well from her. During your training, you will be going through a lot of simulations alongwith theoretical know-how. The intensity should be lesser than what you are going through currently but that should not cause you to go lax. Instead, use it to outperform and demand a tougher regime, understood? Don't you dare disappoint the Admin team," he told her severely.

Mriga barely held herself back from rolling her eyes. She had heard something similar from him innumerable times already. But he seemed to believe that she was a dim-wit and required regular reminders.

"I can see your insolence roll off from your shoulders. Do you think that this is a joking matter?" he stared at her with a scowl marring his forehead.

To be honest, he was very worried about her going to Eastern zilla under the current circumstances. As per Prithvi, that place was currently the hot bed of all nefarious activities. But it was imperative that they don't make any move out of the ordinary and hence things needed to continue as per the planned schedule.