Dil Jaanta Hai | ✔

twenty-six

||CHAPTER 26||
《¤》

"Daddy one or daddy two? You're going this Friday, aren't you?

These girls emitted bitch vibes like a fluroscent light. Good thing, I was one of them before, still am, but had a better insight than them.

So closing the tap, I stared back at the long girl's wide smirk in the reflection, with a genuine smile of mine and replied. "I know you respect my privacy, but if you're going to take my interview, I need you to focus the camera on me."

Even if she didn't understand, and I bet she didn't, she did a good job of hiding it.

"So you are flying out on Friday," says the girl with purple streaks, who even wants to do that Barbie hair?

"Aah, you are the Nancy Drew Barbie," I fold my hands, pouting. "By the way, I forgot the departure time and flight name. Can you please remind me?"

To say she looked like the stereotypical Asian wouldn't be a lie when she narrowed her eyes into slits.

One of the cubicles flushed the toilet before opening, snapping Barbie and her friend out of their reverie.

"Why don't you guys just leave her alone?" Ishita sighed in frustration.

I dramatically flicked my right hand at her, "Oh, shush Ishi, these girls were going to remind me about my itinary. Go on girls."

To say that Ishita had to drag me out before the girls could say anything else would be an understatement.

"Okay, what the hell, Ishita," I frowned, trying to walk on my own.

She was still dragging me by my elbow when we reached our seats in our classroom.

"Look, I don't know what you did back in Mumbai," she said, in a suprisingly stern voice, turning my chair to make me face her, "but we follow a caste system here."

"Pretty sure we're not in the Medieval times here," I commented, nodding at Armaan when he gave me a quizzical look.

"That is what I'm talking about!" She pointed. "I mean, okay, Armaan's cool and all, but we're the TATA's Vickey!"

I didn't get her SOTY reference at first, but when I did, I objected. "Oh come on! I am seriously sick of the categorisations. Who even knows what we're going to be ten years from now?"

Arnav and Vansh behind us were completing the Math's homework, something I had left untouched. "And guys," I said to them, "you have to admit that the food last night was amazeballs! So what if that nerd doesn't fit your stereotypical Mystic High student, he still is our classmate-"

"And he should remain that way." Was all Vansh contributed.

"Look," I said finally. "I'm not asking you to befriend him- I wasn't the one who arrived uninvited at his doorstep last night. But trust me, if you guys trouble him just because he is a friend of one of your fellow TATA's I don't think going back to the 'ignorance is a bliss' phase would be difficult for me."

¿¤?

Somehow, in some uncanny way, Ishita Gupta had succeeded in dragging me out of my hideout, and making me run around the huge ground during P.E., for no damn reason. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't get out of breath during my usual runs easily, but today, I was. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the ground was huge. Or I ate a lot at Armaan's yesterday. Or, maybe it's just the huge ground.

"Gupta, ek din mai tera katal karne wali hoon, mark my words," I warned her, as Ritwik dashed past me. How the hell do these guys have the bloody stamina for the fifth round?