Hey guys, here's your next update. Sorry for the delay!

Chapter 15:

The feeling of being in love was quite a nice one, and Raj could've have enjoyed it very well. He no longer had to fake the dreamy look on his face while he walked down the corridors, and he had to struggle not to hum a tune or whistle. It would've been a lot easier to stay in this good mood if everybody else hadn't seemed to somehow guess that he was in love and kept bothering him.

The first one the next morning was Pooja, with Ali reluctantly trailing behind.

"Oy Raj, you out of range caller." She announced cheerfully as she sat down opposite him, "Who was it you were making your connection with at the lake yesterday?"

Raj just stared at her, unable to believe what Pooja was asking.

"Uh? Me? Lake? I don't know what you're talking about, Pooja." He told her, glancing around nervously in case Navin turned up. His best friend still hadn't stopped frowning whenever he saw Raj and quite honestly, Raj was starting to get a little scared.

"Don't pretend, Raj. I know very well which numbers your sim card has been calling." Pooja told him looking amused, while Ali seemed to be trying to gesture to her that they should leave. "You were definitely down there with a girl, and if I'm not wrong, you were holding hands."

Raj couldn't believe this, if he climbed into Naina's room then he got caught by Yudi, if they went down to the lake he got caught by Pooja. This academy really wasn't the place to romance. He had no idea how Navin and Tanisha had ever managed to start dating with this type of lack of privacy.

Suddenly Raj remembered one of Major Nair's lessons, offence is the best form of defence.

"So what if I was by the lake with a girl?" He asked Pooja with a small smile, "The real question is what were you doing down by the lake and who were you with?"

As soon as he had asked her, Ali and Pooja both turned bright red and Raj knew that he had hit the mark. Officially neither of them had admitted that they were dating, and Raj had just caught them.

"I think we've bothered Rajbhai enough, Pooja." Ali announced, "Sorry about that Raj, I told her that she shouldn't…" and grabbing Pooja's wrist he led her away from there whispering something furiously.

Raj just chuckled, at least now he knew that Pooja wasn't likely to mention anything to anyone else.

**

However that wasn't the end of it.

Raj was sitting with Abhimanyu and Nandini at lunch, trying to keep as far away from Navin as possible until his mood improved. He was just lifting up his spoon to take a bite when he noticed that Abhimanyu was staring at his hand rather intently.

"Hey Raj, what happened to your ring?" Abhimanyu asked him, "You know, that one you always used to wear."

Raj inwardly cursed Abhi and his sharp perception. He had honestly thought that he might be able to give his ring away to Naina without anyone noticing.

"I guess I lost it…" Raj told Abhimanyu lamely, hoping that he wouldn't press for a better answer. "Maybe it fell off during one of our drills."

Nandini snorted in a very unladylike way. "You lost it or you swapped it for that fancy new watch you're wearing?" She asked with a grin, clearly knowing that she was right.

Raj just glared at her as she and Abhimanyu grinned at each other. They were both far too mischievous for their own good, he was just glad that Navin and Tanisha hadn't managed to get the two of them involved as well.

"There's no good glaring at me like that, Rajveer." She told him in a mock serious tone, "I'm perfectly aware of what's going on. I was already in the mess with my parents when you came in with her on Republic Day."

Raj now knew that he was well and truly trapped. If he remembered correctly then he had been holding hands with Naina at some point during that time. He swore to himself right then, no more holding hands with Naina. Every time he did it, someone seemed to catch them.

"Fine," he said, only slightly annoyed, "You're right, I gave it to someone, now stop teasing me and go back to eating your lunch."

"Well now that we've settled the fact that Raj really does have a girlfriend," Abhimanyu started to say, smirking slightly, "The question remains as to who this girl is."

"Really Abhi, did you not notice anything on Republic Day?" Nandini asked him reproachfully, "Don't tell me you don't know who the girl is."

"Well in case you didn't notice, Nandini, I was a little busy with my father and his attendants." Abhimanyu replied with a sigh, "So why don't you go ahead and tell me who this girl is."

"It's Navin's sister, Naina." Nandini announced cheerfully, quite happy with herself for having figured it out.

"Could you be a bit quieter about it?" Raj asked her nervously, glancing around to where Navin thankfully sat quite far away eating his lunch.

Abhimanyu looked as if this was the most interesting news he'd heard in a very long time.

"You're going out with Navin's sister?" he whispered to Raj, noticing how nervous his friend was looking. "Does he know about this?"

"Do your parents know that you two are going out?" Raj asked them both with his eyebrows raised. "No, right? Well if you don't want them to find out then you won't say anything about this to anybody."

"That, my friend, is blackmail." Abhimanyu said with a small smile, amused by how worried Raj was, "But don't worry, we won't tell Navin. I'm just glad you finally found yourself a nice girl, Raj, otherwise we were afraid you'd be single forever or have to marry someone your parents chose." Abhi grimaced as if thinking about what would happen if he had to marry somebody that his parents chose.

Raj rolled his eyes at them. "Thank you so much for being so worried about my happiness, now could the two of you please shut up about this and never mention it again?"

"Fine, but just let us know if you need any help, advice, tips etc," Nandini told him cheerfully, "You know, what do girls like and…"

"If I ever want anything like that then I'll definitely tell you. But for god's sake, just stop talking about it now!" Raj told her, putting his spoon down on the table with a loud clang.

KMA was definitely not the best place to be in love.

**

It was evening when Alekh finally caught up with Raj, pulling him aside before he could enter the mess.

"Make sure you stay away from Navin for awhile," Alekh warned him, "He's upset with you."

"Yeah, I'd noticed." Raj replied grimly, "Whenever I turn around I find him staring at me as if he wants to drill a hole in my head with his eyes. What's wrong with him?"

"Yudi told him that you were climbing out of Naina's room in the middle of the night." Alekh reported.

Raj groaned, "I swear I'm going to kill Yudi, why did he need to tell Navin that? Now Navin probably thinks that we were…" he turned red, unable to complete the sentence.

"He definitely does," Alekh replied, "In fact he's sent me to find out what really happened, so what do you want me to tell him?"

"For god sakes tell him that I only went up there to talk to her and that nothing else happened. Hopefully he'll believe you and I'll be able to go to bed tonight without worrying that he's going to smother me with a pillow in my sleep."

Which judging by the expression on Navin's face every time he'd seen Raj for the last two days, was a very real possibility.

Alekh went off to tell Navin that he could relax, and Raj decided that he would avoid the mess until the job was done. After all, eating dinner would be a lot more enjoyable if Navin was over his bad mood.

Instead he headed to the phone intending to call Naina. It had been less than two days since she left and he was already missing her like hell. He just hoped that she had some holidays coming up so that she would be able to come visit.

The only problem was that now he'd figured out he was in love with her, he didn't know how he should be acting. Now rather than pretending that he was in love with Naina while pretending not to be, he only had to pretend that he wasn't in love with her.

At least it simplified things.

Well, slightly.

Raj dialled the number and counted the seconds it took for her to pick up the phone. She had called briefly the night before to say she arrived home safely but only Navin had spoken to her.

"Hey Naina, it's me." He said quietly, recognising her voice as soon as she picked up.

"I've been waiting for you to call," Naina told him, "Why didn't you talk to me yesterday when I called to say I arrived safely."

"Because Navin has suddenly discovered his inner over protective brother and I feared for my life if I tried to talk to you in front of him."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that Yudi told him about me climbing out of your room and ever since then he hasn't stopped glaring at me. I'm honestly worried about my safety tonight, if his mood doesn't improve I might ask Abhimanyu if I can swap rooms with him."

"Is it really that bad?" Naina asked in disbelief, "I would've thought he'd be happy that you'd gone to my room, wouldn't he have thought it was a good sign?"

"Naina, like all brothers, Navin would like his sister to somehow get married without ever having to actually date anyone." Raj told her in a very no nonsense tone.

"That's ridiculous! He was the one who set up this whole thing in the first place, he can't change his mind now!" Suddenly Naina was very offended, "He should trust me to not do the wrong thing."

"Well it's not just you who's upset by this, I thought that Navin trusted me more too." Raj told her, feeling frustrated by the whole situation. After all, Navin's plan finally seemed to be working, at least in Raj's case, and he had decided that he didn't want them together anymore.

"Well why don't you just go and tell him that nothing happened between us and it was all perfectly innocent?" Naina asked him, "At least that way you can sleep without fearing for your safety."

"Well I could tell him if he came and asked me, but right now he's pretending not to actually know, and I'm pretending not to know that he's angry."

"And how does that work?" Naina asked, suddenly confused.

"Well I avoid him whenever possible and he only glares at me when he thinks I'm not looking."

"This is ridiculous," Naina muttered, "Even if anything had happened then it's none of his business. I'm an adult and I can do whatever I want. I'm not going to stop dating you just because he says so!"

Raj couldn't believe how much his heart leapt as she said this, he wasn't sure whether he should remind Naina that they were only pretending to date, or check whether they were actually dating now.

"Uh Naina, we… I mean, we're not really…"

"Oh, right…" Naina sounded a little embarrassed at how carried away she'd gotten, "But he doesn't know that, and he can't expect me to decide whether I'm going to get married to a guy or not without dating him or not."

"Of course not," Raj told her in a reassuring tone, "Don't worry, I'm sure that Alekh will get this whole thing sorted out and Navin will back to normal in no time at all."

"Well he'd better be," Naina replied, "I don't want him giving you any trouble, as I've told you before, nobody messes with Naina Singh Ahluwalia's boyfriend, even if it is her brother."

Raj couldn't help grinning at this statement. The thing that made him grin even more is that this time she hadn't bothered to say 'pretend' boyfriend. He certainly wasn't going to correct her.

"Well I'll go now, Naina. If I don't get to the mess soon then Major Nair will tell me I'm too late to get any dinner."

"Alright," Naina replied, sounding a bit reluctant. "In that case I hope Alekh is successful with Navin, and he doesn't give you anymore trouble."

"I'll talk to you soon then."

"Okay… bye."

A smile on his face, Raj left for the mess. Whether Navin glared at him or not, there was no way he would ever willingly give up Naina.

**

Meanwhile Alekh was doing his best to convince Navin that Raj had no bad intentions where Naina was concerned.

"Dekh Navin, you know Raj. He's crazy about Naina but he's not going to do anything that he shouldn't. He honestly just went to talk to her in private while nobody else was there to interrupt."

"What did he want to tell her about then?" Navin asked, still not entirely convinced.

"Well I think he wanted to tell her about his feelings…" Alekh was able to say it convincingly, after all it wasn't entirely a lie. He was sure that Raj had wanted to say something to Naina before he'd climbed in the window and ruined everything. Navin didn't need to know that the darpoke had probably lost all his courage afterwards and not said anything.

Suddenly for the first time in two days, Navin started to look more relaxed, he even looked like he wanted to smile. "Really? Are you sure? So then our plan has worked?"

Alekh just shrugged, if he couldn't figure it out for himself then he didn't deserve any help.

Navin frowned again then, "But even if Raj likes her, how do I know that he wants to get married to her? How do we find out what his intentions are?"

Tanisha nodded, agreeing with him and Alekh laughed, wondering how their plan would ever have worked if they hadn't had his help. The two of them really were hopeless.

"You really haven't noticed have you?" he asked them, "Then again you've been so busy glaring at Raj and he's been so busy avoiding you that I don't know how you would."

"Noticed what?" Tanisha asked, genuinely confused as to what Alekh was talking about.

"Noticed that for the past two days, the ring that Raj usually wears has been missing from his finger." Alekh told them, and then not trusting them to work it out for themselves, "And that when she said goodbye to you, Naina was trying very hard to hide her hand from you."

It took a moment for it to sink in, but when it did, Navin and Tanu grinned at each other.

They knew how serious their friend was about things like this, Raj giving Naina his ring was almost as good as the two of them getting engaged.

Everything was forgiven.

Raj was once again Navin's favourite person in KMA.