Chapter 10

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Rajveer was busy checking the notebooks of the cadets when he heard a knock on his door.

"May I come in, Sir?" Followed by a giggle.

Rajveer looked up to see Dr. Ritu Mishra, peeking through the door.

Rajveer mentally sighed as he saw her in his apartment.

The thing was, right from day one, he could feel that Dr. Ritu Mishra was getting a bit more friendly with him. This made him a bit uncomfortable.

He did have a relationship in the past. It wasn't exactly casual, but he could feel that he was not giving his hundred percent to the other person, and hence, he broke off the relationship to avoid giving any false hopes to the girl. It took him time to realize that ever since he was a kid, his mind was always occupied with military and strategies. His eyes would always skim to the defense news, and immediately, the wheels in his mind would immediately start working to find a solution, obviously as sharp as a 12 year-old can think.

Dr. Ritu's fake cough brought him back to reality as he looked at her, who was looking back at him, rather expectantly.

"Ah, Dr. Mishra. Please, come in." He said, rather half-heartily.

"How many times have I told you to call me by my name, Captain." Dr. Mishra said in a fake-annoyed tone.

"Well, we are colleagues, so it makes me a bit uncomfortable to call you directly by your name." Rajveer tried to explain as he got up to go in the kitchen. But this all was just a futile attempt to maintain some distance between Dr. Mishra and himself.

"I guess, I'll have t wait until we become friends." She said with a little dismay.

"No... I didn't mean to offend you like that." Rajveer found himself stammering as he tried to explain Dr. Mishra.

"Oh.... Oh ji I am sorry to interrupt you both. I'll come back later." Subedar Suri said from the doorway, standing with his eyes closed as if he saw something explicit.

"No...no... It's alright Suri Ji. It's fine. What happened?" Rajveer almost ran towards Suri Ji like a child running to his father for protection.

"I just came to inform you since, Capt. Sudhir is not here, would it be possible for you to take a lecture with the first years?" Suri Ji asked but he already knew by Rajveer's pale face that the poor boy would grab any opportunity to run away from this situation.

As expected, Rajveer immediately said, "Of course. I'll just... yeah... I'll go. I am sorry, Dr. Mishra. Maybe we can talk some other time." He said as he dashed towards the door.

"I'm holding on to that promise then, Captain. And for the last time, call me Ritu." She gave a gentle smile and left.

Rajveer was about to enter the empty classroom, when someone collided with him.... again.

He looked to see Naina, whose face was almost red with anger. 

"Hmm... I didn't know that it was that hard to walk without colliding with people... Now, is it, Cadet Naina Ah Singh?" Rajveer tried to make her smile as he could see that there was something bothering her and god forbid, his mind started to think about all the negatives that could happen.

Naina didn't reply. She just looked at him with her huge tear-filled almond eyes, as she just mumbled a sorry went to take a seat at the farthest corner.

Rajveer was trying to decipher the reason for her state when he heard the cadets approaching. He immediately went to his place but for the first time in his life he felt such strong tug in his heart that he wanted to leave everything and just hug the girl sitting in the corner.

And therefore, for the first time in his life, he was easily able to read a girl. He could feel her fear, anger, disappointed but the most prominent emotion was....frustration. Frustration with the system who declared her brother a traitor. Frustration with this academy who once called him its 'best cadet' and then discarded him like a rag doll. Frustrated with his friends who never contacted him or her family in general. Most of all, frustrated with life and all the gods who were not yet ready to see her efforts, struggles and pain.

Rajveer almost took a step towards her when he saw Cadet Ghai, taking a seat beside her. Naina, herself looked a bit shocked by Pooja's decision to sit in the corner. Because she and almost every single person knew, that she had a huge crush on Captain Rajveer, calling him 'her Shah Rukh'. 

Pooja on the other hand, thought, keyword thought, that she was whispering but the entire class could hear her nagging Naina to drink more water to avoid getting dehydrated or to let go the matter for now. Her exact words being, "Oye mitti daal is mamle pe. Baaki class ke baad hum kisi or ko mitti mein daal denge"  (Mitti Daalna is a phrase referring to 'forget it'. Forget what happened, we will bury some else after the class.)

Yudi swore that he could actually hear Huda's teeth chattering for absolutely 'no-reason at all'.

Rajveer silently chuckled seeing Pooja's 'care' and therefore began teaching.

"Okay. So, good afternoon class. Since, today this is just an arrangement lecture, how about you guys just solve this puzzle.

 Since, today this is just an arrangement lecture, how about you guys just solve this puzzle

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The entire class sat scratching their heads seeing random lines on the board. 

"Sir, these are just lines. How are we supposed to decode this? What exactly is this?" Ali asked.

Rajveer gave his signature smirk and just replied, "Solve this Cadet Baig and you'll know."

The entire class just groaned. Rajveer laughed heartily seeing a certain passive face joining the groaning cadets.

HELLO EVERYONE. I AM BACK WITH THE UPDATE. AND OF COURSE THIS IS JUST A SHORT ONE. I'LL BE UPLOADING THE NEXT PART WITHIN THIS WEEK ITSELF.

ALSO, DO DECODE THIS CODE AND LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS. IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET THIS RIGHT. 

I'M GOING TO KEEP THIS SHORT. THE WEATHER'S GETTING COLD SO TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH AND DO NOT FORGET TO KEEP YOURSELF HYDRATED. ❤️

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