Is This Love??? ✔

Chapter 1

The first time they play lovers is at a school level drama camp when they're both 11 years old (he was eleven and a half and had constantly reminded her whenever she tried to tell him to do something differently, obviously outranking her on age). They're performing a modern version of Romeo and Juliet at the end of camp concert, she as Juliet, and him as Romeo. A funny thing since their chemistry is zero. Because not only do they not know anything about the other other, but they hate each other – with all the energy their little hearts can manage.
Or at least as much passion as anyone can hate anything with when they're eleven.

But they're both dedicated to acting and will settle for nothing except the best, so when an eleven (and a half) year old Sanjay emotionally declares that he loves her under the harsh lights in front of a room full of strangers, Shiviga runs into his arms, hugs him and says it back, eyes filled with tears. They get a standing ovation – because they're outstanding, obviously.
Everyone backstage is impressed they don't kill each other.

Sanjay trips Shiviga over as she leaves the dressing room. She gets him back by throwing a hairbrush at the back of his head .
*****
The next time they're forced to play lovers is when they are much older – and more 'violent'– at a high school acting workshop, conducted by a popular production company called MM Production House.
Shiviga is only participating for as long as technically required until she gets her offer for college, to the dramatic arts college practically all her family had been to. This experience and the certificate will go a long way. She's not of age nor has she written her exams, but the programme takes on juniors, so she had applied immediately, willing to do anything to get out of her regular schooling and into something far more suited to her talents. She's eager to learn as much as she can from as many different instructors as possible, there were some actors of note on staff from which she was sure she could learn something. She was happy with her decision and the new, interesting people she met as a result.
What Shiviga wasn't happy about, was meeting again, the same irritating, annoying people of her past. Most notably, Sanjay Krishna.

Ever since declaring their love for one another when they were eleven (and eleven and a half), the two of them had always been in each other's eyesight. They attended the same group of schools, and given their shared love of performing, also found themselves at similar extracurricular activities. Not that either of them ever talked about it. In fact they both put their extraordinary acting talents to good use by acting like the other wasn't even there most of the time. Ignoring the other worked well for them, and they intended to keep it that way.

MM production house, it would appear, had other intentions.

As a mid-pubescent, very insecure teen, Shiviga knew she was not leading lady material. Not yet. With her short height and a posture that was always a little off balance, abundance of frizzy hair she hadn't quite grown into, braces to fix her uneven teeth, and a big nose that looked almost a little alien, Shiviga knew full well she wasn't exactly heroine material. She wasn't what people would call a typical female beauty. Not that anyone let her forget it. Jerks.

Despite their wealth and professional beauticians and the like available at their command, her mother and father refused to let her get a makeover. Her mother, the famous Jeni,  that looked effortlessly stunning in her older age, was particularly against it, insisting that these awkward years and insecurities built character and personality. Her mother would show her photographs of when she was younger and how awkward she was like it was supposed to be encouraging – like Shiviga was supposed to see that she was just in the 'ugly duckling' phase of her life and one day she'd become a 'swan' just like her mother. This is exactly not the story it inspired in her. Instead she just saw it as confirmation that she was doomed for a good four years or so, maybe more depending on whether the curly, frizzy mess that was the combination of her mother and father's hair decided to calm itself  and become a manageable beast after years of torture.