First Date to Forever...

The Beginning

    After the eventful day , and attending the last lecture everyone started leaving for their abodes . Arush decided to have a sleepover at Akshay's place today to keep him distracted. Jeet , Sujay and Sarika decided to hang out after college and celebrate the eventful day. Jeevika was slightly annoyed as to why was Arush paying more attention to Akshay than her , but she let it go and left for home . All the hostel peeps started walking towards their hostel building . Sneh decided to tag along for a bit.

    It was a huge complex with four separate buildings, two each for Boys and Girls . All the four buildings shared a common area in the centre where the food court was . All of them were sitting in the food court when they were joined by Harsha and Ruhi .

   Palak quickly updated them about the eventful day and they all started teasing Shonali again !

    Shonali was lost in thoughts. Harsha could see she was overthinking everything. She sat beside her and started talking. Harsha was the most mature person in their group. It was one of the reasons Shonali admired her alot. While others were still a bit immature and childish , Harsha brought the balance to the group whenever they started losing their sanity !

      "It's just a date you know, he is not asking you to marry him ! " Harsha joked .

    Shonali smiled at her comment  " I don't want to hurt him Harsha. He seems like a genuine person and the way he asked me out , it was clear he has some feelings for me and I do not feel anything at all . I don't want to lead him on. "

    Harsha knew she was worried about hurting him . Typical Shonali ! When will this girl learn to start keeping herself first.

Harsha thought for a while and suggested she should talk to Sarika and share her worries with her .
" I am sure Sarika will be able to help you and Sujay both should the situation turns out to be unfavorable. "

Sarika , yes , how did Shonali forget about her . She is very close to Sujay since a long time and she would be the perfect person to pass across her message . Determined she dropped a quick message to Sarika -
"Hey let me know when you are free , gotta talk !! "

       Sarika was with Sujay and Jeet at their favorite hangout place. They often came here to reminisce their previous college days and to catch up with each others lives . Today it was different . Both Sujay and Sarika had reasons to glow !

     Jeet was happy seeing his best friends having a dreamy day ! He could not stop teasing them about it .

Sarika saw Shonali's message and quickly let her know she was out with the guys and will call her once she reaches home. She decided to poke Sujay a little. After all he kept this a secret for so long. She wanted to know when and how did this happen .Though she was worried about Shonali too , it was Sujay she was concerned about more as he was clearly on a different page.

On Jeet and Sarika's insistence Sujay opened up and shared how he developed a crush on Shonali ....

"It was on the first day of college when I saw her for the first time. She was standing out from others. Her smile , her eyes and her nose ring !!"
Oh yes her nose ring , he found it too cute !

He continued " I thought she was pretty but didn't think much about it and carried on with our induction day . I was just happy to be in the same college as Jeet . Later that day when me and Jeet went to the canteen , she was sitting on the next table with Palak , Maitri and Sneh and they were laughing about something. I could not stop myself from looking at her. Something about her was captivating. "

    "Soon we got busy with our classes and as days passed by , you became friends with her and I started getting to know more about her through you " he said looking at Sarika. 

"One day remember when me , Jeet and Shonali were waiting for you when we had planned to visit the famous Tea shop in sector 18 , that was the day I talked to her properly for the first time. I came to know about her love for Tea that day !! " He laughed .

"We were talking about some random topic but the way she kept her views forward impressed me. She was very clear in her thoughts . I just felt an instant attraction towards her in that moment. "

   " We were standing on the stairs when I suddenly slipped and was about to fall when she held my hand firmly to stop me from falling. " Sujay blushed recalling the memory.
 
     She had genuine concern for him in her eyes when she enquired if he was okay. They were still holding hands which sent a buzz through Sujay's body. He was afraid she could see the effect she had on him. After making sure he was fine , she slowly left his hand .

     It was that day he realised he has a huge crush on her and that he is in trouble !

      Sujay looked up at Sarika and Jeet only find them looking at him with surprise ! They now knew about his crush , but they did not know the intensity of his feelings.

      Sarika was a bit worried now as she knew very well if Sujay spent some more time with Shonali , he will fall hard for her , however she was not sure if Shonali felt the same . Infact Shonali was far from all this.

   She decided to call Shonali and have a word with her. She wanted to save both of her friends from heartbreak and guilt.