"If they keep coming back to you, it isn't love. It is because you made yourself an easy option. The moment the thing they truly want becomes less difficult to obtain is when you will realize that your worth was on sale."

- Shannon L. Alder

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Dedicated to lovely sangy1989 who encourages me to do more, to do better with her curious nature and kind words... Thank you for supporting and for being the sweetest one! :)

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Standing in front of the apartment with the nameplate of 'Murthy's', Dhruv Vedant was hesitating to ring the doorbell when suddenly the door opened. The force behind the movement startled him, but he was more shocked when he looked up to find, out of all the people, Nyonika Malhotra standing in front of him. And as he kept looking at her with his eyes wide open, she walked past him, out of the house, in her usual arrogance, without even sparing him a glance.

"Nyonika Ma'am," he called her out while a few men - who looked like lawyers - walked past him.

"Dhruv, you might be just the person I was looking for," she acknowledged him as she turned around to look at him with a cunning smile.

"Sign these!" She ordered him as she indicated one of the lawyers to hand him the papers.

"What are these for?" He asked her as he looked at what seemed like a legal document.

"It's the petition that my lawyers are going to submit for Manik's death certificate!" She stated as if she felt nothing wrong in saying those words out loud.

"I-This. Won't the Court tell you to wait till his dead body is found?" He asked, unsure.

"Oh, please, Dhruv spare me. Don't act like that naive Murthy girl and your stupid friend, Cabir. It has been almost seven months. If it wasn't found till now that means we won't ever find it. If you will not sign the papers then buzz off - don't waste my time. And move on, do not drown in despair," she snapped before turning around to walk away.

"I have!" He screamed out, making her stop in mid-step.

"I have moved on," he said again when she looked at him as if she was making sure he had no doubts. He stood his ground as he kept looking at her in the eyes and did not take his claim back; making it clear that he meant what he said.

"Then you won't have any problem in signing these papers, would you?" She asked him challengingly and smirked when he nodded.

But as he took the paper in his hands, he suddenly felt that what he was about to do meant more than what she was letting on. With a sigh, he looked up at her.

"You can't, right?" She taunted mockingly.

"You are pathetic, Dhruv. You claim something that isn't true. Just a waste of time as you have always been," she looked at him as she was disgusted.

After giving the lawyer on her left side a pointed look, she stormed out towards the gate with her usual grace and elegance.

Just when he was about to walk into Nandini's home, someone called him out.

"Mr Dhruv!" It was the lawyer Nyonika had last looked at.

"Here is my card, if you change your mind, you can contact me here," The man in black told him as he passed him his card.

"Thanks," Dhruv muttered as he took the card.

The lawyer nodded at him before moving forward, leaving him behind. Shaking his head, he walked in, just to find everyone missing.

'Strange,' he thought. He was sure an unofficial funeral-like ceremony was going to happen when he got to know that Mr Malhotra had finally let the police close the case and stop searching for Manik's dead body, but as he looked around him, he realized he was late.

He started to climb the stairs as soon he heard some voices coming from the floor above, most probably from Nandini's room. He suddenly stopped in front of the door of her room, as he always did whenever he came to meet Nandini. No matter how much he stopped himself, whenever he looked at the hard floor in front of her room's door, he was reminded of the night when he had found Manik sitting there, with his head resting on the door, his eyes closed but still restless, worried about the girl whom he believed he loved - the same girl Dhruv then had held responsible for every bad thing that had happened between him and Manik.

But he was wrong, wasn't he? Everything that happened was not Nandini's fault, but Manik's. He was the one who had always made things worse for all of them, and between all of them. Dhruv now realized that he and Nandini, just like the others, were the victim of the great Manik Malhotra's charm - unable to look past his pretense of being selfless, while in reality, he was one of the most selfish in the whole world.

Everything had been about Manik ever since the beginning; he made sure of it, even now, as he lay somewhere dead, everything was still about him. And though it felt inhuman to talk bad about a dead one, he couldn't help it. Manik Malhotra's selfishness and Nandini's stubbornness to let him go has made sure that he was the only one who was talked about - and he hated it. What made him angrier was that the stupid ones like Nandini and Cabir couldn't just look past the supposed greatness of Manik. Ridiculous...

The more he thought about it, the more he felt angry and bitter. How could the dead Manik affect the rest of the living ex-member of Fab 5, Nandini and some of their college mates so much that they were gathered together, after seven months of his death, in some kind of unsaid mourning ceremony?

How could Nandini still be affected by the death of Manik that she could be as good as dead herself? The more he heard the suffering she was enduring, the more she was trying to deny the truth, the more he felt his hatred for Manik grow within him. Hatred for him and for their supposed love that has brought nothing but destruction for everyone around them, especially to the girl Manik supposedly had been in love with. What kind of love was that?

The more he thought about it, the more he was sure that loving Manik and being loved by him was a curse - just like being his friend was a curse. Anyone who had been close to him had suffered and was suffering even now.

Nothing had changed apart from the victims. Before it was him and Alya, now Nandini and Cabir...

As he stood outside the half-open door of the room, he could now hear their voices clearer than before.

"Nandini, what is so wrong with what she said?" He heard Alya asked Nandini as he was about to step inside the room.

"What do you mean what's wrong, Alya? No matter how much time has passed, Nyonika is pure evil and we shouldn't want to have anything do with her," Mukti answered, standing before Alya to stop her from reaching Nandini as Cabir shielded the girl who was being questioned by standing in the way.

Mukti would be present, he was sure of it, but after being away for six months from Cabir and Nandini, Dhruv was surprised as were others that she was siding with them.

Standing near the door, Dhruv observed others who were busy talking all at once. It was a sight which represented how much Manik Malhotra has divided the living ones even in his death. Mukti and Navya were now standing in front of Alya, busy in an intense argument while Cabir was standing near the window, with his hands folded on his chest, shielding Nandini who leaning on the wall near the window, lost in gazing outside, uncaring and unaware of everyone else.

She looked thin, he noticed, weaker than the last time he had seen her. The bright glow she always used to glow with, had left her, giving its place to gloominess and dark circles under her eyes. Shaking his head, Dhruv felt bitterness and resentfulness taking over him once again, angry at the ignorance of the girl who still was blindly in love with the selfish and most self-centered person he had ever met.

"Nandini, guys, really, there is no hope left, we should move on. What is the point in waiting, when he isn't coming back?" Alya reasoned.

"Shut up, Alya. If you can't support her then let her be, at least for once. I should have known calling you all here was a mistake. Thank God your boyfriend didn't come," Cabir growled as he glared at her.

"I am here, Cabir," Dhruv said as he stepped in front of them, making his presence known.

"Speak of the Devil and It shall appear. Great, exactly what we needed," Cabir muttered to himself, but loud enough to be heard by the others.

"Nandini!" Dhruv called out, stopping right in front of her, as Cabir and Navya still stood between them. As he observed them, matching their stance, they looked like Nandini's bodyguards. As if she needed any protection from him.

"What are you doing here?" He heard her ask.

Her voice was formal, with no evidence of the friendly warmth it always had in the past before Manik happened to them. Hell, now she didn't even look at him while talking. As that thought passed his mind, he felt exasperated and resentful once again.

He still remembered when the remaining warmth is her voice disappeared; of course, Manik was still the reason why it happened. The night Manik had disappeared had changed many things, the formality in her voice and coldness in her attitude towards him being just one of them.

When, seven months ago, Cabir and Nandini came back from Pune - a week after the disappearance of Manik - to let them know he still was nowhere to be found; everyone, apart from him, had acted as if they were shattered by the news. While they all mourned him in their own way, still trying to find him, Dhruv hadn't been able to continue the act anymore, he had already accepted that Manik was lost - dead and gone.

One Manik-free week had been enough for him to realize that he didn't need him, that he didn't need nor want Manik Malhotra in his life. He didn't want him anywhere around him and Alya, and that realization had done wonders for him.

Then and there he had decided that even if Manik would be found, he wouldn't be any more part of his life, their lives. Naturally, this acknowledgment had been kept from others back then, but gradually he hadn't been any longer able to keep it hidden. With Manik gone, he had more chances to shine and had more attention to himself and that way he had found a better band, his own band. All of that made it well-known that he was very much glad for not having Manik around him anymore.

"Alya told me about how the case is closed now," he said her, awkward by the indifferent demeanor of hers.

"I am actually here to give you my condolences, Nandini. No matter how selfish he was, Manik was loved by you, and I know you feel as if it was your loss. That's why I am here to tell you how sorry I am for your loss," he told her as sincerely as he could.

"As much as you would like it to be, Dhruv, Manik is not dead. And you are not welcomed here," Nandini told him in a dead voice before turning back to gaze out of the window, dismissing him completely.

"You heard her, now get out!" Cabir growled near his ear, nearly shoving him away as he came back to take his place as the wall standing between him and Nandini.

Angry at the way he was being treated, Dhruv let the rage and bitterness overpower him and uttered out the first irrational thought crossed his mind.

"Are you sure you are gay, Cabir? Did you tell her that you would like to be more than a shoulder to cry on?" He whispered with a mocking smile on his face.

Hearing that Cabir raised his already clenched fist and punched him hard, giving him a bleeding nose and a split lip.

Thrown off by the shock and force of the punch, Dhruv could only glare at him in disbelief as he put a hand on his nose to try to stop the bleeding.

He had always hated it, the ease with which Cabir and Manik could punch the next person. The aggression and the grace, after Manik, Cabir excelled in it, and he had always envied it when both of them had mocked fight as they laughed, showing off their skills to each other and others.

Never did he think that a day could have come when he would be the target of their bullying habits.

"Oh, I am mistaken, am I not? You don't want Nandini, you want to be Nandini. Clearly, she can mourn the loss of her love, while you have to pretend that he didn't mean to you more than a mere friend," he mockingly said as he wiped his nose with the tissues passed by Alya.

Unmoved by the glare Cabir and Nandini were subjecting him with, he stood there looking back at them as he was sure of the fact he was safe as Mukti and Navya both were trying to hold Cabir back.

"I can't believe that you can stoop this low, Dhruv," Mukti mumbled incredulously as she looked at him shocked.

"You know what, Dhruv? You are right, Manik means more than a mere friend to me, he has been my brother and has protected me despite being the younger one. But you won't be able to understand that, you are so unlucky that you don't even realize what you have lost," Cabir snapped at him as he shook his head at him as if he was disappointed - or was it disgust?

"Alya, drag him away if you don't want me to throw him out myself," Nandini warned Alya as she continued to glare at him.

Dhruv felt rage hit him, why were Nandini and Cabir were so blinded by the supposed greatness of Manik Malhotra that even though it was him, Dhruv Vedant, telling them facts, they didn't believe in it? He - who knew Manik better than any of them. It was him the one who had had spent the most time with Manik, how could they deny the truth he has been telling them for months?

"Come on, Dhruv, let's get out of here. Clearly, we aren't needed here," Alya coaxed him as glared at the rest.

As they walked out of Murthy's, a plan formulated in his brain while Alya kept muttering about the idiocy of the people they were leaving behind. Looking at the card in his hand, he smirked, and why won't he? He was, after all, going to prove Nyonika Malhotra wrong by signing those papers. How many could claim that?

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A/N:- Here, Cabir delivered the punch we all wanted to for Dhrub Sir... But there is more to come in the next chapter... ;)

I hope you liked the chapter... Please leave a comment or two to let me know if you are liking the story so far and to let me know how much you enjoyed the punch... ;D

Thank you for reading, liking and for voting... :)

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