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Pyaar, pyaar and only... pyaar <3

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Under the open bonnet of the hired cab that was undergoing open heart surgery, one tall blazered man bent over the engine bay. He was examining the current car condition, rubbing his lower lip with an index finger in a manner similar to nearly half an hour ago when a petite woman imitated the gesture.

As Cabir headed towards him with the disconnected battery perched by his hips, Manik hid his growing smile, wary about being teased for it. Together, the two men wedged the item in the exposed cavity. The only thing left to do was reconnecting the battery terminals.

"Pass me the wrench," Manik wiggled a stretched hand. By his side, Cabir dug into an apron secured by a carabiner, which had a bunch of car tools stashed in it and usually lived in the trunk of the Mercedes. The wrench met Manik's hand, and he firmly bolted one of the leads.

"Waise..." Cabir rested on one of the headlights and side-eyed, "how much does she know about us?"

Manik shrugged, his focus steadfast even as he spoke. "Not a lot. She suspects I'm against the law, but I think..." He tightened one of them securely and turned, his hands at his hips. "She might be able to help us, Cabir."

The girls were huddled by Nandini's side on the porch stairs. They had a dupatta wrapped from one of Navya's shoulders to one of Soha's, encasing the trio in a cocoon. Madhubala's eyes were closed, his Bhabhi was biting down on a lip while lost in other racing thoughts, and an inquisitive, headstrong lady was palming her ears to warm them in the unusually biting chill.

Gandhiji's three monkeys, Cabir mused as they had fallen in his line of vision.

He cleared his throat, and hopped to his feet. "Keep aside the fact that you like her and tell me honestly, do you really think it's a good idea to involve her in all of this?" Cabir's skepticism was valid; Nandini had a normal civilian life and went to markets and movies without a spark of worry in her mind... were they sure they wanted to uproot it all and force her to lead a different life?

That was what made Manik pause as well, to rethink those choices. Choices he was forcing her to make, just by being on his side.

Cabir interpreted the tranquil as confusion on his friend's part. He continued to explain his stance, "Uski duniya bohot alag hai. Agar tere saath hogi, usse puuri zindagi bhaagte rehna hoga... she'll have to leave behind her family, her career... her friends... tu samajh raha hai main kya –"

Scissoring the conversation to an abrupt halt, Manik commented, "I get it, okay? Trust me," He barked, the realisation slowly setting on him. "I do."

Why was he put in such a spot where he had to make the call?

The sight was heartbreaking, watching Manik being so devastated about an emotion he could not control – for a person he could not even choose. Above it all, the friends he would take a bullet in order to protect were not unconditionally supportive of the unconventional pairing. Cabir hence diverted his friend's defeat to something more light... digestible.

"It's impressive," He looked thoroughly pleased at one of Manik's features.

With a frown, Manik asked, "What?" and then following Cabir's amused gaze towards a certain cut at the corner of his mouth, he awkwardly looked away.

"That blister... it doesn't look like it's from a kiss, toh definitely maar hi padhi hogi... taakat hai bhai teri bandi mein!" With a shameless grin, the joker badgered the victim who was rolling his eyes as he tightened the other bolt.

Would that idiot ever play a part in assisting him, or was Cabir just finding humour at Manik's expense? Unfortunately, even those disinterested looks did not seem to shut him up!

"Matlab socho, Nawab... the man whom the entire underworld fears..." Dramatically, Cabir pictured reading the imaginary headline in front of him, "...could not defend himself from a woman! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

Beneath a helpless sigh, Manik urged, "Ho gaya tumhara, hmm? Now just shut it, you've anyway seized enough opportunities to make my life miserable!"

"I don't think so... miserable toh nahi," Cabir confessed, once again eyeing his best friend's girl seated between two other fairly abnormal females.

Until then, Nandini had been worriedly replaying what happened when the girls had rushed up the stairs, when her plan to get some truths out of Manik had gone to the dumps. Instead, Soha and Navya had thrown all sorts of questions at her.

How did she and Manik end up here? What were they even doing in the dark?

Why had she not told them she was with a man, most of all him? Had he forced her to hide it, or forced himself on her? Was that why she was crying?

How did she even land up in his shirt? Where was the kurti she was wearing earlier in the day? Did she have an extra pair of her clothes with her? What explanation would she give her Chacha and Chachi if she went home wearing that?

Like a godsend, Alia had made her presence known behind them, saving Nandini from those difficult answers and hence buying her some time. Shortly after, Cabir had requested they all leave the mansion as soon as possible. That was why they had taken out all their belongings, locked the building, and were seated on the front porch. Nandini's tote was stuffed in her lap, and the girl clutched it nervously.

It was not possible for her to keep getting lucky in that manner, but there were other pressing matters that needed handling in the meantime.

She brushed her fluttering bangs to a side and the emergence of her pink handcuff brought a new wave of amusement to Cabir's face. He had never known those two were so kinky, especially her! "I mean," He started and turned to Manik, "the first time I called you, you were complaining about her punch and ab yahan aake dekha toh pata chala... that you've cuffed her, you've given her your shirt to wear..."

"It's not at all what it looks like, okay? I... I can explain." With that, Manik got carried away, defending himself and his girl from Cabir's brainless badgering.

Across them, cupping her friend's cheek, Nandini cooed. "Navya..."

"Hmm..." The drama queen's tone was weary.

"How are you feeling now about the whole Harshad thing?"

Navya slowly sat up, tucking one of her braids behind her shoulder. "Pata hai, Nandini... for a while now, I haven't thought about it at all. I mean, Soha and I had been so busy searching for you, upar se that joker and I were arguing with each other and Alia has been... surprisingly sweet to me so inn sabke chakkar mein humne khudke baare mein socha hi nahi tha..."

"In a way, it's good, na?" Soha leaned over her friends and said. At least, Navya was not low. The depressed girl went back to resting her head on a comforting shoulder.

Nandini turned to Soha. "Lekin kabhi na kabhi toh confront karna padega..."

The implications of that sentence also fell on her. At some point, she would have to face Manik too. She couldn't keep avoiding him and sneaking looks in that manner.

It was as if Soha was thinking along those same lines when she gently posed, "What about you, Nandini?" She felt weirdly nervous at her own question, partly because the man had deeply hurt Nandini once before so she did not want to trigger her friend's downward spiral, and partly because had Nandini really been that frightened by him, she would have at least revealed over the phone that she needed saving from him.

So how did Nandini truly feel about him?

Straightening her back, Nandini opened the left fist she had kept closed all along. Navya's head bounced off her friend's shoulder.

Upon hearing Navya's voice at the gate, a shaken Manik had gone back to the spot that had his gun and the parts of his phone. He gathered everything and stashed his gun in the band of his sock, fragments of his phone in his inside blazer pocket and...

He had come face to face with Nandini, stuffing the black chip – that the whole underworld was looking for – into one of her palms.

The gesture by itself held a certain depth Nandini had not understood. Manik and his team had seized it from Harshad the night he had left Nandini. Then, he had risked his life for that item when he fought the Malhotra clan for it at some firework factory. Over the next few months, he had hidden it from his own crew that the chip was with him, and finally... at that juncture, he was giving it to her.

Months of his hard-work and life purpose could be sized up into that small chip he was protecting, but he was willing to sacrifice it for her... just the way she was ready to sacrifice her best friend's locket to save his life.

She had turned the chip over in her palms. The red star symbol she had been linking with Harshad and Navya's locket had been etched on it too.

It had disappeared in Nandini's fist when Navya pranced through the main door.

Moving forward into the semicircle, Navya narrowed her eyes at a small black chip. "I have seen this symbol..."

"Somewhere. Yes, you have. I found this chip in this house." She didn't have to cross her fingers for it; it was in fact true. It had been in Manik's mouth earlier, but she only got a hold of it in that dungeon kind of mansion. "I came here looking for it." Nandini's confession boggled the two girls, who were squinting at the tablet-sized object.

At the back of her mind, she knew she was the only one who had known those items had a connection between them: a shared symbol. That was the link between Harshad and the military chief's deeds, so the real question that still remained unanswered was... was he trying to protect the chief and hence roaming around free... potentially undercover... or was he against him, and hence kicked out of service and thrown into prison?

"But why?" One of them whispered. For this piece of plastic, she was out late at night, breaking in some random mansion and getting stuck in the dark with a man she hated? It neither made any sense to Soha nor did it give her any hint about Nandini's opinion of Manik.

Why? That was the question Nandini could not answer. Where did Manik fit into the picture amidst all this? Why had he given her possession of both those things after so desperately wanting that locket he was initially willing to even shoot her for?

It sent a shiver down her spine. Would he have really shot her had those sequences of events not played out in that exact manner?

How had her whole life changed over the course of one night?

Alia, who was lurching in the lawn between the car and the porch and hence secluded from the discussion between three best friends, huffed. They seemed to be aggressively gossiping about something in a manner similar to how she had caught them upstairs. It irritated her to no extent that they had stopped talking or had disbanded as soon as they saw her around them. That made her feel that they were indeed talking about her.

"Alright, I'm tired of this." Swiftly, she moved towards the girls. "We're not in high school anymore to be forming cliques and bitching behind people's backs; just tell me who!" Crossing her arms, Alia stood on the first step of the staircase – two ledges under the girls.

"Who, what?" Nandini asked, closing back her fist and hiding the item from her.

Soha knew exactly what the question implied. She coldly uttered, "Varun Mishra."

"Her crush," Navya whispered in Nandini's ear.

Varun Mishra, the boy with sideswept hair and aviator sunglasses? Nandini remembered one evening when her batch of second year girls were having tea from a stall outside the college, and from the opposite men's college, one bunch of boys on their bikes were peer-pressuring someone to smoke a bidi.

The boy had pulled off his shades and refused to be ragged, but Soha had observed that and commented that he looked like the main character from Badrinath ki Dulhania. Nandini agreed that in some angles he did; he had that masoom face: innocent sa, sweet sa. But she never thought anything more of it, least of all that her friend crushed on him.

"Really, Soha?! You never told me..."

Alia groaned, "Dude, Varun had asked me out, so I said yes."

"That's unbelievable," Soha scoffed in defense, alerting the men who had been busy bantering about something themselves. "He was such an innocent boy!"

As Cabir's ears perked up on the mention of a boy, Manik too wondered, who were they talking about?

Flinging one of her long curls behind her, Alia exuded more sass. "Accha? Which dictionary has stated innocent boys can't make a move?"

That... was true, Soha admitted. His innocence was not why the theory seemed unlikely. It was because Alia, who was one of the most popular girls in college, was linked with someone who appeared so... unlike... her, in every aspect, but she couldn't tell that to Alia's face.

Cabir left his friend's side and walked towards the source of drama at the right time because Navya had curiously asked, "Who is this Varun Mishra?"

"Our junior from the opposite boys' college –" Nandini began to explain at the same time, Alia set some context as well. "This serial pill popper who was with me just so he could get –"

Soha staggered. "WHAT?!"

"What?" Alia was nonchalant.

"He did drugs?!"

"You didn't know –"

Cabir sniggered at the huge misunderstanding, "So you mean to say... all this beef between your two groups is for one teenage substance abuser, hmm..." If he put things in perspective like that, their animosity did seem laughable. But it wasn't just that... their enmity and dislike for each other was deep-rooted, as a result of Alia associating with drugs and boys and for alienating people of Nandini's and Soha's stratas.

They were both in the wrong, but their reasons had compounded over time. It could not be so easily picked out as one single instance that created a rift between the groups.

Feeling attacked by Cabir's comment, which suggested they were unnecessarily blowing things out of proportion, the fashion queen quickly added, "He was anyways beneath my league."

That piqued Cabir's curiosity. After her choices being Manik and Dhruv, he wanted to know who was such an unworthy competitor. "Can I see a picture of him?"

"Yeah, I want to see as well," Navya added, marking an important moment in history because it was perhaps for the very first time that those two had gotten along about something. Soha pulled up a picture of him from her archives, back when she stalked his Facebook and stored one of his pictures in her gallery.

If she heard of anyone doing something like that now, it would seem obnoxious and creepy to her, but she did not have any wrong intentions five years ago when she did so. She had just stored it so she could remember what he looked like and see him whenever she had a dull day to make herself feel better.

That was until the word spread like wildfire that Alia was spotted behind the hostels sneaking and making out with a boy from the other college; at that stage of Soha's life, that felt like being cheated on – a one-sided breakup.

Cabir went behind Navya and scrutinised the dude. Yeah, reasonably average, he shrugged. Alia had done better than that.

"Beneath your league?" Nandini scoffed at the comment that yet again suggested Alia was far superior to many others in their age group. The girl was something else! "You're either an expert at lying or a big, fat hypocrite because your unabashed moves on him were headlines in every nook and cranny in college!"

Really? Cabir mused. Alia had moves?

Aaj toh kaafi saare pol khul rahe hai! He proudly inferred.

First, he had learnt about Nandini's arrival to Mangalore; then he had crafted an expert plan so his best friend could get out of his Devdas vibe and fight for his love.

Following that, he learnt Alia was biologically linked with Harshad, Navya took Harshad's words at face value, Soha was a tough nut to crack, and Nandini... well, based on her exceptional lip-cutting techniques that made Manik cower in fear, he was certain he had found Adira her perfect accomplice. Together, the two females would twist him around their fingers, that was for sure.

Soha jumped back at Alia, accusing with, "Some girls did fasts and indulged in dangerous dieting regimes just to be as beautiful as you; some even met some dhoongi babas to chant some couplets on their behalf, to get boys to like them as easily as they fell for you!"

She was not exaggerating; there were some girls who even went as far as cutting their wrists to proclaim that they deeply loved a boy and would walk around with those scars to show off their so-called love. If anything was cringeworthy, it had to be that!

"Well, I'm not going to be apologetic about something I cannot control," Alia remorselessly stated.

"If you didn't really like him, you didn't have to pursue him!" Soha knew the only reason Alia even went ahead with it was because it gave her an ego boost within her friend group and a sense of validation that she was unmatchable in her aura.

Cabir shook his head, beyond glad that he swung in the other direction. None of those traits seemed even remotely impressive to him... saying one thing about others in front of their faces but having alternative opinions behind their backs, keeping things in their hearts and building up grudges about something that could have been easily resolved through a conversation, and beyond all, the deprecating comments they made at each other... hurting their own kind... it seemed like mutual emotional abuse.

"You broke his heart!" Nandini added, defending her friend, who was on the verge of tears. She had not known how deeply she was impacted by that guy, but it felt right to take a stand against Alia... who had no intention of loving him in the first place. Manik twisted in his spot, feeling called out by the dialogue. "Did you know he completely gave up on talking to girls after you?"

"And I didn't stand a chance." Soha whined.

"Look. That's not my fault! He knew well enough that I wasn't looking for anything serious. He was with me because I could hook him up to higher doses of meds for his ADHD. He wasn't heartbroken because he was in love with me; he was upset that I got to know he was just using me!"

All the girls remained silent, looking at each other with a different emotional matrix but unsure of what to say to comfort one another. Navya had been heartbroken from earlier that night, Soha had been disappointed because of her grudge, Alia had been judged by the majority in the mansion and Nandini... she had just been through a catharsis and was beginning to experience something beautiful in its wake, that those petty fights and grudges she held for Alia seemed insignificant compared to the recent transformations in her life.

"Besides," Alia added amidst loud sighs, "You... you hardly glanced at a boy, let alone talk about them. How was I supposed to know you liked him?" What she meant to say was she was sorry.

Cabir was the only one who understood that. "Okay, let's settle this once and for all. I can speak from experience, no boy is worth fighting over, that too for years at end. Woh bhi iske liye, nah! Can we come to a mutual agreement that Varun Mishra has a dick that's so small he cannot even get it up?"

Nandini raised her eyebrows while Navya palmed her mouth, both of them finding the comment rather scandalous. Manik scoffed and resumed his task of tightening the battery leads. A grin perked up on Alia's face, and Soha blankly stared at him.

Noticing that the girl with the unresolved crush was not in on his joke, Cabir continued, "I mean, Alia... you can vouch for that, right? Why are you losing your peace of mind over someone with a peanut-sized penis and zero bedroom skills –?"

"We're done here," Manik cleared his throat and handed back the wrench, quite certain at least one of those women – at least the woman in red – wanted an escape from that discussion. Besides, he did not want her imagining anyone else's, no matter how tiny Cabir had painted it to be... that was not to say he wanted her to imagine his... oh dear Lord, what did he get himself into?!

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I loved writing this chapter so damn much! Something about light-hearted moments in a group setting is giving me major feel-good KYY vibes <3

Waise some of you already guessed in the earlier updates that Manik indeed had the card, so I guess that wasn't such a huge surprise? :P The real question should be: did you ever think he would surrender it to Nandini? :")

I also really love that Alia got an opportunity to somewhat redeem herself through a reconciliation with the girls :") Who would have thought such growth was possible for her?

What was your favourite part? Let me know! <3