The morning after is less romantic than manik's declaration last night might have suggested. Nandini turns out to be a disruptive bed-partner, manhandling manik while unconscious and stealing the blankets. He sighs with frustration while she remains blissfully asleep.
Nandini awakens slowly, remembering happily that she and manik slept in the same bed. Eyes still closed, she reaches out to feel for him, but he's already up and a little disgruntled as he tells her about her horrible sleep habits.
Breakfast is a cutely domestic scene, which manik prepares and nandini revels in. manik makes nothing of eating together, or getting dressed for the day, or walking out together like the junior version of the happily married couple walking ahead of them.
In contrast, nandini doesn't even try to hide how much she loves it, and jumps to play the part of a wife, picking out a red checked shirt for him to wear. He dismisses the choice and picks another.
At school, a crowd has gathered in front of a sign. Nandini's jaw drops at the embarrassing declaration, courtesy of harshad:
"manik malhotra at last nandini murty. They spent a night of love together! Oh! Nandini will definitely be wearing the same clothes as yesterday!"
The students cast knowing looks at the couple in question, and one of them — nyonika in disguise as a nerd, — prods manik to explain what happened. Exasperated, he pulls his mother aside and asks her to cut it out.
School is abuzz with the latest rumors, but nandini has nothing to report to nyonika or her friends. Nothing happened.
Even alya is uneasy about the gossip, and she makes a roundabout reference to the news, trying to get manik's reaction. he cheers her up by saying that she ought to know nothing happened with Nandini.
In all the excitement of the night before, nandini has forgotten what she did with her chocolates, which she was never able to give to manik. She laments the loss, but wouldn't you know, the box is safely back at manik's place.
He opens the box and reads her cute handwritten note:
To: manik
These are chocolates I made myself, thinking of you. I hope you'll enjoy them~~
–nandini!
He smiles at the note and takes a bite of a chocolate... and spits it out. In true nandini fashion, they taste awful. But our little Robot Boy is learning that it's the thought that counts, and he gives a little laugh.
With exams approaching, nandini tries to study, but realizes that it's spreading herself too thin to try to prepare for all her subjects. Instead, she'll focus on English, which is the only class she shares with manik.
She spends late nights studying, and when she shows up on test day, manik notices her wan expression with some worry. Alya's feeling mighty self-confident after being assured that nothing happened between them, so she once again falls back on her hateful habit of masking insults as cheery comments, saying that nandini should probably repeat this level next year.
Nandini stares at manik dreamily through the first half of the test session, marveling and how handsome he looks. To her surprise, he reaches back and swaps papers with her — giving her his finished sheet and taking her empty one.
Best of all is the smile he flashes, which sends alya into a tizzy. No, I take that back — best of all is that pissy look on alya's face at manik's unexpected gesture. I was a little confused — was he actually helping her on an exam so she could join them next year? But perhaps this is just nandini's deluded daydreaming...
Harshad is devastated about the latest development with nandini and despairs that he'll have to give her up. But he gets some unexpected advice from aryaman (who sees him looking miserable and gives him some suggestions), and resolves to give it another try, starting with a proper confession of his feelings.
He finds nandini after her test and gravely begins his speech, explaining that he'd almost given up, but decided to stick it through. When her head drops forward, he assumes that she feels guilty, not knowing that she's actually fallen asleep.
But no matter, because shahid and navya inform him that nothing actually happened between nandini and manik, which revives his optimism.
Nandini's in for the shock of her life when a strange student comes up to her during tennis club and asks her to go steady. She doesn't even know him, much less know how to respond to that, and gapes silently as he talks with aryaman.
This is Madhyam sighania, who has taken a year off school and is about to re-enroll, making him a senior. He tells nandini that he's known since high school that she likes manik, but figures he has a chance with her because they're not officially dating. His self-assured demeanor is not at all shaken at her perplexed reaction, and he asks her on a date this weekend.
Nandini's never been asked out before — she's always been the pursuer — so after the idea sinks in, she starts to warm to it. Oh, she doesn't like maddy, but it's a flattering idea, and she enjoys the attention.
Nandini pov: "wow....I have been asked out this is something lekin kaash yeh manik hota....like I love manik but he doesn't understands my feeling but nandini nahi tum haar nahi manogi you will show manik that you love him alot"
Shahid and navya hasten to tell manik, thinking to light a fire under his indifferent butt, only to get the cool response, "Really? So what?" They say that he might find Nandini snapped up by that other guy, but manik scoffs, "Is that so? I'm not worried."
nyonika frets over the possibility of Nandini falling for the new guy, bemoaning the day when nandini gets "stolen away," blaming manik for his lack of action. This will not do.
Officially in courtship mode, maddy treats her with friendly interest, finding her at school and swinging an arm casually over her shoulders. She stiffens and scoots away, but he doesn't take offense and follows.
Maddy explains that at first he was provoked by manik — that junior who does everything so well. Maddy had first fixated on his pseudo-rivalry with manik, but in the process he started to notice nandini, since she was always following manik around. He found her tenacity attractive, and asks her again to date him — she shouldn't waste her youth waiting for manik.
Alya catches sight of their cozy tete-a-tete (a private conversation between two people), and immediately sizes up the situation. She's thrilled — that takes nandini away from manik — and enthusiastically pushes the two toward each other. She even skips away in glee.
Nyonika does recon, spying on maddy, and admits that he's much cuter than manik. Nandini assures her not to worry, because she's only interested in manik.
That thrills nyonika, but she jumps to prevent nandini from rejecting maddy right away. Now that her fears have been assuaged, she wants to take advantage of this scenario to stir manik's jealousy. After all, he's feeling too complacent with nandini always around.
When alya pushes nandini to date maddy, manik chimes in: "How lucky for you. They say that if one person throws something away, there'll be another to pick it up."
Pride stung, nandini retorts that maddy's just as smart and good-looking as him, PLUS he treats girls much better! Which is, of course, when maddy steps in, pleased at her vote of confidence. He asks manik to let Nandini come to him now, and manik replies that nandini's not his, so he can do whatever he wants.
Manik's comments tickle nandini's ire, and with a flash of anger she thinks that she may as well go ahead and have a relationship with maddy.
At the restaurant, manik is his usual sarcastic self when he takes nandini's order, thinking she's going to spend another day waiting around for him. However, she declares that she's here to meet someone else, which is when maddy arrives. surprise on manik's face was clearly seen when he realizes nandini's on a date.
Nandini pulls back when maddy slings his arm around her shoulders, but that's when manik comes around with their drink order, so she ignores him and reacts enthusiastically to maddy's date suggestions. Manik pointedly interrupts to deliver the drinks, and sets them down a lot slower than he could.
As soon as he leaves the table, however, nandini deflates and drops her cheerful act.
(It's too bad she doesn't have any interest in maddy, because he's pretty much the textbook ideal for a kind, attentive date. He looks after her every comfort and makes sure she's having fun, and she admits that it's been a while since she enjoyed herself like this.)
Hearing that her crush on manik dates back for a year, maddy tells her that he doesn't expect her to suddenly get over that and like him, but all he wants is for her to think of him a little. At the end of the date, nandini looks around disappointedly, having secretly hoped that manik would show.
While looking at manik from afar in the library, nandini decides things can't continue like this, because she doesn't want to use maddy. Time to end it.
Maddy, on the other hand, urges her to forget manik, ignoring her attempt to talk to him. He pulls her aside (grabbing her by the neck, aie!), ironically taking the same stance manik had with the wall kiss as he leans in... and at the last moment nandini squeals, "No!"
That's when harshad makes his appearance, throwing a punch and telling him to stop pestering nandini. Maddy punches back, and this leads to a full-on fight right there amidst the bookshelves while nandini watches in horror and tries to urge them to stop.
Enter manik, who tells them that there's no use fighting over nandini. He grabs her shoulder and pulls her close as he points out, "Even so, I'm the only one nandini likes." With that, leads her along with his hand still on her shoulders.
Manik pov: " yes I love nandini but I can't show that I can't let anyone use that advantage of using my weakness. Nandini I am sorry I know I am hurting you but my ego and my Brain is stopping me please forgive me but one thing is for sure I love your cute antics and the faces you make feel like kissing you right here....manik control"
He can pretend he doesn't care, but the fact is that he uses the hand-on-shoulder move purposely to signal the guys to back off, because once they're alone together he drops the hand. She's feeling miffed at his ego — how confident he must be to declare that he's the only one she likes. Manik tells her frankly that she and her mother are so transparent.
They have dinner with the parents that night, after which mohin and ashlok takes manik aside to ask about his future plans. He suggests that manik take over his company, but manik answers curtly that his ashlok and mohin has planned out his whole future without his input.
After that, manik drops out of sight for a while, and nandini notes that he quits his restaurant job and has stopped coming to tennis club. It takes a while, but she tracks him down to his new job (tipped off by aryaman) as a groundskeeper at a mountain villa.
He's exasperated with aryaman for telling everyone where he went — in particular alya, who pulls up just moments after nandini. Aryaman sees this group outing as his chance to make inroads with alya, and proposes that he and nandini team up to keep alya and manik apart.
So guys let's see what happens next?
Will aryaman get successful in separating aliya and manik?
Will manik confess his feeling let's see?