《Short Recap》

My face lit up with an enormous grin and I asked, "I'm a supernova?!"

"Ugh, fucking kill me already," he groaned, burying his face in his hands, "If you're going to tease me just get done with it."

Laughing, I leaned in to kiss his cheek.

"No, I absolutely love it and I'll probably frame it for my great grandchildren to see." I said.

"Ugh..."

●○●

I entered the stuffy auditorium of our college feeling antsy as I searched the large expanse of the room for Neel and Harsh.

I cast a fleeting glance at my watch, before whipping out my phone and texting them that I'd already reached.

Professor Murthy had decided that all the app design teams should have the opportunity to present their innovation to the entire batch. The event was apparently organized to help us hone our soft skills and basic entrepreneurship.

To say that I was gripped in a last minute bout of stage fear was an understatement. Public speaking had never ever been my forte and my stomach was swarming with a million butterflies, caterpillars, and their dormant cocoons.

I drew in a shaky breath as I sat down and wringed my fingers in my lap, mentally going over my rehearsed lines. With every passing second, it felt like I was forgetting another sentence of my explanatory speech. Harsh, Neel and I had spent too much time and effort on DantelSoft to have the entire thing to blow up in our faces because I couldn't deliver a few lines coherently.

Get a grip of yourself Akira!

I was so immersed in worrying about presentation that I didn't notice Vinay sneaking up behind me from the upper row. I jumped in my seat as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into as back hug before placing his face in the crook of my neck and muttered a raspy good morning.

"Morning." I replied with a quiet huff, "Why on earth are you so cheerful today? It's annoying."

Vinay jumped over the seat into my row and plopped himself down next to me.

"Let me guess," he said, "You're worried about your presentation."

I looked at away and remained silent.

"Ok, that bad?" he asked.

Before I could say anything, Neel sauntered up to us confidently.

"Hey guys." He greeted us zealously before asking me, "You have the backup of the presentation right?"

I nodded with a weak smile plastered on my face.

Neel gazed at me for a couple of seconds before asking with a knowing look, "Again?"

I sucked in my lower lip and nodded slowly. Vinay interlaced his large warm fingers with mine and squeezed my hand gently.

"Come on Akira," Neel urged me in an encouraging tone, "Remember how this was your brilliant idea?"

"Yeah." I mumbled incoherently.

"Now all you have to do is go up on that creaky wooden stage down there and explain the concept of the app to a bunch of lazy dimwits who don't give half a shit about having original ideas." Neel said, placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder as he shared a meaningful glance with Vinay, "We still have about forty five minutes before the presentations actually begin. Murthy's going to deliver his opening speech talking about the unsaid promises and bountiful returns of entrepreneurship."

I raised my eyebrows.

"They're Lara's words," he shrugged, "Not mine."

I giggled, momentarily forgetting why I'd been so worked up.

"Honestly, Lara's such a wildcard personality," I said, my lips curling up into smile, "That girl never fails to surprise me, you know. She knows so much more than I ever would have predicted."

"Yeah." Neel grinned wistfully as he scratched his head shyly.

I sneaked a glimpse into the laptop of the team sitting in the row in front of us, squinting to figure out what they'd come up with. They'd made a heart healthcare chat-bot.

Wha-? That's so useful. I whipped out my phone and googled how common heart diseases were. Apparently, one in every four deaths in the world were due to heart related issues.

Slumping back, I massaged my temple and heard collective sighs from the boys.

"I'll be right back," I said, getting up quickly and grabbing my tote, "I need to use the restroom."

I gripped my bag tightly as I winded through the incoming crowd and hurried to the ladies' restroom. The tiny room was packed with girls rambling about their own crises and perfecting their winged eyeliner with a practised finesse as people pushed their way in and out of the full house.

Groaning in annoyance, I pushed my way out of the restroom and marched into the corridor. So much for wanting five minutes of solitude.

Screw all the people who didn't know what bloody contraception was!

You see rare, unforeseen moments of passion led to a multiple number of kids due to poor planning which in turn led to the parents forcing the kids to be phenomenally great at everything they did which further increased the competition for the limited number of all essential and material resources of the country that caused exorbitant levels of stress and led to more sex and even more kids.

Screw everyone!

I was so deeply involved in my frustrated mental blabbering that I didn't register Vinay appearing in front of me all of a sudden.

I bumped into his chest with a soft thump before bouncing back slightly due to the impact.

"Please look where you're..." I started in the most polite tone I could muster as I straightened my cream coloured formal shirt, "Oh it's you."

"Yeah it's me." Vinay affirmed, amusement lacing his voice.

Letting out a loud sigh I leaned against the wall and turned to look at him.

"See, I know what you're going to say," I said, "I know I can do it. But what if those idiots don't understand our idea. I've got impart written down here and it sounds like a bland series of facts and specifications about the app and brief explanation about the idea. And it took me four hours to pen it down properly yesterday. Can you go over it?"

I handed Vinay my sheet of neatly scrawled writing, the seventh one I penned.

His eyes scanned through the words carefully and the corners of his lips curved down slightly. Ok, it was bad.

"It's okay but," Vinay said, glancing at the ink marred sheet briefly.

"There's no need to sugar coat it." I cut him off, "Tell me how I can improve it in the next ten minutes."

He peered at me incredulously but stayed silent.

"Ok how about you explain it to me briefly and I'll tell you how to go from there. Forget what's written here. Just explain it in your own words." He said at last.

'Ok, that's easy', I mused, 'He's smart enough to keep up with me.'

"Well, I have always wanted to help those around me. Compassion paired with the fire to actually innovate something has been something I have strived to imbibe for as long as I can remember and this project provided me the push I needed." My eyes followed the oscillatory motion of the branch of the massive tree leaning against the stone walls of the college because Vinay's sincere gaze on me felt intimidating, "Nowadays, having access to a mobile phone is no longer a luxury. On the contrary it is considered as much of a necessity as food to fill our stomachs and a roof over our heads. A fact that is rather baffling, considering the massive percentage of our population that falls below the national poverty line. As the world transitions into a more digitally dependent one, our needs are changing too."

I averted my gaze to check if Vinay was still listening. He gave me a minuscule nod, urging me to go on.

"While it might be great to hear that we're heading towards becoming a digitally active and connected community, it brings us to the problem posed by the exploitation of companies providing cheap wifi and cellular data." I grabbed my scribbled sheets and scanned through the pages to reconfirm a statistic before I continued, "Seventy six percent of our population owns a smartphone, a rough estimate of more than a billion people. Many a times, people end up using more than the stipulated amount of 4G data billed and have to pay exorbitantly high amounts for the extra data used which can be burdening. DantelSoft aims to solve this by providing a simple data regulator that accelerates internet speeds during browsing and returns to zero when the phone is not in use to prevent background apps from extorting. It not only helps with a more economical way of using the gift of cheap data but also helps to do away with the rising fear of addiction and anxiety problems. And this is just the beginning of our journey with DantelSoft. We aim to make a 5G version and keep improving so that we can provide the leverage we need to use our skills and knowledge to led our country to a better future."

I let out a breath I wasn't aware I had been holding and anxiously waited for Vinay to respond.

His sparkling eyes crinkled as his face lit up with a proud smile.

"So, what do you think?" I asked, confidence bubbling inside me slowly.

"That you don't need this awful speech you wrote." Vinay said, tearing the paper into half before I could snatch them from his hands.

"What the hell, Vinay!" I snapped.

"Come on, this was very mediocre and no one would listen to this. Even you know that." He chuckled, "Besides, your passion for this project is one of your strengths and you need to bank on it to reach out to your audience."

"So you want me to repeat whatever I just said to you?" I asked pointedly.

"Yes." He nodded solemnly.

"Fine, this better work then." I shrugged as I began walking towards the auditorium.

When it was our turn to go onto the stage, I felt weightless. Neel began the presentation with an anecdote about his grandfather's tryst with technology and the audience laughing, instantly giving us more attention.

I spoke next and I thought I did pretty well. Harsh concluded the presentation with a small demo and then we were off the stage. The whole thing lasted merely thirteen minutes but to me it felt like an eternity under the blinding lights.

"You were great out there!" Harsh grinned at me, raising his hand for a high five.

"You too." I replied genuinely.

My eyes flitted through the crowd until they found Vinay burning holes into the back of Harsh's head.

Just as I was about to make my way to him, Professor Murthy came up to where Neel, Harsh and I were standing and patted Neel's back.

"You guys were great up there." He said in his baritone voice, "Reminded me of the time when Ram and Samarth came to me with the idea for TYCHE."

I stilled visibly when he mentioned TYCHE, balling my fists for a moment before breathing out the tension between my eyes.

"Thank you Sir." We replied in a chorus.

"Well, a couple of guests I invited were very impressed. So if you three are keen on commercializing your product, you can meet me in my office tomorrow and we can talk about it." The balding professor said before moving away to greet another team.

The moment he was out of earshot, the three of us turned to face each other with impish grins.

I almost imploded with joy then and the feeling took me to a high that would take some time die down.

●○●

Right, so that's the end of the factual rant for now.

Happy Halloween to everyone who celebrates!

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QOTD: I've always wondered what I'd probably get arrested for. I'd probably get fined for jaywalking or cutting signals. Or maybe setting my school on fire XD. What about you?