The strength of a person depends on his support system, which basically includes his family and friends.

If that was true, then I'm afraid Aditya was pretty weak.

Our heart to heart was cut short by the shrill sound of the final bell. Twenty minutes had flown by as if they were two. Once we had finished dusting our clothes, we sneaked out of the out of order toilet, in a manner that would make James Bond jealous.

As we were about to part ways at the end of the corridor, I stopped him.

"Come to the canteen after you've fetched your bag."

Aditya looked confused but nodded nevertheless.

My class was empty when I stepped inside, except for a tall figure in the leftmost corner of the room, neatly sliding textbooks in a bag.

My bag.

"Hey..."

Kian snapped his head, eyes twinkling as they landed on me.

"Hey! Sorry I'm not snooping around I swear! I just...noticed you didn't come back with all other psychology students...so I packed your bag...figuring you'd be caught up in something," he said, grinning.

Why can't I date him again?

"Thank you, that..." I cleared my throat, "that's really so considerate..."

His smile dropped as he stepped forward, "Ashiana are you...crying?"

It seemed like I was actually. The stress of the past two weeks along with constant worry and headache about people had made me a bit emotional.

Hence, upon feeling the irritatingly cool sensations in my eyes, I quickly squeezed them shut, willing to push back the tears of frustation. I would've died of embarassment if I'd've broken down in front of him.

I felt warm hands gripping my shoulders and snapped my, now thankfully dry, eyes open. Only to find him much closer than before.

"Why are you crying Ash?"

Forcing out an incredulous chuckle, I said, in what I hoped was a casual tone, "I'm not crying...just...have a cold...and there's a lot of dust in the air y'know?"

Kian's expression told me that he didn't buy my lame excuse, but maybe he heard the determination in my otherwise weak voice, for he moved back, hands leaving my upper arms. I despised the way they turned cold instantly.

"Okay...if you say so." He furrowed his brows, "anyway, let's go or we'll be late."

I stiffened.

Last bell. Aditya. Canteen.

"Shit!"

"Now what?" he asked, perplexed.

"Listen Kian," I began, "this is the last time I'm asking you to do this. But would you please...please tell our bus-incharge to mark me present? I really need to be somewhere..."

He sighed, "alright Ash...but don't make this a habit okay? 'Cause I'm shit-scared of Nisha ma'am..."

"Yeah, this is the last time, promise!" I said gratefully, swinging my bad across my shoulders, "see you in the bus!"

"Yeah..." his voice trailed away as I quickly rushed out of the class, looking like an ungraceful sloth as I ran in the direction of the school canteen.

Seeing Aditya leaning against a pillar, beside the thirty year old, dilapidated looking canteen wing, I waved. He straightened up as he saw me.

"So," I began, approaching him, "which ice-cream should we buy?"

He blinked, "what?"

"Today's Thursday remember? Ice-cream day? I couldn't find you in the break so I figured you were skipping school...clearly that's not the case."

Still looking dumbfounded, he mumbled, "you called me here for ice-cream?"

"Well duh! You can't break tradition."

"But I don't have any money..."

"Don't worry, I'll pay."

"What?" he said, in an overly surprised voice, successfully offending me.

"Hey, I can pay sometimes!" I replied, somewhat defensively.

"Sure...the last time that happened, we were in 2014..."

Huffing slightly, I walked towards the canteen, absently elbowing hoards of hungry school kids out of the way. Shouting my order of an extra large chocolate cone, I saw Adi settling down on our usual spot on staircase number seven's second step.

"There you go," I said, two minutes later, sitting next to him and holding the cone between us. "He was out of chocolate so this is choco-vanilla."

Without a word, he dug his plastic spoon in the freezing lump of sweetness and I did the same. Our silence lasted for about thirty seconds before, glancing at my watch and noting I only had about ten minutes, I decided to break it.

"When did you first start smoking? Has it been long?" my voice was carefully modulated, sounding creepily casual, in an attempt to hide my disapproval and concern.

He glanced at me from the corner of his eyes before exhaling loudly, "three months I guess..."

I sucked in a breath, that was longer than I expected...

"Are you..addicted?" I tentatively questioned, not wanting to anger him. My half of the ice-cream was totally forgotton.

He didn't ignore his dessert though, and continued to hungrily devour it, pointedly ignoring me.

"Adi..." I whined.

"No, I don't think so," he said after a while, "I'm not addicted."

"So you'll try to stop right?"

His lips curved into a wry smile, "yeah, of course."

He scooped the last contents of the cone and swallowed them quickly before crushing the thermacol cone in a ball and throwing it in the dustbin, five feet away from us. I used that time to carefully phrase another question, but still ended up blabbing the first thing which came into my mind, "Have you told Karan?"

"No," he mumbled, picking up his bag. "I really should go now. Thanks for the ice-cream."

Feeling like the most insensitive prick on Earth I dragged my feet to my bus pillar. I frowned as I saw about forty students there, spotting Kian chatting with Radhika and Aryan.

Seeing Radhika suddenly reminded me of something.

Speed-walking towards the trio, I grabbed Rads' wrist and pulled her away from Kian, sending both him and Aryan an apologetic smile over my shoulder as I dragged her to a corner.

"Aww...were you jealous Ashiana? Don't worry, I wasn't flirting with your guy, just small talk," she teased once we came to a halt.

"Jealous? How stupid do you think I am? I asked her, deadpanned. "This is about you, not him."

Her nose scrunched in confusion, "what about me?"

"You didn't text me yesterday, you said you would," she continued looking lost, "so would you tell me now?"

"Tell you what?"

I almost gritted my teeth in annoyance, sensing she was acting clueless on purpose, "tell me why you were crying the other day."

Her smile dropped and a new kind of an expression took over her face. It was all dejected, embarassed and nervous.

"I told you it was nothing Ash...you really don't need to..."

"Radhika trust me, I would try my best to help you."

"Yeah...and I don't doubt that...it's just...it doesn't even matter...oh look! My bus is here, I've got to go."

As she walked away in a hurry, I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Do all my friends have secrets?

{[]}

The end of the first week of September marked the beginning of the first term exams. When usually in all of my student life, this was the time around which I used to get the usual nervous butterflies in my stomach, I couldn't help but feel, for the lack of a better word, chill. I was pretty relaxed this year, almost bordering on bored infact.

Why? One might ask.

I guess it could be because they were the most useless exams in the history of academic examination.

Their marks didn't matter, their results wouldn't affect the final grade in any way. Heck, it wasn't even compulsory to write those exams.

So naturally, I had close to zero motivation to study for the said exams. The pressure to do well was absent, instead, the only reason I sat hunched over my table everday was, well, the final board exams. These were the most important exams in the history of academic examination, and it had pretty much the same syllabus.

As a result, I was actually enjoying the theories of chemistry, biology and even physics. A relaxed mind really could do wonders.

Shocking right?

I was also determined to text Adi everyday, which, surprisingly enough, annoyed him to no end. But atleast it was better than his painful silence. Although maybe my nagging messages, on top of daily thirty minute phone conversations with Karan, was a bit too much for him. Yesterday's exchange somewhat confirmed that.

'How're you?' I had sent.

'Fine.'

'Are you prepared for chem?'

'Almost. One chapter left.'

'Did you do anything stupid?'

'Elaborate.'

'Smoke?'

'No!'

'Okay...so what's up?'

'Just getting harrassed by my friends...you?'

'I didn't mean to...what do you mean harassed?'

'Nothing, I gotta go. BYE.'

He went offline immediately after that. I was aware that my method of trying to help him, which basically had me interrogating him everyday, was far from ideal.

Yet, I couldn't figure out any other way.

{[]}

Humans are vain creatures. Vain and impractical and greedy.

Especially if certain ridiculous things called 'dreams' are involved.

We want the best career, best apartment, best family, best significant other.

But most of all, we crave for a strange thing called 'adventure'.

This unnecessary need of 'living life to the fullest' might be the outcome of the wave of movies from the 'coming of age' genre. The idea of our boring life being paused for a few weeks or so, only to be resumed after we've had our share of fun, seems too darn attractive.

On the day of the last exam, I was ambushed by Kian, Vivaan, Radhika, Aditya and Aryan. Basically the hexagonal human hurricane of my life.

It was overwhelming to say the least.

"What?" I said, wide eyed and confused, sitting dead still on my seat. It was as if they wanted to tell me a national secret, or worse, break in a solemn news.

Was there a blood stain on my skirt?

I was about to stand and twist my neck to check when Rads stopped me with a high pitched squeal. "Ash we're actually...we might possibly go..."

"Go where?" I blinked.

"Gujrat," she replied breathlessly. "You know, for sight seeing, and fun...after the boards and all enterance exams are over..."

"We'll probably go in June next year," Vivaan interrupted her. "As part of our resolution, remember Ash?"

"Wait, you guys were not serious were you?"

"No," he admitted, "but a sudden change of events happened to make this possible. Right Karan?"

"Right," Karan nodded. "My uncle recently bought a hotel in Surat. That, and his travel agency business would make our trip really affordable," he elaborated, in response to my questioning look.

"But my parents would say 'no'."

"Welcome to the club Ashiana, every parent would say 'no'," Kian muttered, sliding into the seat beside me. "That's where your work begins. Convince them. Beg, grovel, bribe, blackmail, you know," he said, shrugging, "the usual."

"So since none of you have permission, I don't think we should..."

A simultaneous outbreak of groans cut me off. They all started talking at the same time, throwing in common terms like 'party pooper', 'boring' and 'spoils sport' at me.

When the hurl of PG abuses had stopped, Aryan said, "you just need to convince your mom and dad Ashiana. We have to convince you as well!"

"Believe me dude, I so wanna go on this trip, but it seems too...impractical and..."

"...unrealistic, I know," Kian cut me off, again, while smoothly ignoring my glare, "but as long as you're against the very idea of this trip, we won't ever be able to make it practical." His words were delivered in a lazy drawl, an easy grin decreasing the effect of his sarcasm.

'He has a nice smile,' my inner voice chirped.

"So what do you say?" Aryan asked impatiently, successfully breaking my Kian-filled daze. "Do we have your permission or not?"

"I don't know guys..." Before they all could start protesting loudly, I turned towards Aditya, who had remained quiet throughout the entire exchange, wordlessely observing our banter. His brows jumped in question and disappeared beneath the strands of his messy mop of hair when my eyes trained on him. "What do you think Adi?"

"I think it's quite a stupid idea," he sighed, uncrossing his arms and leaning back on his chair. "But there's no harm in trying. Plus, it was my suggestion in the first place, and the fact that, thanks to Karan, our travel and stay would be heavily discounted doesn't hurt either," he finished, smiling slightly.

I looked around to find everyone staring at me expectantly. Radhika was biting the inside of her cheek and shifting from one foot to another, clearly too excited to sit down. Beside her, Vivaan was leaning against an unoccupied desk, looking bored and annoyed (as well as annoying) like usual. Karan had rested his chin on his interwoven fingers, elbows resting on my table as his eyes fixed on me. While Aryan was even more jumpy and fidgety than Rads.

"Come on Ash!" Kian whispered in my ear, hot breath fanning its shell, almost making me shiver, "don't be the murderer of fun."

"Alright I guess..." I replied meekly, returning his probing gaze and trying to ignore the heat creeping on my neck at the same time. I watched, transfixed, as his hesitant grin turned into a broad beam, my face muscles automatically adjusting to copy that expression. All the while my friends cheered loudly, happily, forcing me to join them.

But during that entire time, one persistant, scary as fuck thought punched the inner walls of my cerebrum.

Oh Gods I need to convince my parents...

{[]}

Hello fellow magical muggles!!

This was a very, very very very very late upload but...OK Idk...i don't have any excuse for this...but...well...I sorta had a really busy month. Ik, not an excuse but still...

Anyway, if you like this chapter then please,

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PS: next update on friday, 3/11/2017

PPS: if not friday then sunday, 5/11/2017