Hello, Mr. Major General (1)

Chapter 47: Antibody

Shehnaaz lifted her bag over her head, and ran towards Parth.

The umbrella wasn’t quite big enough for the two of them; they stumbled awkwardly under it as they made their way to the car park outside the library.

The umbrella was tilted towards Shehnaaz the whole way.

Parth was already drenched on one side when he finally got in the car and put the umbrella away.

“Parth, do you have a change of clothes in your car? You should take off your windbreaker and put on some dry clothes,” Shehnaaz said, in case he hadn’t thought of it.

She was only human, made of flesh and blood. How could she not care about him?

Parth had been very good to her, and she knew it. She was so moved by his sincerity she had changed the way she addressed him, without even realising it herself.

Parth was ecstatic to hear Shehnaaz call him by his first name. He smiled widely, and said, “No worries. This
windbreaker is waterproof.”

“Well, that’s all right then. I wouldn’t want you to fall sick after getting drenched by the rain. I’d feel really bad about it.”

“Oh, but I want to get sick. You’ll come visit me when I’m sick, won’t you?”

Shehnaaz’s face had gone slightly pink. She gave a small cough, and side-stepped the question by saying, “It’s raining really heavily now. Let’s just have lunch at the cafeteria.”

“Okay.” Parth turned the steering wheel and drove towards one of C University’s cafeterias, Cafeteria Three.

He had planned on taking Shehnaaz to lunch somewhere outside of campus, but she was right. Although they had a
car, it was raining, which meant traffic was going to be worse than usual.
They entered the cafeteria. Inside, couples were everywhere,
spoon-feeding each other and taking frequent breaks from eating to
exchange kisses. It did not seem to
occur to these couples that their
mouths may be a little too greasy for kissing, right now…

Shehnaaz used to be indifferent to the sight of these couples. Now, however, she found it disgusting. She averted
her gaze, and resolutely stared at a fixed point just ahead of her as she followed Parth. They found a spot by the window with two open seats.

Parth said, “Sit, I’ll go get our food.”
Parth was a very thoughtful and considerate man.

Shehnaaz had a wonderful time having lunch with him. It was so much more enjoyable than the expensive Italian dinner they’d had the night before, and that had cost more
than 10,000 rupees.

After lunch, Parth escorted her to the library. He sat with her the whole afternoon.

The two of them busied themselves looking up references for their graduation theses. Whenever they were tired and needed a breather, they would look up and smile at each other. As the day progressed, the distance between them slowly, but surely, decreased.

For the rest of the week, Parth brought Shehnaaz breakfast every morning. They also ate lunch and dinner
together.

Even when he was busy, he made sure to call her three times a day, during meal-time; he told her, over the phone, what he had been up to, and wanted to know if she was doing okay. He also asked her if she would go out with him over the weekend.

Shehnaaz was still waiting for Sidharth’s phone call. It was now Friday, and still she had not gotten a response from Sidharth. She did not want to call Chen Lie again and insist
that he follow up on the matter, and she was still more embarrassed to ask Rohit and Deepak  about it – and so she had dragged her feet for the entire week. On Friday afternoon, after her final class for the day, she found herself apologizing to Parth, who had been looking forward to spending the weekend with her. “Parth, I can’t go out with you this weekend.
Something’s come up. I have to go back to my apartment.”