Institute Road, Mumbai University, November 2028 (Present)

"Why are you calling her again?" Mahati heard Rakesh say in the background as she accepted Rutu's call shortly after lunch.

"Aditi's train is running a few hours late, Mahati," said Rutu.

"Yes, she called me," said Mahati, kicking a pebble in front of her and taking care to avoid the blazing mid afternoon sun. "It's due to arrive past midnight."

"What will you do till then?" asked Rutu, voice taking on a familiar anxious note.

"Give out the other invitations, I guess. There's no point waiting till tomorrow morning." Thinking of walking from department to department knocking on the rooms of the remaining professors (she had already spoken to all her close teachers in the first half) made her wish she was back there in Pune. The beginnings of a bursting headache did not help her mood.

"Have you got hold of a cycle?"

"Didn't try." Mahati glared up at the sun which was no doubt the reason for her headache.

"Listen," said Rutu.

"Listening..."

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing. I told you a million times, Ruturaj, nothing." Then she realized she had used his full name, which obviously meant something was wrong with her.

"You really don't sound normal. Please tell me what's wrong?"

"These invitation cards," Mahati found herself saying-no, shouting.

Rutu sounded shocked as he said, "What did the cards do to you?"

They just keep on telling me the man I love is going to wake up to the face of someone who is not me for the rest of his life.

"I-I don't like the de-design," said Mahati, feeling furious at how she had lost all control over her tear glands; her voice would not stabilize.

"Um, okay," said Rutu. "Wait a second." He spoke to Rakesh in a low voice that Mahati couldn't hear, so she sat down on the kerb instead and tried to stop crying and make her breathing more even. 

The worst part? Crying always made her headaches worse.

She needed to stop being inconsiderate. Like right now. Rutu already worried ten times that of an average person, and her being unresponsive, tearful, stupid, illogical...anything but the opposite of normal, that is...was simply making things worse. When he was already so caught up in the wedding preparations, she seriously had no business making him worry.

Because he would worry.

"Mac, the helicopter's free-" said Rutu.

"Her nickname isn't Mac, it's MC!" yelled Rakesh.

"Rakesh, shut up," said Rutu angrily. "Will you let me speak?"

"Sure go ahead, smother her with your extremely overloaded concern, Gaikwad, and soon she'll be telling you to shut up..."

A door banged as Rutu expectedly left the room to get peace and quiet.

Any other day Mahati would have found it funny; today it made her cry harder. Silently, though. She should be proud of how forcefully she could cry without making any noise, honestly.

Shut up, she told herself in her mind.  And speak normally.

"Hello, Mahati?"

"Yeah," said Mahati, in a whisper, which hid mostly the tears in her voice well.

"The helicopter here is free. I thought Rakesh and I could go over to Mumbai to keep you company, but there's no way I'm taking Rakesh now, he's in such an annoying mood," said Rutu in perfect seriousness.

Mahati exhaled in a mix of laughing and crying and dared not inhale again, because her nose was blocked right upto her head.

"So I'm leaving right now...I'll reach in an hour and a half," said Rutu.

"Oh god, no," said Mahati. "There's no need to-are you mad, Rutu-"

"Mahati," said Rutu. "You're crying."

"So what if I am cryi-" She stopped speaking and buried her head in her arms.

Why was she being so STUPID??

"You don't n-need to come," she said slowly, but it was no good, she was crying too hard to stop now, or hide. "D-don't come, I-I just-everything's okay-just g-g-give me a minute..."

And why would her head not stop bursting?

Ruturaj dutifully kept quiet for a minute. If Mahati had hoped she would manage to get a grip on herself in that much time, she was disappointed.

Hysterical and out of control. That's how she felt.

When Rutu spoke again, his voice was calm and measured. "Are uncle and aunty all right?"

"Yes, of-of course," she sobbed.

"Did they fire you from the company?"

"No, why would they?"

"Just eliminating all the options," said Rutu.

Oh god, thought Mahati. She should have thought of an excuse-where would his investigation end?

"Don't you feel well? Headache?"

"Yes," cried Mahati, gladly clinging on to the only truthful misery she could tell him about. "A horrific one!"

Rutu's voice changed back from investigator to concerned and anxious.

"We should have seen this coming, the travel and all this walking in the sun..."

There was ordinary caring and there was Ruturaj Gaikwad-level caring. The latter, frankly, was cruel at times like this.

"See if you can find some shade to sit under, I'll be there soon," he said.

"What? No!" said Mahati, whose tears, surprisingly had stopped for the time being. "It's just a headache, I'll handle it. Don't be drastic."

"I'm already inside the helicopter," said Rutu, the warm, sweet laugh of his resonating through his voice, as usual with him not actually laughing.

"Get off it," said Mahati, half-laughing, half-crying.

"Nice try, Mac."

The nickname 'Mac' was something only he ever used, maybe because Rakesh's slangy one was a much more popular one to use. And even then, Rutu only used it when something was out of the ordinary. 

It felt like a precious secret to her. It didn't to him, she knew, but to her it would always be precious.

Rutu had to switch off his phone for the helicopter ride (it belonged to his friend, not him). Mahati's head was pounding too bad for her to gather up the energy to go look for a place to wait.

So she stayed on the kerb, knees drawn into herself, closed her eyes and chose to relive a time when her life had been simple. And happy.

.......................

Salim Dhaba, Mumbai, December 2019 (Past Flashback 4)

It had become a bit of a custom over the past two months, Mahati, Aditi and Rakesh meeting Ruturaj after practice in the cheap inn near campus to chug enormous cups of tea. Rakesh had turned them into tea addicts in less than a week.

"I noticed something funny," said Rakesh.

Rakesh's 'funny' observations were usually ones which could be called unkind if it wasn't him. He never meant them, though, so the other three did not consider him unkind.

"We never call Rutu by his full name," he said.

"No one ever did, unless I was in trouble," said Rutu, who had been giving away half his tea to Aditi, who had a particular craving that day.

"That sounds right," said Mahati. "I feel like calling him Ruturaj only when I'm annoyed with him."

"When is anyone annoyed with him?" asked Rakesh with exaggerated shock.

Aditi and Mahati laughed, because that, at least, was true. Mahati felt sure he was the most good hearted and the sweetest person to ever exist, and it was almost impossible to be angry at him, even if he had kept them waiting two hours because his coach had called him in for a last minute meeting.

"That's why he's always called Rutu," pointed out Mahati.

Rakesh approved.

"Aditi's nickname is horribly boring," he said. "Adi. Could it be any more obvious?"

"I thought it was a nice name," said Rutu.

"I didn't give myself my name, Raku," said Aditi, coming up with 'Raku' on the spot, which, as Rakesh pointed out, "couldn't be any more cringy a name."

"Too bad," said Mahati. "You deserve a name like that."

"You're the only one left," said Rakesh, the evil look creeping into his eyes. "And you wouldn't accept 'Mahi'."

"Of course not!" said Mahati. "That's Mahi bhai's name!"

"MC," said Rakesh. "How about MC? It's your initials, and it sounds cool."

"Cool?" said Rutu. "How is an offensive slang cool for her nickname?"

"It sounds funny. Internal joke sort. Doesn't it, Aditi?"

"They're probably just going to think you're abusing her," said Aditi. "But go ahead, I like it."

Rakesh roared with laughter as he high fived Aditi. Mahati and Rutu exchanged a look.

"Mahati Chaturvedi," said Rutu, and repeated it faster. "Mahati Chaturvedi. M-A-C. MAC."

"How old are you, eight?" asked Rakesh.

But Mahati spoke over him. "Yes, Mac. Not MC." She cast her own evil eye upon Rakesh, who just grinned.

Within the next three days, the whole batch of first years knew their topper as 'MC'. Even Aditi used it at times.

But with Rutu, it was always Mac.

A/N: Pleeease leave a few comments for me *puppy eyes*