Kendriya Vidyalaya Golganj, Delhi

It was never meant to be. But still we were here for the award distribution ceremony. After the final rehearsal performed in front of the officials. All of us were exhausted as we proceeded through dinner and collected our files from the stack kept on the nearby table.

I clutched the file harder in my hands as they instructed us to walk in queue. I was looking around at others, as the other students were sitting in groups as they were just eight and we were fifty five. Everyone had a proud expression on their faces, winning the nationals is something we could not even think of coming this far. Exactly one year back, we were just there to participate, singing the songs, looking out the bus's window, waiting to reach Jabalpur. Won by chance as they said, and climbed it this far. We walked towards garden, away from the canteen area.

All the teachers loosened up a bit as they allowed us to enter the tennis court. Most of them walked towards the Iron Gate as I sighed looking at them walking away. One of the things you should never do on a school trip is arguing with the only person who was socializing with you. I sat down on a nearby chair, opening the file to the back pages with shaky figures and sketches. I took the pen and started adding the details on the figure.

The time gone by as I heard other's laughter from the tennis court. The white paper was overlapped by shadow as someone came in the path of light illuminating the page. I looked up at boy in front of me, as he raised his hand and adjusted his glasses. I glanced back at the other two people standing beside him. The other guy smiled at me and the girl grinned. I looked back at the boy in front of me as his eyes were glued to his shoes. His hands were knitted in front of him, playing with the hem of his blue t-shirt with the words imprinted 'Do it Dammit'.

After a long while, he raised his eyes looking directly at mine as he hesitated to form words. "Hey" He said in a low voice. "You made these?" He asked, his fingers were fidgeting with the hem of his t-shirt, I nodded at his question.

"These are,," He paused for a bit as I looked at his eyes dancing on the paper and back to my face again, "Awesome."

I smiled slowly and thanked him. He stood still on his place, the boy behind him laughed a bit and took a few steps back, the girl joined him and they walked a few feet away from us.

"I am Neil Rajput, from Amritsar region." The boy in front of me said, I smiled at him and told him my name. We exchanged a few formal wordings as he said "Can I get your snap ID by any chance?"

The other two walked back eavesdropping, waiting for me to say something. I nodded gently and the guy, Neil turned his head towards the other two,

"I don't have my phone on me right now." He said making a small pout.

"Any paper?" I asked, he slowly shook his head as a no. I looked at the paper in front of me, but these are the last two papers left for me to sketch and I can't tear them.

"Your hand." I said. "What?" He replied, confused.

"Show me your hand." I said, I looked for a pen in my kit. He gave me his hand, and I wrote my Snapchat ID on it. When I was done, I looked up at his face, as he smiled, his smile reached his eyes, and little depth appeared on his left cheek. He smiled and looked back at his companions. He turned back to face me, "Thank you, It was nice meeting you." He said. I smiled back and stood up. Keeping my file on the stack of other files, I started walking towards the tennis court, as he called back. I turned and looked at him, "Are you gonna perform tomorrow?" He asked. "Yes" I said and he smiled, His dimple reappeared.

My feet were frozen at the instance as he turned back and walked towards the school building. I gulped the invisible knot in my throat and walked to my team mates, as they played around with each other. We spend some time and went back to our rooms.

I walked beside Tejaswini, "What were you doing out there?" She asked as we walked back from the restroom. I wiped my face with the towel. "Sketching."

"Let's fetch our phones from room and stand here in the lobby it's much better here." I said and we walked towards our room. I looked at Afreen who was still a bit under weather. I walked out with my phone and we stood in the lobby for some time. We called our parents and talked with them for a while.

I leaned on the railing and scrolled through the messages. One message popped up as I opened the messages app.

'Dear costumer, @Neil__ added you as a friend on Snapchat. Check out now.'

"Oi." I called to Tejaswini who was standing near washroom talking to someone. She walked to me and I showed her the message. After narrating the whole incident to her she stared out at the distinct city lights for a while.

Afreen walked to us and stood beside Tejaswini. She started making conversations normally and I understood that she was finally out of her tantrum. I repeated the same words for her as both of them proceeded through the information.

We didn't talked about it afterwards. Tejaswini went to sleep and both me and Afreen laid down beside each other sharing words and whispers as everyone slept through the exhaustions.

Other then the physical wordings, what I was ignoring was the whispers of my mind.