A/N: THIS CHAPTER'S UNEDITED
-------------

It took me about a week to control my fingers from brushing over my left cheek everytime I thought of Kian. I still found it hard to digest the events of that night. The hug, the almost kiss, the actual a-bit-too-long-to-be-a-peck on the cheek.

Holy fuck I would've snogged him!

I couldn't figure out whether I was disappointed or not. On one hand I frequently caught myself wishing that my mother had texted me a second later while on the other, I was glad that she didn't.

The whole point of rejecting Kian had been to avoid distraction. Then why did I let...that happen?

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

These thoughts pestered me throughout the week-long autumn break. When I wasn't bullying my brain into concentrating on every textbook I owned, I was cleaning my room obsessively, desperate to prevent my mind from...straying.

Sadly, such tactics were not as effective as I would've hoped.

A pause in this frenzied routine came in the form of the first term result declaration. Like last year, I ended up sitting beside ma whilst facing my forever smiling class-teacher.

"Exactly a year ago you had failed physics and were listening to my reprimend with a bowed head, weren't you Ashiana?" she had asked, peering into me.

"Y...yes."

"And now you've got the top score in the biology batch of students."

I blinked. My mother beamed.

"Well done honey," ma said, gripping my palm.

"Yes, well done," ma'am agreed, the corners of her mouth crinkling as she smiled even wider.

All three of us discussed my marks for ten more minutes before ma and I stood up to leave. The light warm October air surrounded us as we stepped into the parking lot, promoting my mood from cheerful to elated.

I had made some discreet, innocent-sounding enquires which ma'am had happily answered. As a result, I now knew the ranks of my friends. Vivaan and Karan had tied for the top spot in the batch of science with economics students, with Kian following second. Rads came seventh merely because she lost marks in English, due to her supposedly bad handwriting.

Having copied from her notes throughout middle school, I knew for a fact that this was not the case. Her hand was famous for carving the most delicately thin letters on a page. Plus, English had always been her best subject.

Something was off.

{[]}

Once school reopened it became evident that the result had affected everyone, in ways both good and bad. The teachers had not wasted in wrapping up what was left of the syllabus. By the time mid-October rolled by, we had finished jotting down the last of our notes. So now hours upon hours of our weekly school time was spent in the labs, perfecting our skills of handling equipment in physics, identifying salts in chemistry and mounting slides in biology.

November was welcomed with hollow enthusiasm. The level of smog increased in the city along with the frantic revision of all students. In every class of grade twelve, one could find nearly, or recently-turned adults buried in NCERT textbooks, reference books and piles of sample question papers higher than Burj Khalifa. Coaching was no different. We had so many tests everyday that exam anxiety now felt like a distant emotion. Juggling the preparation of boards and NEET had never been more exhausting.

It seemed as if things like You Tube, movies and music belonged to another universe. Everywhere I went, which was basically my school and the coaching centre, I saw people hunched in a corner, revising. Conversations during lunch breaks always revolved around studies, colleges or enterance examinations and marks.

There was only one person who didn't seem too keen to join such discussions.

Though Radhika had descended into a furious study-mode like everyone else, she hated talking about it, preferring to eat alone or sometimes play spit-ball with me and Vivaan. I had reluctantly stopped questioning her behaviour, for she stubbornly remained quiet whenever I did.

Her obstinacy forced me to talk to the one person I really had a hard time conversing with.

"Do you know what's up with Radhika?"

Vivaan slowly pulled his nose out of the textbook he was reading and made a show of closing each book and folder one by one. Then he kept each book in his bag at a snail's pace. All this while I stood tapping my foot impatiently, barely managing to refrain myself from giving him a black eye.

No, Rads would be really mad if I do that. Again.

Ah the memories of middle school. Nice, happy, stress-free years.

Once he was finished alingning every pen in his pouch and placing it in his bag, he faced me. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, he crossed his arms on the desks and said, "no."

Punching people is bad. Punching people is bad.

"Did you even try asking her?"

He fixed me a tired stare, "yes."

"I swear to Gods Vivaan if you continue to answer in monosyllables I'll rip your hair--"

"I don't know okay?" he snapped, interrupting me. "I don't know anymore. She won't tell me what's on her mind, she won't tell me anything anymore and I feel as frustrated as you do, if not more. I've apologised countless times and I don't even know why, just hoping that she'll start talking again. Stop blaming me Ash, I'm as helpless as you are right now." By the time he stopped speaking, his voice dropped from angry and indignant to dejected and defeated.

"I'm sorry." I said, feeling guilty for accusing him.

"Not your fault," he gruffly replied while standing up and quickly walking out of the classroom as I remained standing there.

Praying for my friend to be all right. And hoping that things would fix themselves for my favourite couple.

{[]}

December arrived with a suspiciously insignificant drop in temperature, making all jacket lovers curse global warming. But in the case of my classmates and I, something else entirely was making us sweat. We just had ten more days before we had to sit for our mock-tests, or as they were commonly known, our pre-board examinations. This resulted in the impossible.

Students started studying even harder.

In the week leading up to the first pre-board, biology, I along with all my friends had to appear for our practical tests. Strangely, a lot of people decided to skip those, choosing go give the practicals after the the theory pre-boards. That group included Karan and Aditya as well.

"Why?" I asked Adi one day, while stuffing my face with chocolate ice-cream as he did the same, sitting beside me on our spot.

He swallowed before replying, "because it doesn't fit the schedule Karan and I have drawn up for me. He's helping me with chemistry y'know? And I've decided to take crash course tutions for C++ as well. I almost feel that I'll be able to score well in the finals."

"Yeah? Then why do I feel that there's a 'but' coming?"

He sighed, "because you're right." Offering me a small smile when I pushed the last scoops of ice-cream towards him. He took his time eating it and for once, I patiently waited for him to finish.

Once he was done, he threw the empty plastic cup in the trash can and turned to face me, continuing where he left off. "Sometimes...sometimes I feel confident enough. As if I'd be able to...do something worthwhile. But mostly there's this constant nagging in my mind, a constant fear of not being able to achieve anything, of being given a place in my family's business out of pity instead of having properly earned it. Those thoughts are the worst Ash, the dread they leave behind literally leaves me immobile. There are so many unsuccessful people in this world and they all started out by having no fucking clue about what they wanted to do. I'm at the same track. I don't even know what my goal is, don't know where to start looking for it. Look at you Ashiana, you have everything planned out till the last irrelevant detail. Everyday, you move more and more closer to your dream and here I don't even have a perpose to live! I feel like there is no end game, like everything I do is a waste because I don't know what I want." He took a deep breath.

I was stunned to say the least. It took me two full minutes to articulate my thoughts. "You're wrong," I said slowly. "All those unsuccessful people you mentioned? It's not true that they never had a goal, most of them actually did, but they failed to achieve it, hence being, y'know, unsuccessful. And that's my biggest fear." I scooted closer him and loosely hugged his side, taking him by surprise. It was a thinly veiled fact that I hated unnecessary physical contact. The number of times I had willingly embraced a person was below ten. But right now, Aditya needed one more than anyone else and thus didn't complain.

"You're strong Adi," I continued, strong enough to get through this, believe me. After a few months, these fears won't even matter. Don't give up now, please. Everyone is born for a reason. Of course, it is highly possible that you won't be the next Netaji or Gandhiji, some other grand politician or Einstein, the next Steve Jobs or Baba Amte, but your life does have a purpose Adi, there's always an end game, though it is stupid to think of it and torture yourself. Your job right now is to work. Work and work and work and not think about the result. You can't think about your sweet fruit if you don't labour. Even if you haven't figured out your favourite fruit, don't worry, you still have the right to work. Hardwork never remains unrewarded Aditya, but you don't have the right to think of the reward until you get it. Till then, all your focus should be on your work."

There was silence after I was done repeating the words my grandfather used to tell me everyday, back when I was a wee lass of five. As I grew up, they managed to remain glued to my mind to an extent that now, if I dared think of any kind of reward, I felt guilty. Ever since my childhood years I'd been conditioned to not expect anything from anyone, even my own destiny.

Aditya continued to frown, surrounded by his thoughts when the bell rang, signalling the end of break. I stood up and looked down at him expectantly, a tad bit worried that I'd ended up confusing him more than he was before. The second I was about to shake him to gain his attention, Adi looked up at me and I gasped.

His eyes were moist.

"Thank you," he let out, voice choking from unshed tears. "That was super clichè but I guess that's what I needed to hear, especially from a grandma figure like you." He smirked humourlessly.

Smiling at his attempt to lighten the mood, I pulled him into another hug and mumbled, "you'll be fine, don't worry."

I know. No matter what happens, I will be fine. I'm determined to be fine," he said, pressing his eyes into my left shoulder, leaving a wet patch on my shirt.

{[]}

Hey!
So I bought a blue saree
Whatever you do, do not wear blue on farewell

I  stared at the little green text bubble, not really registering its contents for a minute before reality clicked.

Farewell was around the corner.

Well, not exactly. It was still two weeks away, after I would be done writing my last pre-board, but the thought of my approaching farewell party seemed weird nonetheless. It basically hit me like an expected surprise. I always knew that the end of class twelfth, of my entire school life, would be marked by this much hyped event, yet I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that this is it. My school life is almost over.

Ever since Radhika and I were in fifth grade, we used to talk about our farewell, of what we'd wear, how we'd look and the amount of pictures we'd click. Back then it appeared to be ages and ages away. It was ages and ages away. With passing years, as we climbed grade after grade, and actually started approaching the anticipated occasion, our enthusiasm slowly dimmed.

For me, it reached an all time low last year, when I had the honour of witnessing a farewell first hand, since I'd helped organise one for my seniors. My experience had taught me that it was nothing but an overrated gathering of loud, boisterous and overdressed group of young adults who were interested in nothing else except spiking the warm punch and clicking selfies.

I knew that the juniors would try to fruitlessly gain the attention of all twelfth graders and fail most of the time. I knew that the food would be as pathetic as it was last year. I also knew that a handful of delinquints would most probably try to vandalise the car of one of the many hated teachers.

I knew what would happen, what had been happening since the whole idea of farewell had come into existence, and my knowledge was not very comforting.

So naturally, I was unable to understand why I was looking forward to what would surely be a crazy farewell. Maybe it was so because that was going to be my crazy farewell.

When later that day, I told my parents about Radhika's text, my prim and proper, cool as a frozen cucumber mother did something I had never witnessed before.

She squealed.

Papa dearest was so shocked that he dropped his spoon, with its small lump of fried rice spilling on the floor, but he pais zero attention to it. Instead, turning towards my mother, he asked worridly, "are you okay honey? Do you have fever? Shall I fetch the thermometer?"

Ma waved away his concerns and looked at me with a scary gleam in her eyes. "What are you planning of wearing?"

"About that," I said, scowling nastily at Aarna as the she-devil nicked a piece of paneer from my plate, "I was hoping you'd let me borrow a saree from your collection."

"No, that's not acceptable!" She looked horrified.

"But why? I asked, furrowing my brows in confusion, "don't you have over three hundred?"

"Nah, she discarded some last year. Now she has two hundred and seventy eight," papa piped in. "I remember you were crying so badly, right honey?" He smirked, flinching a second later when ma delivered a sharp kick on his shin, rattling the whole table in the process. Aarna and I snickered.

"Obviously I don't mind you wearing one of my sarees Ashiana. What's mine is yours. But sweetie, this is your farewell, surely you don't want to wear a second-hand saree?"

"Well, if you put it that way..."

"It's decided then," ma declared, with a note of finality in her voice, "we'll go saree-shopping for you after your last pre-board."

Aarna clapped gleefully while papa groaned.

{[]}

"Are you attending the farewell party?" Kian asked me a fortnight later as we were walking down the hallway, having just finished writing the last pre-board, physics theory.

"Yep," I said absentmindly, craning my neck to look for my physics teacher, hoping I'd catch him before he leaves, as I wanted to cross-check my answers.

Perhaps that was the reason I thought I'd misheard Kian when he said, "do you know we can bring dates this year?"

I turned to him, surprised. Like the traitor it was, my heart started beating faster, resulting in a loud, ringing-sound in my ears. Fisting my now-clammy hands, I asked him as calmly as possible, careful to keep my voice nonchalant, "really? Who told you that? And how come the teachers allowed it? And the principal?"

Shrugging, he continued to walk, pushing through the mass of students and I hurried after him. "An eleventh grader told me. Apprantly, the teachers think that we're all mature enough to have dance partners this year, even if there's going to be minimal dancing. So naturally, the students assumed that 'dance partners' was their way of saying 'dates'."

Breaking free of the stifiling crowd, we turned a corner and stepped into a deserted corridor. "Oh that sounds...very American but I guess it'll be fun." I said, leaning against a wall while he moved to stand in front of me.

"Yeah," he said slowly, "so do you have anyone in mind...like...I don't know...do you even want a date? As in..."

Barely stopping my chuckles from escaping at his nervous stuttering, I cut in. "Okay, drop the act Kian, of course I'll go with you. Duh!"

He blinked, confused, before his face split into a  wide, toothy smile.

Darn, he's too cute!

"Okay, that's a relief," he said, moving a bit closer. I swear the temperature went up by ten degrees. "I was afraid you'll turn me down and spray-paint 'no distractions' on your forehead."

Letting out a soft laugh at that, I shook my head, "nope. It's difficult to turn down a distraction if it's in the form of you."

Did I actually just say that? Yuck!

An amused glint passed through Kian's eyes at my words. Thankfully though, he didn't make fun of me. Instead, caging me against the wall with both arms beside my head, he said in a deep, shiver-inducing, bone-melting whisper, "oh God Ash I can't, I'm desperate..." He took a deep breath, probably sucking all the oxygen because there certainly was none left for me. "So desperate to...know the colour of your saree."

It felt as if a bucket of ice-cold water just dropped over me.

A loud, booming laughter escaped from his lips as he doubled over, "your expression...priceless!" He said, while continuing to snort and wheeze like a useless pig.

"Go choke yourself," I muttered, before turning to walk away.

"Wait, no, I'm sorry Ashiana." He grabbed my wrist and pulled me flush against him, hands wrapping around my waist, "I just...couldn't resist, besides, you looked so cute! I wish I had a camera with me."

Despite my earlier mortification, I smiled back at him. It was difficult to stay mad at this boy for long. On top of that, I was very, very much aware of all the places where he was touching me. Maybe he also realised that for his fingers tightened their grip on my waist for a second before he moved away entirely, making a feeling of disappointment sweep through me.

I quickly brushed it aside, composing myself.

"Seriously though," Kian began, clearing his throat, "message me the colour of your saree OK?"

"Okay...but why do you want to know? Are you planning to wear a matching tie or something?"

"If I say 'yes', then on a scale of one to ten, how cheesy would that make me?"

I bit my lip to keep from smiling, "a hundred and five perhaps."

"Right...so do you want me to wear a matching tie?"

The word slipped out before I had a time to think, "yes."

"All right then, whatever you want. Text me," he said.

With that, he moved to lightly peck the tip of my nose before sauntering away, leaving me grinning like a lunatic.

{[]}

The much awaited friday arrived and my mother, being more excited than I was, took a day off work to get me ready for farewell. We had to reach school by nine a.m. and ma thought it was perfectly normal to wake me up at five.

When I groaned and tried to snuggle inside my sister's blanket, as she had ripped mine away, ma shook me harshly, delivering a sharp blow on my head.

Why are Indian mothers so violent?

Grumbling under be breath, I sat up and hissed as my warm toes touched the freezing marble floor while searching for my slippers. It seemed like Aarna had kicked them under the bed again. Thus, I winced as I walked barefoot towards my bathroom.

Thirty minues later I stepped out, bathed and feeling considerably more refreshed, though slightly more cold. After I was finished praying, I peeked into the drawing room, finding ma reading the newspaper.

"Oh you're done? Good," she said, getting up and leading me to the guest room. My eyes widened the minute I stepped inside.

Multiple beauty products were scattered on the bed. From bottles of lotions and foundations, to mascara tubes, eye liners, kohl pencils, eye shadows, concealers, lip sticks, nail paints, fake nails, a strange instrument that looked like a murder weapon (ma later told me that it was called an eye lash curler), bindis, a curling want and many more things. I turned to my mother and uttered a single word.

"No."

She visibly deflated as soon as I said that but I wasn't going to budge. I had no idea that this was what she meant yesterday, when she'd said that she would make me a princess.

"But Ashiana..."

"No ma," I interruped her. "I'm fine with a bit of light makeup but no way in hell would I let you use all of that on me. Nah uh!"

Her shoulders slumped again. "Fair enough. But promise me that you'll have fun today and not sit quietly in a corner. I missed my farewell due to chicken pox so I at least want both my daughters to have fun in theirs.

"Promise," I reassured her, now understanding why she was acting so weird about my farewell.

Ma nodded and proceeded to help me get ready. By the time the clock struck eight, I was all dolled up in my dark purple, geogette saree with thick golden borders and a golden blouse as well. Accessorised with matching shoes and a small clutch, I spent another twenty minutes posing as my parents snapped around five million pictures.

Once they were done, I checked my phone to find a minute old message from Aryan, asking me to come down as the cab had already arrived. Waving goodbye at my parents I hurried out of the house and into the elevator.

I found Kian and Aryan waiting near the building's enterance as I stepped out of the list. From a short glance towards his direction I gathered that Aryan was looking dashing in a navy blue suit with a white shirt. But ultimately, my eyes spotted and glued to Kian.

He looked so very different. I mean, he was always handsome but right now he looked even better than usual. I took my time scanning him from head to toe, taking in his gelled hair, black suit jacket and pants with a white shirt inside, purple- coloured tie and black, formal shoes. When I met his gaze I knew that he had been doing the same and, he didn't need to voice his compliments because his awestruck look already did wonders to my ego.

This would've lasted longer if Aryan hadn't pointedly cleared his throat just then. "It is getting late guys. You both can continue to eye each other in the car OK?"

I scowled at Aryan as heat crept my neck while Kian simply moved to open the door of the backseat, gesturing me to get in. Smiling sweetly at him, I did exacly that and he shut the door, walking around the car and sliding in beside me. Aryan travelled shotgun.

The ride was uneventful and the minute we stepped inside the school campus, a cluster of eleventh graders cheered and welcomed us with hoots, howls and chocolates. We were escorted to the auditorium as if we were royalty, which was probably the case for the next few hours. As the theme of this year's farewell was exactly that, 'royalty'.

The auditorium was lavishly decorated with streamers of silver and red along with hundreds of ballons of the same two colours scattered everywhere. It seemed as if we were the last ones to arrive since the auditorium was full with people and the vice president of the student council was asking everyone to take their seats. Or more like shouting at the mic. We obviously didn't pay any attention to him because right at that moment, Kian spotted Rads and Vivaan and the three of us strutted towards them.

Radhika was wearing a blue saree and I was relieved to see that she looked like her old-self, pretty, bubbly and happy. Vivaan also looked a bit less of a nincompoop in a suit similar to Kian's, just with a navy blue tie. We all laughed and chatted like usual, sipping on warm punch and randomly clicking selfies in the middle of conversations.

Suddenly, I realised that Adi and Karan were not here and when I pointed this out to Radhika, she just shrugged and said, "they have their practicals tomorrow. I guess they're preparing so they decided to skip it."

We all would've continued chatting like everyone but by that time, the vice principal had snatched the mike from the SC vice president and shouted, in her manly, booming voice, for all the twelfth graders to settle down.

Reluctantly, we all took our seats, as did the rest of our classmates. For another hour we had to endure childish skits and boring dances performed by the eleventh graders for our 'entertainment'.

Finally, once their final act was over, they announced that the dancing floor was open for twenty minutes before we had to move to the cafetaria for lunch. The minute the school band started playing a soft music, Kian pulled to the makeshift, semi-crowded dance floor.

"You look really beautiful today, and this time I'm not joking," Kian whispered in my ear and we swayed to the music, slow dancing, because one, there wasn't enough space for proper dancing and two, neither of us was interested in any other kind of dancing anyway.

"Thank you." I was glad that my voice wasn't affected like my intestines, which had turned to goo. "You look quite hot too!"

He raised one beautiful brow at my cheeky compliment and chuckled while we continued to dance in companiable silence.

When it was time for lunch, we all decided to ditch the crappy food and the official after party organsied by eleventhees after school hours.

Stomachs grumbling, feet aching and cheeks hurting, we all stumbled into a cab fifteen minutes later, having decided to go for a cosy, friendly dinner at a nearby economical food joint.

Due to lack of space, Vivaan, Radhika, Kian and I had to...adjust in the back seat. Aryan travelled shotgun again, having determinantly stated, "you guys enjoy, my girl's not here."

I hadn't really understood the meaning of his words until about three minutes later, when I found myself practically over Kian's lap.

Lack of space make people close. Sometimes too close.

It wasn't exactly as romantic as it sounds. I ended up elbowing him more times than his gentlemanly nature allowed him to admit, as I attempted to adjust my saree every ten seconds. The heels of my stilettoes poked his toes twice when I tried to cross my legs, because the alternative was to sit with one thigh strewn over his legs. No matter how huge a crush I had on him, I would've never allowed myself to sit like that.

In the end, I managed to move an acceptable distance away from Kian, but that only happened when Radhika moved to sit on Vivaan't lap sideways, giving me an exhasperated look.

Ignoring her, I opened my golden clutch to take out my phone, at the same time marvelling at how tiny it was.

Cheap shoulder bags over expensive clutches anyday.

I furrowed my brows when I saw four messages from Karan, wondering why he wasn't studying for his practicals.

Opening my what's app chatbox with Karan, I scanned its latest contents.

Only to let out a scream later.

{[]}

Hello fellow magical muggles!!

Here's a looooong chapter after a looooog wait between updates. This is the loooooongest chapter yet, having 4734 words.

What do you think of our friend's farewell party? Fun or...meh?

Also, there was some major time skips in this chapter...like three months is a lot...so if it confused you then please tell me, I'll try to make it more clear.

Btw, I cringed a lot while writing this...like it is SO CHEEEEEESY AND SUPER CLICHEEEEE....

Anywho, if you liked this chapter then please,

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Have a blast today!!

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PS: if you're wondering what Ashiana and Radhika's sarees look like, the here, (you better like these, like, I spent two hours going through the google images of sarees lmao!)

Ash:-

Rads:-