Just you and me, Bondita

Her! Her! Her!

"Who is this? Is she your girlfriend?"

After hearing this question, Bondita and Anirudh faced each other and looked back at Batuk immediately before shaking their heads aggressively to say no. They both started to blush inside- they noticed how recently they had sparks of weird feelings towards each other at random times, but no it can't be it- right?

Kaka heard this question and was delighted! Batuk had the same perspective as him! Everyone was staring at the duo whilst their face reddened.

"My Vaijayanthi. I colleague of Barrister Babu and I come to makeup Akka!" Bondita answered with her heavy accent as she pointed at Sampoorna.

Batuk looked at Anirudh concerningly, with one of his eyebrows raised.

"Yeah what she said was correct. We work together and I invited her over to help Sampoorna Maa get ready." Anirudh explained to his confused brother.

"Oh ok. Sorry for the misunderstanding." Batuk replied as he glanced at them.

Kaka looked at his watch and got alarmed.

"Sampoorna! We should cut the cake soon before it gets too late!" Kaka informed as she nodded at him in agreement.

Everyone commenced with their preparations and were moving around hastily to bring the right things. Bondita and Anirudh still stood where they were. They glanced down awkwardly before looking at each other's eyes. For a split second, they both questioned their inner underlying feelings. They then came back to reality and walked away in opposite directions.

Batuk was rubbing the back of his neck, biting his lips as he watched the couple- something fishy was going on. He saw Somnath carrying a heavy box and decided to help him with it.

"S-D..."

"Hmmmm..." Somnath grunted as he pulled another heavy box.

"Have you ever met that girl before?"

"Which girl?"

"That Tamil one."

"No. I only saw her at the same time as you did."

"Oh ok. But don't you find it quite suspicious that Big D brought in a girl to our house for the first time?" Batuk asked as he shoved another box in the corner.

"No, not really. I mean he's already explained that they're colleagues so there's nothing to suspect here."

"Hmmm." Batuk replied as he thought more about this.

Soon the preparations were finished and the cake was set out. Everyone surrounded Shashwati who stood behind the table, clapping her hands excitedly as she saw her pink, princess cake.

Sampoorna helped her daughter light her 5 candles. Shashwati looked around and saw her mother, her brothers, her kaka, Bihari babu and all her friends grinning at her. But wait, someone was missing. She then noticed Bondita standing idly behind the crowd.

"Vaijayanthi didi! Come and stand next to me!" she squealed loudly.

All the children joined in with Shashwati and claimed that she should stand beside them. Everyone turned to face Bondita and she flushed as all the attention was on her. The children then went up to her, grabbed her hands and pulled her closer to the birthday girl.

At the force she got pulled, Bondita ended up bumping into Anirudh and grabbed onto his arm to hold herself up. Kaka witnessed this and went to cloud nine- he wanted to gift Shashwati anything she asked for, for the help she's done today.

Bondita squeezed between her sakha babu and her Sampoorna didi. She gave a quick glance at Anirudh before looking back at Shashwati.

"Ok 3, 2, 1! Happy Birthday to you...." everyone began to sing as Shashwati watched them excitedly.