A/N : Yaar, I feel this story is too focussed on Raj.
Neone with ideas as to how to shift focus?😋😋
Maybe kill him?😆😆
Lol...just kidding.

No, but seriously, any ideas?

Flashbacks in italics again

........

Its been almost two days since he came there.

He spent most of the time in the little library cum study, beside his own room.
This was a room he had furnished and filled himself.
It was tiny, but with a pretty view of the garden (which was now overgrown), and its walls were lined with bookshelves, which were stuffed to the brim with books.

He was lazing on the comfy couch near the window, in the study,
re-reading a comic he had perhaps read a hundred times before.
It was evening, and it was a pretty one, and he was occasionally  gazing out of the window, when his eyes fell on someone, walking down the road from across his house.

Someone forgotten, as if they were from a past life.

Heart beat rising, feeling excited for the first time in days, he rushed out of the study, and out of the house, and ran down the road, to where the person was walking, unaware of him approaching, his comic still in his hand.

"Natasha! Natasha wait!"

The girl turned around, surprised at hearing this voice, after so many years.

Still not believing herself to be hearing his voice, she turned around, surprise written on her face, as his face confirmed she has guessed right.
How could she forget that voice.
Her partner in crime, over that one summer.
Just the one.
But what a friendship they had formed.

A friendship perhaps neither had forgotten.

She looked at him, up and down, her face breaking into a grin, as her eyes landed on the comic in his hand.

"Raj?"

........

Naina had gone back to her posting, after the trial.
He had not talked to her, atleast not privately.
He had thanked them all, his words really heartfelt. They had had a group hug.

But except for one moment of eye contact, he had not conversed, or looked at her, any more than necessary.

Naina, on her way back to her posting, was trying hard not to think about this.

Why should she expect him to talk to her, any more than he did with the others?

It was not as if, there was anything left to talk about.
Her brother had his honour back, his promise to her completed.

What more did she expect from him?

Puja, who was posted at Pune, had an early flight back the next day, as she had been given permission to attend the trial.
She was traveling with Naina, staying with her at her base.

All through the way, she kept trying to hold a conversation with Naina, who replied only in monosyllables.

Finally frustrated, she decided to confront her.

Puja : Oye Naina, baat kya hai?
Tera processor itna slow kyu hai aaj?
Tujhe khushi nai hai, ab to sab thik hogaya hai na.

Naina debated, whether or not to tell her friend, about Rajveer wanting to leave the army.
She thought against it.
It was his decision.
She was being stupid.
He had never told her this personally. He probably did not want her involved.

She remembered one of the only times Raj had gotten angry on her.

Iska tumse kuch lena dena nahi Cadet Singh!

Naina jerked herself out of these thoughts.
Why was she remembering this, right now, anyway?

Maybe, because, since the beginning of this mission, for the first time since he became his mentor, he was making her feel insignificant in his life.

Naina turned her face away from Puja's, feigning to be asleep, resting her head on the window of the bus, in reality, fighting back the tears, the reason for whose onslought she could not, for the life of her, figure out.