Arjun's POV :

"You don't want to date Kishan?" Pooja asked Ananya "Come on. Be honest!"

"Nope", Ananya said "I want to date Zayn Malik but Gigi Hadid won't allow it."

Pooja rolled her eyes.

"Okay give me two minutes. I'll go grab a coffee", she said.

"What? And I have to be stuck here with the freak alone?", Ananya retorted "Some BFF you are!"

I was sitting there on the same bench by the lawns outside the restaurant and the two girls were acting like I was invisible. Like, come on! What had I done? Nothing other than show concern for their safety.

But now those two had suddenly got an attitude about the whole thing and were being passive aggressive to me.

"Never mind", I said getting up, "I'll go and get the coffee for both of you".

"Umm..okay", said Ananya shrugging apprehensively. I felt like slapping her but resisted and ran into the restaurant.

When I came back with coffee in two paper cups, there were few more people around the same bench and a fight had started. Between Dulquer and Raghav - the two useless guys on the competition. And the reason for their fight? As usual, nothing.

"Ever wondered why you're always unhappy inspite of being so good at everything?" Raghav was telling Dulquer "I'll tell you. You can't throw shit all around and wonder why your life stinks".

Kishan was in between them, acting peace maker as always. I'd never seen the guy lose it. Ever. Maybe he had been a monk in his previous birth. In the meantime, the coffee in both the cups I was holding had gone cold.

I looked at Ananya and Pooja. They were intently watching the arguement and had clearly forgotten about their coffees. So I emptied both the cups into my mouth and stuffed the paper cups into a nearby overflowing dustbin.

"Yeah, we need to call a psychiatrist for this guy", Shilpa said disdainfully, stepping in defend her boyfriend as usual "God! I've never seen so much negativity!"

"In that case please call two psychiatrists babe", said Raghav "One for him and one for the first psychiatrist".

Dulquer just rolled his eyes but that statement had an unexpected effect on Kishan standing next to him. He looked like someone had slapped him.

"Don't ever say anything like that again!", he said glaring at Shilpa with so much vexation that even she looked taken aback for a second.

I looked at Ananya. She was looking nonplussed. I couldn't blame her. I was confused too. Why had Kishan got so upset?

This had to end now before things got dirty.

I grabbed Pooja's arm (My sister wasn't very useful at such times).

"Go and do something. My aunt always says that ladies don't start fights. But they can finish them", I mumbled to Pooja.

"Walt Disney", said Pooja.

"What?"

Pooja nodded.

I frowned, "Janvi told me she made it up herself".

For a second, Pooja forgot her passive aggression and chuckled, "Don't worry. This fight will dissolve on its own".

And it did. Shilpa dragged away Raghav and Dulquer went back into the restaurant. Pooja and Ananya got up to leave to the competition area while I ran to find Rubina. That day, our competition was taking place outdoors again. I was just hoping that it wouldn't be some stupid thing like cleaning the swimming pool area.

Fortunately it wasn't. I mean it wasn't stupid. But it was a hard one for sure.

We were all given bicycles. Or rather bicycle parts. Like the ones that arrive through Amazon. And a manual. We had to assemble the bicycle parts using the manual and find the tools. The tools would be hidden somewhere within the competition area itself. This was done in pairs too. This time Roma didn't allow anybody to find their own pair. She put me with Dulquer and Ananya with Raghav. Rubina and Pooja were put together. I didn't know which among these was the most ridiculous pairing.

We were all dressed in casual tees and track pants like we had been instructed to. Roma was as usual, ready in three layers of make-up and a stopwatch in her hand. She seemed to be getting fed up of the competition, of late and looked like she was coming there only because she had signed a contract and was getting salary.

Nevertheless her phoney enthusiasm was the same, "Your time starts now!" she said loudly as we all started to sprint in different directions to find tools.

Raghav had already started climbing up an Arjuna tree nearby claiming that he saw something like a spanner hidden up there while my sister stood below looking utterly frustrated. She had evidently hoped to be paired with Kishan again.

I avoided the Arjuna tree (things and people with the same name as me always cause me trouble) and hurried behind Dulquer wondering if he had a plan inside his slightly oversized head.

I looked behind and saw my sister trying to join Raghav in his search by climbing up the tree. She couldn't climb a staircase without tripping and falling all over the place and here she was trying to climb a tree. God! Trust Ananya to do the dumbest thing possible.

I waited for the accident to take place and sure enough..another one minute later I heard a high pitched cry.

I turned around and saw...no, fortunately our heroine hadn't fallen down again. She was just caught in a very messy position and Raghav was trying to help her.

"Grab my hand. Don't you trust me?" he was saying.

"That's a nice question to ask someone after trying to push them off a tree", Ananya said.

"I caught you back", Raghav argued, "You should be thanking me darling".

"Don't call me darling. Save the syrup for your own girlfriend", Ananya snapped at him.

"Oh puh-leez!" said Raghav "Don't be an idiot. I only said that out of genuine concern".

Ananya responded by furiously digging into the mud. Seriously! Someone needs to tell the kid, we're in the 21st century.

Raghav looked up and saw me staring at them.

"Hey man, please tell your senorita of a sister, that I'm a perfect gentleman", he shouted.

"Sorry bro, but one mustn't tell lies", I said dramatically, imitating Dolores Umbridge.

"Useless siblings", I heard Raghav say "And they're not scatterbrained because they have no brains to scatter".

I was sure he was about to say a very bad word next, but was interrupted by Ananya.

"There's nothing here. Shall we go and see in the shed down there?" I heard her ask pointing to a shed down the lawn area.

"Alright", Raghav replied and they both climbed down clumsily and raced over to the shed. I instantly signalled Dulquer. He saw me and nodded.

We followed Raghav and Ananya into the shed. A whole lot of things were piled up one upon the other very messily. The heap was almost touching the roof of the shed. The only place where I could recall seeing something close to this mess was my own room, back at home.

"Copy cats!" Ananya shouted as she saw us coming in.

"Don't behave like an LKG kid Ananya", I said "You're disgracing the family!"

"Don't talk like that to me", she said "I'm your sister".

"You found that out? Congratulations!" I snapped, "Sister! My foot!"

"In the cookies of life, sisters are the chocolate chips", Ananya recited. I responded by kicking a bucket lying on the floor.

Dulquer stood staring at us disgruntled while Raghav had taken those few seconds to climb up to the top of the pile.

Dulquer immediately sprang into action, "I call for the screw driver lying up there", he said.

Raghav swiftly turned around, spotted the screw driver, grabbed it and stuck out his tongue at Dulquer.

"I call for the hammer there", Dulquer said next, holding out his hand like Thor.

"Hey! You can't call for things", said Raghav laughing now "Come and get it!"

Raghav lunged forward to grab the hammer too and then climbed down the pile and ran out while Ananya looked at me and Dulquer suspiciously.

"You were trying to get him to take those. Didn't you?" I asked Dulquer.

"Yes" he chuckled "The guy's a clown. Didn't even notice how rusted everything was. He won't be able to attach one screw with those things. Plus a hammer is not even needed for fixing a bicycle".

"That's the man", I chortled giving Dulquer a high five.

Ananya scowled at both of us momentarily before running out behind Raghav.

A/N : Don't worry about the mystery guy. He's not gone ☺️

See you in the next chapter guys. Much love ❤️