Up In The Air |✅|

A Nonsensical Human Being

Akanksha Thakur dragged herself to school the next day.

She couldn't decide what would be worse.
Meeting Shweta in the eye or meeting Karan in the eye.
Though she was sort of glad about the fact that Karan never showed up in the early mornings so that they could walk together to school too.

She walked the steps to her class as slowly as possible, once inside the school building. She felt like she was climbing the Kailash Parbat. She had absolutely no idea why her mind was exaggerating so much all of a sudden that day.

However, when she reached the classroom, she found that Karan and Shweta were not in there. But their bags guaranteed their presence in school.
She forced herself to think of nothing and sat down in her own seat, focusing on the more important points of her routine for the day which included finishing another novel.
This time, it was part of a trilogy.
'Divergent, huh?' Said someone. And the voice being familiar, Akanksha looked up immediately.

'Oh, Kashish.'
'Hi.' He sat down in Shweta's seat.
'How are you doing?'
He smiled at her.
'Just like I always did. Thanks for asking. And you?'
Akanksha kind of returned his smile.
'I don't know. I'm too preoccupied to find out.'
'Why?'
'Never mind.' She said quickly, 'Oh yeah, weren't you gonna tell me something last Friday? Sorry, I was in a hurry.'
'Yeah well, clearly.' Kashish replied.
'And..?'
Kashish chewed on his lower lip. Somehow his features seemed to turn more prominent and it pinched Akanksha's attention.
'What's up..?' She asked when he didn't say anything for more than five seconds.
'Um...' Kashish began, 'I was gonna tell you... something... but, uh...'
Right then, Shweta and Karan walked in. The four exchanged glances. Kashish noticed the flushed looks on both their faces and two streaks of impulses slid down his chest. One-- a realisation, the other-- a decision.

Karan, on the other hand, noticed the remnants of a smile on Akanksha's face. He glanced only once at Kashish and something tightened inside his chest.

The bell rang, bringing an end to the unnecessarily instinctive session of vibe exchange and Ms Preeti walked in.
The four had to settle down without further talk.
Before Ms Preeti left however,
'For your maths subject enrichment activity, you all will be given topics to work on and present a short project. You all will be working in pairs which you can decide among yourselves--'
Immediately, half the class exchanged quick glances and the pairs were decided among the students.
'--but students from roll number one to number twenty seven will work on a different topic and students from roll number twenty seven to the last number will work on another one. So the pairs need to be selected according to that.'
Immediately, low groans and murmurs spread through the class like ripples.

'Sheesh, I'm roll number thirty.' Shweta looked reproachfully at Akanksha, 'And you're four.'
Akanksha felt relieved yet gloomy at the same time.
Relieved because she hadn't expected Shweta to talk as normally as she had with her. Gloomy because she had no one else she could pair up with. Unless--

'Hey, Karan,' Shweta began, 'You are--'
'Fourteen.' Karan cut in.
Shweta sighed in defeat.
'Damn it. I guess I'll just have to pair up with Parul...' Shweta said, 'But--' She eyed Karan and Akanksha, 'You both can work together.' The lightheartedness in her voice blew like a wisp of nice and cold air in Akanksha's head. So... everything was cool?

She wasn't in the mood to actually ask that to her so she nodded absent-mindedly instead. Shweta flashed her a microscopic smile before going away to find Parul.
Karan looked hopefully at Akanksha.
'What?' She said in a voice that wasn't quite her own.
'Let's--' But before Karan could continue, someone else took Shweta's seat and diverted Akanksha's gaze toward him.
'Akanksha, pair up with me. Now!' Kashish said frankly.
'Uh--'
'I'm fifteen and you're four and I need you help.'
'Why can't you do anything on your own?' Karan shot at him.
'No one asked you to speak.' Kashish shot back placidly.
'I was gonna ask her first.'
'You were gonna. You didn't, right? I did.'
'Fine! Why don't we just let Akanksha choose?'