It was the second of march and Divya and her friends were scheduled to leave for IV on 4th, however there were a lot of things that were to be done before they could leave, as just like that Ms. Jain had called in for a meeting to explain and give out certain instructions to them. As Divya got off the train she dialed Nandini's number, the timing for the meeting was not yet set and she wasn't in a mood to go to the college, and she as well had a few things that she wanted to discuss with her.

"where are you?" she asked the moment the call got connected.

"Dude I just woke up, I am still in bed, come home we will leave together." Taking a huge breath, Divya whispered a small yes and made her way towards Nandini's home. The door was locked from inside and she could see her Dadi seated there, the bed right opposite to the door was empty, it was at that moment it struck her, the death of Nandini's grandfather about a month back had surely slipped her mind. The house seemed so empty without him, she missed the way he would look at her a bit confused who it was and whenever the eyes would fill with recognition they would lit up along with a smile. It was something so minute that at those times she would really miss out on them, but now that she was not welcomed with that familiar feeling, she acknowledged it.

The small while that she stood outside the door waiting for Nandini's grandma to open the door, she realised how certain things we think are quite so usual, something that was ordinary, but the days when the ordinaries are not met with, do we realize how special they were.

"Hello beta, Nandini is still sleeping, go wake her up." Nandini's dadi said, as Divya greeted her and then made her way inside. However unlike what Dadi had said, the room was empty, seeiming Nandini might have gone to the washroom she went and sat on the bed and kept her bag at a side and fetched her bottle. She soon heard the small rustling in the room as Nandini walked in while adjusting her clothes.

"ohh you are here. I had gone for potty," she smiled sheepishly and got on the bed.

"I don't really need any details."

"ohh but I want to tell you, what's your problem?" Nandini asked as she sat in her bed wrapping herself in her soft blanket that she loved dearest.

"My problem is I am tired, now pass me that pillow." Divya took the pillow and laid down her legs stretched towards Nandini's head, as Nandini's legs got stretched towards her head. The two got engrossed in their respective phones, the Ac still on along with fan, in the scorching heat outside the cool air was so soothing for Divya, she was about to fall asleep when Nandini's phone rang it was her mom instructing her on a few things, Divya shifted a bit to get a more comfortable position in the small couch that they were sleeping in and groaned in irritation on how loudly Nandini was speaking, she kicked her slightly and said,

"Don't scream, it's irritating me."

Soon much to Divya's pleasure Nandini ended the call, but then now Divya was wide awake, the sleepiness was long gone however she didn't want to get up just yet...she was so comfortable wherever she was.

"Let's ditch the meeting and stay back." She proposed.

Nandini let out a sarcastic laugh and said, "ohh really, actually even I am tired I don't want to go." For a few seconds the two sat there once again engrossed in their phones as Divya then showed Nandini her outfits for IV, as Nadini as well did the same. After about an hour or so Nandini decided it was time for her to go and take a bath, and while she did so Divya pulled up the blanket and layed down with her eyes closed thinking over the upcoming trip.

She was quite anxious to know how this whole trip was going to end up like. A few days ago when she had met Parth, the two of them had had a very interesting talk, she didn't know what was to really come out of that one but the last three days had been quite hectic for her.

Divya had been on a shopping spree with her mom and was quite tired that day, nevertheless she couldn't help but go upstairs, she was very excited and wanted to get some fresh air to clear her mind. Throughout the day, Natasha had been calling her. Nandini's mom had called them at their place to eat pav bhaji on Madhav's demand, but sadly as Divya already had a plan with her mom and sister to go shopping she had to decline. Divya knew she would regret it, and to add up to that Natasha in her full blown mind had been calling her texting her how they were missing her and how even Madhav was asking her to come and join them. There was even that one call where she said that she so wanted to see their chemistry for which she should come here.

"No Natasha, whatever invisible chemistry that you want to see amongst the two of us, you can see it on the IV right now I need to go I can't go there." Divya had said and had hung up on her before she would actually act upon convincing her mom to let her go.

"Dude you are taking my blanket." Nandini screamed right in her face.

"Hell, Nandini, wait, I will give it to you, you are tickling me." Divya exclaimed, her voice coming out in different octaves, and then falling into a bit of laughter.

"Awww shona babu is ticklish??!!" Nandini inquired and began tickling with a new found motive.

"Areee chutiya aurat, stop...stop we are getting late." Divya exclaimed. The loud giggles and squeals fell across the room and out into the leaving room. A long while later when the two relaxed and finally took in breaths did they decide to go back to college. They were seated in the cab when Nandini received Rohit's call saying he wanted to take a puff or two and asked whether she wanted to tag along, Divya nodded her thinking she might as well get used to that environment. Getting off the taxi both made their way towards Mohammad. Somehow both Nandini and Divya felt a bit weird as they waited for Rohit to come.

"where is he?" Divya asked.

"he said he is at Mohammad come let's go." Nandini dragged her towards the small broken down lane. With each step towards the shop, it reminded her of the times when she was there here with Madhav. The warmth that spread across her body was so soothing and warm that she felt as if there were sunflowers all around with that spring air hung around in a hue of canopy of trees... it sounded so poetic, and giddy however the moment they reached at the entrance of the lane, the two stood still a bit confused, haphazard and jumpy as to what was to be done.

"Ohh Nandini, Divya!" Rishi exclaimed as he passed the cigarette to Madhva, who was staring right back at the two and waved, Divya unconsciously was about to wave back but was pulled back by Nandini who said a bye and dragged her away.

"that was awkward." The two exclaimed at the same moment and smiled like that of highschool girls. It then took seconds for Rohit to reach there, and Divya realized that all those poetic feelings that she was feeling had somehow vanished and now all she felt was nervousness and agitation.

"Why are you guys waiting here, should have gone inside, ordered some tea or bought a cigarette." Rohit said as they made their way inside. The moment the boys were in Divya's sight, she saw the way the boys were looking at them.

"Hii Divya, Hi Nandu." The two girls along with Rohit waved their hands at them. Divya was making her way into the farther end trying to be as far away from the smoke as possible when Madhav called her and said, "Yaar Divya this is soo wrong, I really hate you."

Divya along with Nandini and the others looked at him quizzically, "why?" she asked out of curiosity however somewhere she had an idea that the answer was going to something really stupid.

"I thought you came here only with me!"

Before Divya could reply that yeah she had been here only with him here the first two times that she had came there, but that doesn't really mean that they were any Bunny and Naina to have this place as their thing like the two characters from the movie yeh jawani hai diwani had drinking beer just in the company of the two of them. Nandini came up beside her and said,

"No she comes here with me as well."

"No, It's just me with whom she comes."

The two kept on going back and forth for a while and then decided it was better to ask Divya who had herself got comfortable having conversation with Aman.

"Divya, you tell me will you come with me at mohammad or will you only come with Madhav?' Nandini asked. Divya looked at Nandini who had her hands on her waist trying to look as intimidating as possible and then there was Madhav with his hands folded on his chest waiting for her reply.

"umm I guess I came with you right now, and that pretty much explains that I will as well come with you." Divya answered in a slow and steady speech.

"Haaa see, I told you." Nandini literally danced around for a minute while Madhav grumbled about for a while and said,

"You could have said otherwise but no !!"

"why would she say anything otherwise? Truth is truth." Nandini smirked at him and was about to walk away when Madhav raised another question,

"Divya, who are you the most closest friends with?"

Divya along with the others once again stared at him while Rohit had something else going on in his mind. "Well technically Divya is closest friends with Dia."

"Did we ask you? no then shut up." Nandini snapped at Rohit and then looked back at Nandini and then at Madhav and said

"Umm I am really sorry but it's Nandini."

"See, Madhav, why do you even try and fight with me over Divya?"

"Nandu I know you blackmailed her...she is a very good friend of mine, we have been friends for the last 3 months and still counting." Madhav exclaimed and gave the cup of his tea to Aman who was passing around the empty cups to the owner.

"Huh, I have been friends with her for the last 3 years and I'm still counting... huh on your face bitch."

"You are a bitch, not me." Madhav almost roared, his voice raising an octave in a playful banter.

"No you are a bitch Madhav Khandelwal, a bitch who is as well an aunty."

"Ayye, Aunty, we are going you gonna come with us or continue with this bicth fight?" Dev asked as the boys began to move out of the lane. Madhav waved his tongue at Nandini who did the same to him and punched him right in his stomach as he said a quick bye to Divya and moved out. Divya couldn't help but laugh at the way the two were acting, but at the same time she wondered how Nandini felt about this whole situation.

Having your best friends, being friends with your male best friend, and turns out she as well has a crush on him. Surely it would have been so much on her, she couldn't really express what the two of them felt or thought about each other without any kind of filter to the two, or tell out the secrets. How so many things would have now become difficult?

When Nandini and Divya went back to college, the first floor was like an abandoned building with Rishi and the group loitering around along with Simran and Natasha in a toe. Divya walked upto Simran and gave her a tight hug and then went ahead to Natasha and was about to hug her as well, when Rishi snatched her hand and pulled her along with him.

"Divya, look at this, what do you think it is?" Divya looked closely yet not really closely at the round bruise marks on Madhav's neck right below his ears. She knew what it was, and felt a bit uncomfortable standing there. She wanted to get away but at the same time as she saw a squirting Madhav seated on the chair she smiled widely at him and then looked at Rishi and asked,

"what do you want me to say it is?"

"according to Madhav it's a ringworm, and according to us it's a ..." Rishi trailed off as the whole floor fell into loud guffaws.

"It's obvious it's a hickey." Divya said, and then raised her eyes at Madhav and said, "That's nice, I guess you had a pleasant weekend it seems."

"ohh surely he does. By the way if there is one this prominent here, I wonder how many more are there." Dev asked loudly as he made his way towards Madhav, who stood up abruptly and snapped at Divya,

"It's nothing like that, why are you even entertaining them? It's a ring worm man...stop it now. Kutto we are in college right now, it's not right."

"OH Nandu you know it's completely alright to smoke in college premises and play cricket here in this very corridor but it's not right to know the truth...whether it's a hickey or a ring guard." Divya taunted and walked towards Natasha and Nandini who had her eyes narrowed at Madhav as she said,

"Madhu baby do you want an itch guard? My dad got one just last night."

"Are yaar Nandu!!" Madhav picked up his bag as abruptly as he could and walked off downstairs while the rest began laughing. About 15 minutes or so later Aman walked up to Diyva and asked,

"Divya Didi whom are we supposed to give these consent forms to?" Divya narrowed her eyes at him. it was a complete different thing when earlier during Milange preps both Dev and Aman used to call her didi sarcastically, it was originated from some stupid joke of Di ko yeh bhi chahiye didi ko voh bhi chahiye, and was connected with the numerous demands of Divya and Fatema, but now it was getting irritated.

"Stop calling me that, and those forms, give them to Vidhi, she will handle it. Why should we take the responsibility?"

"Ohh didi," Dev walked up to her and Divya glared at him such that one would have really shivered with fright, however it was Dev here, and not just anyone else, as he rather preferred to smile back at her and collected all the forms from the boys and said, "Do us a favour, give these forms to Vidhi we have to go for shopping, we haven't bought even a single cloth."

"and why did you guys do that?"

"Areee, this Madhav he was busy with you know..." Divya rolled her eyes along with others on the absurdity of the excuse as Dev continued, "and then even Manav wasn't here. but leave that, take these and submit them." Divya collected the forms and checked if all the details were filled, she then asked Dhawal and the two juniors if they were going to submit the forms as well, when Madhav came up the stairs walking briskly towards the window. " Divya wait."

While the rest kept on talking around and cracking jokes, Madhav filled his form and then came to Diyva and asked "Acha listen, my dad had scanned the signed document, now the problem is the sign is very light, will that be okay?"

"yeah that won't be an issue." Divya collected the form and read through it to check if anything was left. She was just reading through the address and let out a laugh at how silly it seemed.

"Madhav, are you sure this is your address?" she asked. Her question had everyone's attention as she then read it out loud to others.

"it says, 200 Sokhiyon ka rasta, kishan paul bazaar Jaipur , Rajasthan. Does your Mom's family own that street or what? "

"what? Show me!" everyone jumped onto the paper as if they had found a new treasure. One by one read the address as Madhav stood there awkwardly. Divya couldn't help but let out a chuckle to see how fidgety he was at the whole attention on something that was related to his home back in Jaipur. She had time and again noticed this. When people talked about stuff that was related to his home, he would become quite protective, at times even try to walk out of those conversations.

"areeey it's nothing big."

"Dude this is big and weird, are you guys really that rich?" Divya asked.

"ohh yess Divya, almost 300 crs." Divya along with Nandini , Simran and others stared at Madhav and then at Atharva who was laughing.

"He is just bluffing, I might have a huge amount of property, but that is all of my dad and his dad and his brother, and of my maternal families then at the same time there are so many other siblings of mine, so all that we have isn't really only mine. And about this road, many roads in Jaipur are named after families, that's because these families were the ones who were quite known or had someone or the other fighting during the independence and my mom's family is quite known there they belong to the Tikkiwal family, we just tend to live there in one of the havelis. ."

"SO you mean to say your ancestors were one of the freedom fighters?" Nandini asked.

"well,yes..."

"dudeee, 300 cr worth of property, and along with that an ancestor that worked towards independence, dude you are richhhhh" the boys hooted as one of the peons walked towards them with a huge smile on his face asking what all was going on. The open being one of the most friendliest of all, as well became a part of the teasing and caterwauls, for long while the antics continues, with Rishi asking each one walking up the stairs from their group whether the hickey on Madhav's neck was a ringworm or an hickey, and if they wanted to meet any freedom fighter's successor. By the time Manav called them to come downstairs the antics continued as Divya and the girls walked out for their lectures and the boys for their shopping spree.

********

The night had just begun, with the chill so prominent in the air. Its fineness and the way it pricked her skin, Divya contemplated how soon this would all go. With Holi round the corner, and Holi ka dhyan being celebrated, the air would start getting warm, the cold evenings as well losing its charm. However, that was something which occurred every year, a routine that had got settled in over the year.

She sat back with her head rested on the wall on the terrace and waited. She couldn't fathom as to what exactly she was waiting for, but she waited. It was that urge that needed to wait for something that was so important to her. Her mind would take her to numerous places at a second's speed. At times she would think of those things that she was going to keep back home to go have that most wanted trip as guilt would engulf her and there were times when she would think openly without any abundance of the times and things that she would do on her trip.

Her conscience would question her time and again whether she would commit to things that she once thought were not right...would she take the risk of going with flow or would she just stay back with her guard pulled up and secured tightly.

"I heard you are leaving the day after." The sudden voice startled Divya making her jump in her skin.

"And I heard that you gave up on that research." She saw the way Parth shrugged his shoulders, his pajamas along with his loose T-Shirt and ruffled hair didn't at all go with the classics that he held in his hand. It made her chuckle.

"That's Wuthering Heights."

"Yeah, and I mentioned... I mentioned that you are leaving the day after," Parth extended his hand and handed her the book. "I thought you might need this." Divya stared back at him. What was wrong with him? Parth had never been this. Why was he being so sweet?

"I thought I might not take any book with me this time." Divya replied. However she rested the book on her lap, she couldn't help herself. It was one of her favourite classics, and more than that it was a book, how was she to refuse to do that?

"That's .... That's a surprise. I thought like every other time you might need them."

"to be honest..." Divya felt herself being at a loss of words. What was she supposed to tell him?

"yes?"

"to be honest, I am scared. You know how I need books to be by my side when I travel, they have been my companions for a long while...they were the ones...

"I know, They helped you back when you started traveling alone." Divya smiled fondly at the almost fading memories. Back during school days when she used to have her football practice and her brother and mom wouldn't be able to stay back for long hours it had been up to her to go ahead and travel back alone home. Those days were very scary. She would be afraid of letting go of her mom's hand and traveling alone, at that time the fact that she had books along with her were a real comfort. She would hold onto some new book every day, and get into the train, read through it till her station would come and then keep it back in the bag so as to not spoil it.

"I was so stupid, and I still am... I still carry a novel in my bag." Divya smiled at him while Parth fetched his phone and began playing music. The music surprised Divya as a soft melancholic piece began to play. The tune felt so heavy and yet at the same time so perfect that night.

"I will miss you this Holi." Parth stated.

"Ohh I am so glad I am not here this time. But yes I have asked mom to keep the puran poli, don't you dare hog on them as if you are about to die."

"Do you really think I am going to let this opportunity pass by?" Parth smirked at her and bent closer to her and said, "while you will be there in those uncomfortable bus seats, I would be here home eating those freshly cooked, hot smoky, perfected filled lathered with butter Puran poli, Aloo sabji and sambar...mmmm"

Divya's mouth watered as he described each and everything. She so wanted to kill him at that time but got settled with a brutal punch in his stomach.

A/N

Hello Everyone, 

The story on my end has been going on quite wonderfully, but Today I want to know, what is it that you guys are thinking about the story, the characters, the plot. 

I would really like it if you would let me know about it. may be just whom do you like the most and if any couple that you ship as off now? 

do leave your comments, votes and share this story with your friends. 

Happy Reading 

Yadni Bagwe