Great haste makes great waste (Part 2)

Gurukul, Chandragarh

Both the students were visibly stunned. Neither of them had expected the events to turn out like this.

Abhirath was almost 100% sure that he had heard Vindhya's partner colluding in the maze with others. Why would her partner work with others, if not for Vindhya! Unfortunately, he had no proof to back his claim.

"Next time, make sure that you have done your homework properly before making a claim," Prithvi's words were delivered mildly but Abhirath heard the sharp rebuke in them and offered a sincere apology before exiting the room.

Vaishali was feeling extremely guilty. It was because of her that Abhirath faced such embarrassment and reprimand. Once they stepped out of the Admin building, she spun around on her heels and addressed him.

"I am… I am really sorry. It was all my fault. I was hasty and ill-prepared, causing you to face the teacher's brunt for no fault of yours," she said with her eyes lowered.

Abhirath shrugged his shoulders and replied, "It is good that we got to know the truth. Maybe we had been totally wrong in our assumption or maybe the opponent was smarter than us. It doesn't matter now. I wish you all the best for the upcoming competition."

Vaishali looked on sadly as he walked away from her without any hesitation. She smiled wryly to herself. She knew that she had been using this excuse of finding the culprit all this while to be able to interact with Abhirath again and again. But now that was gone and so was he…

Abhirath reached the girls' hostel only to be informed by Ishani that Mriga had gone to meet the Northern zilla head with Chiranjeev and Ganga. He was taken aback by the fact that neither had she looked for him nor waited for him. Before he could ask Ishani about it, she gave him a dirty look and went back upstairs.

His eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. He had no clue about what was wrong suddenly.

Reaching his dorm, he ran into Vandit who also looked at him sullenly. But Abhirath had no idea why.

"Are you happy now?" Vandit nearly snarled at him.

At Abhirath's clueless look, he shook his head and started to go past him.

Pulling him back by his collar, Abhirath held him in place and growled, "You better tell me what's going on and without using any indirect speech."

Seeing his old version surface after so long, Vandit swallowed with difficulty but the next minute, he said plainly, "Apparently you have been spending a lot of time with that contestant who is as big and strong as you. Mriga and Ishani were looking for you earlier when they saw you going happily somewhere with that girl. Post that Mriga told Ishani that she didn't want to disturb you as you were extremely busy with others and this was not the first time that you had hung out with that girl.

Hence, she went to meet the zilla head with Chiranjeev. In this entire episode, Ishani somehow reached the conclusion that all guys are dogs and as a result, I was kicked out of her company for ABSOLUTELY no fault of mine. As a result, I am trying to figure out ways to make it up to her. Though I have no idea about how to prove to her that I am a different species from the rest of the dogs. Now, if you will excuse me... I am very busy."

Abhirath wasn't bothered about Vandit's love life or its problems. But he started to sweat badly realising that Mriga may have misunderstood the situation. He had been with her when she ran into Yash and Vindhya a couple of times few months ago. He gulped his spit nervously thinking that she would have inevitably compared the two situations.

Vandit, who despite claiming that he was busy, went on droning on about the unfairness of the situation. But Abhirath had stopped paying attention and now he ran back down. He needed to figure out a way to convince Mriga about his innocence but he wasn't dumb enough to try and do it through words. In fact, him going to her and explaining the situation may actually make him look guiltier. Then he would find himself in the same boat as Yash, no worse… that guy had been her boyfriend, at least. But Abhirath was still waiting to be accepted by her. If he was not able to prove his innocence conclusively, he might as well say farewell to his dream of being Mriga's man in this lifetime.

He knew that she believed in actions than words!

Eastern zilla

Ramanujam's efforts to catch the snake were rewarded finally when he heard the shrieks coming from the ground floor common area. It was a guy who was shouting like a female at the top of his lungs.

Sharada!

So much so that Ramanujam didn't even need his listening device to be able to hear the voice. But that meant that the snake hadn't bit him. What a pity!

"Find it and kill it this instant. Someone go and get me a Vaidya quickly. The little boy has been stung by the damn snake!" Sharada was screaming at the top of her voice.

"Little boy?" Ramanujam's brows came together in a frown.

He had no idea that a child was residing in this building. For a second, he felt guilty about his actions. He tried to think hard about what he had read about the Eastern zilla chief's background. To the best of his memory, he couldn't recall a child in the entire report. Considering that he had a near photographic memory, Ramanujam was fairly certain that he wasn't wrong. So then who did this child belong to, for Sharada to become so agitated?

"Don't tell me that he has not only decided to become a woman after being born a man, but is also into children," he muttered darkly to himself, imagining Sharada to be a paedophile.