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Alia shook her head by the front steps where her friends left her alone with Dhruv. First, she had lost Manik to Nandini and now Dhruv... he too had been fascinated by her. Her, of all women.

"It's like I'm watching history repeat itself over and over again," she confessed, blinking away the stinging behind her eyeballs. Every single person in her life had made her their second choice, ditching her whenever they found someone better; all of that did hurt, but she promised herself she would not break. Not for Dhruv at least.

After watching her repeatedly running behind Manik, Dhruv found her statement ironic. She was the cause for their push-and-pull dynamic.

"Don't you think I should be the one saying this?"

Harshad frowned behind the wall he was hiding at. After Navya and their crew had left somewhere up the stairs, he had inched towards some voices, eager to eavesdrop on the conversation between his sister and her pathetic lover. In the process, he had swapped spots from one edge of a wall to another. On approaching them, Harshad validated that Dhruv was the biggest fool he had ever grown to hear about.

He had such an opinion of Dhruv since Alia's initial complaints. The virgin had bedded a pimp, and Rose had told Harshad all about that version while his own sister had been crying about her one-sided experiences with the stoic. In those instances, as he comforted Alia, he sometimes wondered how someone so average managed to pull his sister.

That was altogether a different mystery.

"What?" Alia ridiculed back, drawing Harshad's attention back to the heated argument between the couple.

"What kya? You tell me that there is nothing between you and Manik, yet look at you... gallivanting with your ex-boyfriend." Alia's jaw dropped. "I mean, look at your call history and tell me how many times I've tried reaching you. Lekin you were so busy trying to impress him, that..."

With Manik? Nyonika Malhotra's son, Manik? Harshad had not known much about the guy, except that he was the legal heir to SPACE Academy. He had neither met the man, nor seen him face to face. It was so strange, that someone potentially in proximity to the underworld had been completely untraceable. Perhaps, it was because of that... his ordinary presence... that the whole money laundering scene taking place at SPACE was under wraps. Untraceable to anyone else as well. How come his sister knew Manik then?

Her hands flew in the air, exasperated by Dhruv's accusations. "I can't believe this... after everything you've seen and known about Manik and I, you are saying this?" She was tired, but not because of Dhruv, nor because they were fighting. Only because time and again, life seemed to punish her for the same mistakes... and she still hadn't learned her lesson.

"How..." She bit her lip, took a deep enough breath to calm herself down, and continued in a composed manner. "How come every time I think... I think that I can give someone a chance, that maybe... I can finally find it in me to choose the right person who will choose me back, I'm left disappointed?" Shaking his head, Harshad noted that the two were too engrossed in their own drama to be distracted by his disappearance. He retreated into a dark crevice.

Dhruv sighed. "Right, you're disappointed." He semi-turned his back to her, alerting Harshad to take cover once again, and then he spun back. "And let me guess, I'm the only reason." As she remained mute, he jerked his head in agreement, proving himself right. "Right. Kyoonki main toh tumhe khush kar hi nahi sakta hoon na, only Manik can."

"What?" Was he even hearing himself out loud? "Isme bhi tum Manik ko beechme laa rahe ho?" She asked in disbelief. That definitely was not the same Dhruv she had known, or liked either.

"Beechme hi toh tha pehle se! He has never left your mind only!"

Alia palmed her temples, to keep her temper in check, and rolled her eyes jarred by his one-track mind that constantly pinpointed her past and was so hell-bent on what she could not control or change.

So Manik's name still triggered her. That triggered him. "Oh, come on Alia, it's so obvious!" He gasped. "Every positive feeling of yours is either related to him or related to your brother. And instead of giving it to me straight... ki you want Manik, you're making pathetic excuses about – what was that – staying away from me for your sanity, as if I ever meant anything to you."

Phirse wahi fights, phirse wahi drama... kitni baar same cheez repeat karenge hum, haan? Aren't you sick and tired of all this? She wanted to ask. Instead, her exhaustion reflected in a counteraction – passive-aggression. "Insecurity toh suna hai lekin this... this is beyond delusional!" How else could he not get the simplest thing, that she was into him?

"I'm... not insecure!" He snapped, shoving her shoulder backwards in a childish manner... as if butt-hurt by her comment.

Swatting his hand away, Alia cornered and pointed at him. "You fucking are! That's why... that's why you keeeeeep fixating on your ideas about me and Manik. Yes. You are just searching for reasons to be angry with me... finding and using pathetic excuses... like you rightfully mentioned... such as my past with Manik."

He briskly shook his head, finding her unexpected reaction a little too sudden to react appropriately to. There was absolutely no affection, or longing in her tone... which he used to feel from her. She had changed, completely. Cementing the idea that she did not value him at all, and that he was not her first choice, Dhruv's heart felt heavy.

"I'm not angry about that," he admitted against his will, caving into his fear of losing her forever.

"Then what?" Alia crossed her arms at her chest. "What is really the matter with you?"

A long moment was spent in Dhruv analysing and formulating a response, when it occurred to him what she had implied. That he was in the wrong; she had manipulated the situation to make him believe he was at fault.

He glowered as he spat, "Don't turn this on me! This whole thing started because of you... you and your stupid brother."

"Really? First, it was Manik you had a problem with, and now you are dragging Bhai. What's the connection?" They puffed at each other. "Now, don't tell me you're insecure about my sibling also!" She sharply retorted and sidestepped him, having had enough of confronting him. She really needed to retain her peace of mind, which constantly crumbling in thinking, assuming and reacting to him.

Before she could walk away, Dhruv's clasp wrapped around her wrist and he yanked her backwards, into his chest. Alia's body clashed into his front, and as she resisted his strength, he continued to hold her in place with courage.

He was not backing down. For the first time, he wasn't just leaving her after a mild protest on her part. She did not recognise that Dhruv. Alia's breaths staggered against his.

At the same time, both their gazes drifted to each other's lips and then each other's eyes... locking there.

Their heartbeats synchronised on each other's chests.

And it seemed like at that instant, both of them were completely surrendering to keeping everything aside – their egos, their anger, their angst – only to live in the moment.

"I just don't understand why everyone else is more important to you..." Alia's gaze softened at his words. "...than me." It came as a mere whisper, before he undid his grip on her, disturbed by the words that left his tongue. Words that were manipulated out of him.

She twisted in her spot, rotating the joint where her hand met her arm. His warmth was missed, and conscious of her own reactions to his actions, Alia panted and regained some composure while Dhruv questioned his judgment. Was what he felt for Alia perhaps... just perhaps... more than attraction? Was there any chance for him, for them?

"Am I – um... am I important to you?" Alia's tears naturally escaped her eyes at Dhruv's confession and subsequent avoidance. Quickly wiping it before he noticed, she came a step closer... willing to initiate the complicated conversation if, and only if, he would come clean. Once and for all. "Tell me then..."

Dhruv straightened in his spot, anxious about her next words as Harshad resurfaced, realising he had taken some unknown path and looped back to the front entrance where the two were still arguing. Only this time, they seemed to have parted from an embrace, or an intimate moment like a kiss.

"...that nothing happened between you and Rose."

Stubbing his tongue between his lips, Dhruv nervously scanned her, and eyed his shoes. "What... what do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean. That night, when you went to get more information from her... when you met her at her brothel, you stuck to our mission, you didn't touch her." You valued me, so you weren't tempted by someone else, she wanted to add.

Though her comment was a statement, it sounded more like a question, a doubt, because she was not sure. Trust... it was a slippery slope. Everything was on the line for her. And he was not saying a thing.

He was neither accepting nor denying her claim. She gulped the lump in her throat, more scared then than ever before. "I am saying it to your face that nothing is going on between Manik and I, why can't you?" To ward off his insecurities, she was going as far as coming clean.

Why wasn't he willing to put an end to her doubts?

Despite not intending to cry, she began wailing. Her heart could not take it if her doubt was in fact true, that he had fallen for Rose... and hence forgotten about her. Ditching her the second he found someone better. Merely thinking about it made the hammering in her chest louder.

"You are such a pig, Dhruv!" She cried.

Harshad who was watching from the distance, at his sister shouting, wanted to punch a fist through the bastard's face!

"Alia..." His fingers barely brushed her arm.

Twitching, and repulsed, she warned, "Don't touch me." An obvious bit of distance marked the two. "Don't you ever... touch me."

"You and I were never together, we weren't exclusive!" He blabbered. It was no excuse, and Dhruv realised that in hindsight but by then, it was too late to fix things. His guilt overcame him, but he could put all of that aside... anything to get their equation to how they used to be.

"That means you – you slept with her." The truth was a hard pill for her to swallow, because he... he fell for Rose's charm.

"Only because you slept with Manik. Before."

"For God's sake, Dhruv, I was dating him at that point! She is a sex worker, who works with our enemies. How can you even compare the two?" Harshad smirked from the distance at his sister's question, which was the result of Rose's enquiries.

"Clearly, one means more than the other!" Dhruv proclaimed, unable to understand why Alia was upset about it when Rose was just a temporary coping mechanism for him whereas Alia... Alia was emotionally involved with Manik, who was Dhruv's best friend.

"That's in the past!"

"Past ho ya present, at the end of the day, it's sex... an experience. How does it matter what the relationship is?"

That was true, Harshad thought.

"It matters because..." She could not believe she had to explain her point of view and her rationale so much to the guy she so deeply liked. It was exhausting her to express it over and over again in different forms, with no form of reciprocation in return.

I trusted you... but you chose her over me.

Her jaws wobbled, unable to say those words she was planning on stating when Dhruv's gaze shifted somewhere behind her and infuriated, he charged in that direction... towards a pillar. "Harshad!"

Two men chased each other into the corridor.

Alia remained frozen in her spot, unsure of what to make of the profound moment where everything was flipped on its head. Back to being pulled in two different directions – between her brother and him – she took off her heels. Dangling them at the end of a curled finger, she ran barefoot across the campus verandah behind the two, screaming "Dhruv!"

"Harshad!" Dhruv growled, and slipped out his phone to dial his companion Mukti's number, who had separated from him earlier in the night stating that she had some task she had to finish, and that she would meet him at SPACE Academy directly to locate the remaining files he and Mukti were previously in search of.

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