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Alankrita grinned as she saw the folded piece of paper when she opened her text book. She opened it up and saw a little message scribbled in blue ink in Ruhan's messy handwriting.

This is a haiku
I learned about them today
You have a nice face
~R

Alankrita bit her tongue as she tried not to laugh in English class. Ruhan and she had been dating for a week, and every day he made it a point to slip a note or two in her pencil box or her books when she wasn't looking. She told him he didn't need to go through the trouble to do it, but he did it anyway. She didn't mind though, every message practically gave her heart palpitations. She felt a prod on her side and saw Anu eyeing the note questioningly. Catching sight of the wide grin on her best friend's face, Anu put two and two together and whispered, "Ruhan?"

"Ruhan," Alankrita whispered back in agreement, and handed Anu the note, when their teacher's back was turned. Her eyes skimmed over the page and she started to grin too. Alankrita turned to the last page of her notebook, which was covered with doodles, and pulled at the corner, wincing as she did so, mentally ordering the page to rip out quietly. Putting the piece of paper under her two-seater desk, she started writing.

Oh wow, a haiku
Guess what Mr. Smartypants
I can write some too
~A

Alankrita coughed loudly as she discreetly threw the balled up piece of paper behind her back, hoping it would land on Ruhan's desk, two seats behind hers. She went back to trying, not very hard, that is, to concentrate on the lesson. She was beginning to wonder if he'd received her message at all when something hard bounced off the back of her head and landed on the table with a small thump. She thanked her lucky stars she was sitting in the third bench and not the first, and picked up the projectile which she found to be an eraser, with tiny, smudgy words written on it. Smiling, she squinted to decipher them.

Is that all you've got?
Clearly, you're overrated
P.S: return this
~R

She smudged out the message and was going to write one in its place when Pavitra ma'am turned around suddenly, startling her and making her fling the eraser over her shoulder. She pretended to be in deep thought when the teacher gave her a side-eye, and when her back was turned, carefully pulled out an entire page from her notebook.

Sorry about that
I owe you an eraser
Also: shut up geek
~A

She folded this piece into a paper plane and flung it towards an unsuspecting Ruhan. It caught him in the eye and his surprised yelp was just loud enough to catch the attention of the students sitting around, who began to giggle.

"Children, what is so funny?" Pavitra ma'am snapped at the class, scowling pointedly at Ruhan. The class gave a murmured apology and she turned around again. Ruhan slipped the now slightly crushed paper plane out from under his desk and huffed when he read the message. He spent a while coming up with a really good reply, and when he was done, he folded the paper back into a plane and threw it in Alankrita's direction. Unfortunately, he overshot it and it flew straight into the blackboard right next to Pavitra ma'am's face. "What is the meaning of this?" she yelled, picking up the plane and holding it up for the class to see. Ruhan's face visibly paled. Nobody dared rat him out, and Pavitra ma'am was greeted with silence. "Fine," she huffed, "I'm confiscating this, and I will do this to any more pieces of rubbish I find in this class! Clear?"

When the period was over, a more relaxed atmosphere fell over the class and the students started shuffling from place to place, eager to fill up their socialization quota in the five minutes before their next teacher entered the class. Before Alankrita could get out of her seat, Ruhan threw himself onto the desk, face first, giving them a fright. "I DUN GOOFED," he groaned loudly, his voice muffled. Alankrita stared at him bring his hands up to cover the back of his head. "Did you throw the plane at her?" she asked, looking back and forth between him and a completely miffed Anu. He nodded and looked up from the table. "I may have also written a slightly titillating haiku on it."

There was a few seconds worth of silence before the two girls burst out laughing. "It's not that funny okay," Ruhan sulked, "Now Pavitra ma'am is going to go wait near the school's back gate thinking she has a secret admirer."

"Yeah, like that's going to happen," Alankrita laughed, and Ruhan scowled at her and said, "This is already insulting enough without the sarcasm."

"What exactly did you write on the plane?" Anu interjected, her curiosity peaking. Ruhan just wiggled his eyebrows and said, "Wouldn't you like to know," before getting smacked upside the head by his blushing girlfriend.

*****

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