A much needed, and demanded, RECAP:

Karan is furious after he comes to know that Arvika and Vansh have been digging about his secrets behind his back. Wanting to keep Vansh out of this mess, and trying to adjust with this new strange feeling called guilt, Arvika decides to gift a peace-offering to Karan, in the form of a voice recording that contains fragments of the reason behind her mother marrying Mr. Oberoi. Karan then decides to meet Vansh, and when Vansh confronts Arvika regarding it, she denies any involvement with the reconciliation issue. In hindsight, Arnav has been getting calls from Mr.Oberoi, and lies to Arvika when she asks him about it.

*In the daily-soap recap voice* ab, aage.

||CHAPTER 55||
《¤》

Saturday morning, I had surprised Ishita by appearing at her house, uninformed. "Vickey?" She was rubbing her eyes, as she stepped down into the hallway where her sister, Arohi, and I were having a deep conversation about the weather (in Bollywood), whilst sipping on some freshly brewed coffee.

"Ab mera chehra dekh hi liya hai," I shrugged, "tho Good Morning bolne ki zarurat nahi hai."

"Shut up," she sassed, scraping out a chair to sit at the head position of the table. "Mehra Residence is two houses down the lane, if you have turned here by mistake."

Sarcasm oozed out of my smile, "How sweet of you to be my Google Maps, Ishi."

"Is this some kind of internal talk going on?" Her sister pointed at us, "Mehra, you mean Vinith?"

I opened my mouth to correct her, but sensing Ishita's all-knowing smirk in my direction, I decided against it. "Sure, let's go with that."

"What's for breakfast?" Ishita yawned, looking around the kitchen.

"Well, Ma and Pops have left for work, so since it's just you, me and Avanthi, let's go with some Bananas and Porridge?"

Arohi didn't wait for us to respond, she got up to tell their cook about it, and I turned viciously towards her baby sister who was busy laughing her heart out.

"Avanthi?" I mouthed, quizzically. "I told her my name thrice!"

She was snorting, "You're lucky she at least got your initial right. And I'm so not sorry for that."

I mimed her, leaning against the back of the chair. Ishita was overly infuriating most of the times.

"Now come on, let's go upstairs. I don't want to have some gruesome porridge for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!" She grabbed me by the hand, dragging me behind her to her room. This so wasn't the first time.

Her room, which hadn't changed much since my last visit, was messy, and since Mrs. Gupta wanted no external help to be provided for the cleaning of her daughter's room, Ishita had forced me to help her tidy it. She was a monster once you became friends, but rolling my eyes, I helped her make her bed- for some reason, I couldn't stand unmade beds.

"So what made you come knocking on my door?" She asked, sweeping up The Canterville Ghost off the floor. How did it even end up there?

"Do you like, examine every corner of your room with home work in hand?" I asked, picking up a few empty pens off the hardwood floor.

"Uhm," she gave me a sheepish grin, "the bin was too faraway." She pointed to the pink and silver polka dotted bin under her desk.

"That is because you're supposed to study at the table, not on your bed," I retort, puffing her innumerous pillows and cushions.

"Whatevahh," she flicked her her wrist. "Anyways, you didn't answer my question. What brings you here?"

Climbing on her bed, both of us lay forming a diagonal on her bed, our heads in the centre. "The Mehra's have invited us for dinner tomorrow."

I wished my ears weren't by her face, because nothing could have prepared me for the sudden high-pitched squealing performance she was delivering at nine in the morning. I could literally hear the birds flapping their wings out of fear to fly away. "Ishita, Vansh hai, cockroach nahi! Chill dude."

"Oh my god, I'm literally soooo damn high right now-"

"-obviously-"

"-but you have no idea how long I've been waiting for this to happen."

I sat up, "Ishita, date pe nahi jaa rahi hoon. Full family hai, like ham bachpan me jaya karte the?"

"Honey," she followed suit, "doesn't matter. Ab family ko bulaya hai, kal akele me millega-"

"Ew Ishita, you're literally making me cringe. I'm never talking about this-"

"No no no no, I promise I won't say that again! Pakka wala promise, I swear," she pouted, pinching the skin of her neck. "Ab bestie ko chiddhane ka haq tho hota hai na."

I shook my head, "Fine, now shut up. I need your help with something."

"Along the lines of make-up and dress-up?"

"Absolutely not," I told her seriously, looking at her Hello Kitty night suit. "You have to stalk this girl from Easton. Ritwik ko pasand ayi hai."

"Ew, Easton? Seriously?!"

I agreed with her on that emotion. "He thinks I owe him, and we both know how disgusting he is."

"Suddenly, I'm pitying that girl. Kaun hai?"

And that's how we spent the afternoon definitely not studying  for our approaching class tests.

¿¤?

It was five in the evening when I came back home. (Un)surprisingly, the boys were over and were having the time of their lives playing Arnav's latest video game in the living room T.V., with empty pizza boxes and bottles of coke lying on what used to be the coffee table. My eyes landed on Vansh, his hair expertly styled, and lips rolled in, with an aggressively concentrated look on his face. I noticed he was wearing a pink denim jacket, the one he promised he'd lend me. Beside him, Karan had noticed I had arrived to disturb them, and he held my gaze for about thirty seconds before whoops and scowls filled the absent silence.

"What the hell Kro," Vansh hit his arm. "You could have easily defended tha- hey."

I smiled at Vansh, he was looking too adorable in pink denims.

"Please resume, don't stop on my account," I told them, kneeling down by the coffee table and pouring myself some cold drink.

"Yo hoe," Ritwik greeted me as I sat on the hand-rest of his seat.

"Yo bro," I high-fived his elbow. "You're going to thank me in five seconds."

He snorted while I retrieved the piece of paper Ishita had scribbled Ritwik's crush's number on. "I'm still against this, but-"

"Holy shit," he exclaimed, loudly, "I fcuking love you Vickey!" His arms came around my torso, and as much as I loved cuddling with this guy, he was suffocating me.

Heads had turned towards us at the sudden confession, but before I could free myself from him, my eyes had spotted the anger in the eyes of the guy wearing pink denim.

"Zabaan pe lagaam laga bewakoof," my brother was the first to stand up, pulling us apart. "Behen hai meri!"

Gasping for air, I thumped Arnav's chest, "Bro, chill. He meant Arvika, thank you so much. Except, his emotions were all over the place, right Roy?"

Roy was busy furiously mouthing something to Vansh, who in simple words, looked pissed off. So I tapped his head.

"Huh?" His eyes almost gauged out of their sockets when he noticed my brother's angry form barely being restrained by me. "Oh, yeah, of course. Bhai, aisi cheezein ham sochte bhi nahi," he made a show of shaking his head and pulling his ears. "Teri behen equals to meri behen na! Arvika tho mujhe rakhee pehenane wali hai agle saal!"

Arnav had calmed down at the thought, but had aggressively grasped my cup of drink, gulping it all down in one go. "Sochna bhi mat."

Ritwik and I were laughing silently until Vansh stood up abruptly, "Pyas lagi hai." He left for the kitchen.

My new brother and I eyed the bottle of water on the coffee table before looking at each other.

"Jao," he whispered. "Bujha ke aao."

And so, I breezed towards the kitchen too. Apparently, he was expecting me, with folded hands and a twitching jaw.

"You look like buddhi ke baal," I informed him, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. Delicious pink floss candy. I hadn't had one in a century almost.

"Am I laughing?"

I shook my head. "No, not at all. But I am. You still look like a cotton candy though."

He ignored my dig. "Poori subeh kaha thi tum?"

"Ishita ke paas, aapko bolna bhool gayi. Sorry, Daddy," I pouted. The double meaning was very much intended, but he wasn't budging.

"Vansh," I poked him while he drank the ice cold water. "Vansh Vansh Vansh Vansh Vansh!" I kept on poking him until his left hand gripped my fingers to stop me.

"Vika, stop."

"Vika won't stop, full stop."

He was twisting my fingers in a lascivious manner, and I was enjoying every damn second of it.

A throat cleared in the background, and both of us turned our attention towards the intruder. "Karan," Vansh acknowledged. I straightened up.

He nodded towards us, and strode forward. "Sorry for interrupting your foreplay, but the three of us need to talk."

Pulling myself up on the counter, I grabbed the bottle Vansh passed. "Go on. I'm listening."

"This should stay between us, and no one is supposed to even have a slight inkling about this."

We nodded.

"Firstly, Arvika I'm sorry-"

"Let's just keep the apologies at bay, Karan," I cut him off. "We both know you don't mean it, and I honestly don't deserve it either."

Letting out a sigh of relief, he continued. "Fine, thanks. But let's keep it all behind us too?"

I was trying to decipher him. "If you're ready to hold up your end of the bargain, I'm in."

_____

Namoshtaii!!!!!

Okay, you guys have nooo idea how much I missed doing this. I missed you guys sooo much! A big big BIG THANK YOU to all of you, for waiting, for wishing me good luck for my exams, for just staying there! A lot of you DMed me on 9th and 10th, wishing me good luck for my JEE on 11th, and god I almost cried! I almost thought that you guys must have forgotten me and DJH, and that even if I update it won't make any such difference but God, you guys are still here! I was ecstatic to read your replies for the #1year announcement message :D

That being said, I won't be back until May. Honestly speaking, there is nothing more than me churning out regular updates that I want, but twelfth boards are the turning point in most of our lives. I have my Physics Board practical tomorrow, and had my P.E. Board Practical yesterday. So in simple words, I am dead beat!

However, I may post another chapter today, but it all depends on many factors, which I'm sure you must already know.

Aneewess, tell me what's been up with your lives? Are you guys dead yet? Or are you optimistic about your exams? What new things have you been doing?

Also, I wanted to tell you guys something. I am going to change my username. I am done using my pen name, now that my parents know that I write on wattpad. 'midnight_coffee' and its abbreviated form 'emcee' have been with me for a long time now, but I guess it's time for me to actually, uhm, embrace my real name which I'm pretty sure none of you guys can pronounce. I am Shubhodiya, (pronounced as shoo-bho-dee-ya, NOT subhodhaya, okay?) I am a Bangali, but have always lived outside West Bengal. For the beginning ten years of my life I was in Pune, Maharashtra. From fifth standard to tenth standard, I was in Vadodara, and now, for my eleventh and twelfth, we shifted back to Pune. And now that I realise, the best years of my school life was spent in Vadodara. I'll be changing my username to chaashnee, because that's what my friends used to call me ;P I also loved boring you with this non-sense info.

Alrighty, so read, vote, comment and promote! ;)

~emcee.