Chapter 3

Arnav shook his head violently, successful in holding his mind off her, and tired to figure out recent ways of how he could improve the drawing he had just scribbled on the paper out of sheer boredom. He knew he couldn't use an eraser neither eradicator, since he never used it as all his works were fit for perfection. A frown appeared on his face making his forehead wrinkled as he tried to device an ingenious way of making the drawing picture perfect.

"That girl seems nice to me" Karan told him, as Arnav continued to rack his brains constantly. Karan's compliment towards the girl made him immediately scowl, spoiling his handsome boyish features.

" Oh yeah? She's your neighbor?"

"Huh what?"a totally taken aback Karan questioned him back.

"The last time, you said someone was nice was that neighbor of yours who moved in, and you do know how she turned out like?"Arnav said a visible smirk all over his face that was replaced by his previously held ugly scowl.

"Yeah, sure, she turned out to be a witch"Karan said quietly, embarrassed at his previous choice. Not that he had fallen for that girl, but he had developed an immediate soft spot, at the very first sight of her.

"You never know she might be one them too, she looks crazy to me anyway"Arnav told him.

"Right I know. Everybody seems crazy to you as if you your self aren't"Karan challenged him back, receiving a deadly glare from Arnav, who after he was done giving death glares to his best friends resumed on thinking about the untidy picture in front of him.

"This is Khushi Kumari Gupta, from X-B. Cheer up girls she is here to fill in your quota!"saying this Ms.Anita Thawer started laughing crazy on her joke, and her laughter abruptly died out, as neither the class got her joke, nor the attendant it was cracked on. Khushi made a face to herself, thinking that it was only the beginning, she had intercepted the students to be the crazy ones, and instead here the teachers were even crazier.

It was like walking in a desert, full of camels, as she took her seat next to a comical looking fellow who gave her a silent welcoming smile, welcoming her to this new world of craziness that she had stepped in. Khushi was not used to of applying Physics in her life, not that she didn't like it, but now she knew why mother earth, was so burdened altogether, because she pocessed the centrifugal force of attraction, which all other planets were devoid of. Well, at least she felt like Mother Earth now, under the gazes of the 24 weird people, who stared at her as if she had just won the award for the most wanted person on Earth.

"Hey"

Vivek tapped her on the shoulder, bringing her out of her world of solar system to look at him, smiling at her. She smiled back at him, immediately liking the boy, as his smile radiated that feeling of belonging that she had been wondering if she could get it in this class. Her smiling back at him, immediately gave him the signal to proceed further, and at the back of his mind he knew this was one person he could get along well with.

"Feeling weird with all this attention, eh?"

"No, I mean, yes, why are they looking at me like that?"Khushi asked him back innocently, for which's answer she had to wait until Vivek got over his laughter.

"Sorry for that hoarse laughter. Okay, I can understand why you feel that way. For a starter you should know that this class is the craziest class in the school."

Khushi gave him a flabbergasted look, telling him immediately that she couldn't make heads or tails out of this know-it-all comment of his.

"Don't worry you'll soon know what I mean. Let me introduce you to everyone"

Does this guy even know that we are in the class, in the middle of a Bio lecture she thought to herself? It seemed like it was some fixture period that he didn't give a danm about, and thought of her to do the same, only that she was here to study and that is exactly what she was going to do, STUDY.

"Can we study right now?" Khushi asked him in a non chalant manner, making him laugh yet again, which only gave her a brief idea of how even cute likeable people could be intensely crazy.

"Sure, that is if you can get anything in your head" Vivek told her cheekily, immediately getting a highly exasperated look from her which made him laugh all the more at her innocence. She chose to ignore his constant giggles, and turned to concentrate on the lecture on hand, desperately trying to get the things the teacher said into her head, failing terribly until she exactly knew what Vivek had earlier warned her off. Not being in a habit of accepting someone else's views, she stubbornly tried to listen, but could feel her eyelids getting heavy with pressure, wanting to close. Five times, and she was done blinking until Vivek tapped her shoulder again, waking her out of her sleep, to which she passed a grateful smile his way.

"Now understood?" Vivek asked her cheekily

"Never better. How do you people survive?"Khushi voiced out the question she had been trying to get the answer off, as realization of the boredom this lecture had to offer enlightened her.

"By blabbering about whatever's in our head, easiest way to kill boredom" he told her, giving his million dollar smile, making her giggle.

"When is it going to end?"

"15 minutes"

"How long is it usually?"

"1 and half hour"

"What the! This long?"Khushi exclaimed, immediately gaining the attention of the students sitting around her.

" Sshh.. If she hears you, you are in for a forever dose of rants from her. She doesn't like people talking in her class."Vivek told her cautiously silencing her.

"But you just said, you people kill time by talking" Khushi questioned him back confused.

"Just look at her carefully; you'll know how we escape"

Khushi still holding a confused expression on her face, looked at the Biology teacher, peacefully sitting on the chair, eyes closed, mouth working, resting her head against the back of the chair. For her, it was the most comical scene ever, and laughter escaped from her mouth, however she quickly lowered down its tone in fear that the teacher might hear it.

"Where is she from, Planet Mars?"Khushi asked giggling away constantly.

"Nope.Pluto, when she realized her birth place had been degraded from a planet, to a dwarf meteorite she suffered brain hemorrhage and that explains why her senses work abnormally" Vivek told her a big grin on his face.

"Haha, I can perfectly imagine her on Pluto, wearing a purple dress blabbering away the working of the capillary action to herself. *pause* Okay now introduce everyone to me. They all look one of a kind to me"

"Exactly".He craned his neck towards the class, his fingers on his brow, trying to decide where he should start from, while Khushi waited for him to proceed. Finally having decided, he looked back at Khushi who was busy playing with her pencil bored of waiting too.

"Okay. So let's see, I'll start with him (pointing towards Samrat), That's Samrat, the most reserved guy in our class. Fair warning to you. Don't try to talk to him, he doesn't talk to girls."

"Why?"

"He thinks they are sinful creatures. His mother told him that if he talks to girls, he'll land directly in land" Vivek told her laughing away endlessly, at his mother hilarious antic to keep her son away from getting into a relationship.

"What the Hell! Why would she say something like that?"She rambled to herself; her eyes wide open at such an unimaginable thought.

"Forget that, anyways, this is Priyanka (signaling towards the girl in the front) She's nice if you are nice to her, and gets bitchy if she wants. She's kind of unpredictable, and honestly I don't know her all that well, either, so I leave it to you to figure her out"

Khushi nodded and told him to proceed and one by one he kept introducing every Tom, Dick and Harry in the class, after which only a handful of people were left.

"Wait a minute, uh..wait, you didn't tell me your name up till now!"

Vivek smiled at her and told her of how he was such a retard to not tell his name to her.

"Okay, Vivek, right? Ya, so can you tell me any students here who are good in studies, like straight A student type?"

"Oh yeah, I was about to get on that, I did figure out your were the geeky type, (getting a glare from Khushi) okay sorry, the nerdy type (another glare from her), fine. fine dude, I don't know any better words, there's that guy, (pointing to where Arnav sat scribbling away), he's brilliant with his brain, he is."

"He is?"Khushi interrupted in a surprised manner. To her he seemed, to be of no importance scribbling away on his paper, seeming least interested in the lecture. Not that he was to blame, she wasn't listening either, but well at least she had found better ways of killing boredom, instead of making clean white sheets turn horribly black.

"Yeah, you can't really imagine, his brain works at lightening speed"

"Then we two shall get along well" Khushi half smiled to her self, she loved competition, and that too with a boy, who to her by the look of him seemed a bit hoarse to her, would be interesting. She knew exactly what she was to this year, let this class know, that her brain worked even more faster than his.

"Well, you wont" Vivek piped in a confident manner, that actually startled Khushi, as in their 30 minute talk she hadn't seen him getting all that serious.

"Why not?"she questioned him back, wanting to no more of her competitor.

"Obviously you don't know, but he is the crankiest guy on earth. And I really mean cranky, he's super rude with everybody, even his siblings, and usually keeps to himself. He doesn't have all that talking issues, but he's keeps a distance, and you see that guy next to him, that's his best friend Karan, and probably the only person he gets along well with."

"Hmm.You have no idea; I know really well how to handle such people. He's competition and good or bad, I'll live through it, what's his name btw?" Khushi replied back confidently, she had learned just too well in life how to handle such people, only that she was mistaken in thinking he was the same, he was not.

"Arnav Singh Raizada. It's a pity to think, that he has got siblings who are the most juvenile people I know. His older brother Aakash, our senior, keep's landing in the principals office all the time, since he is soo fun, and his sister Anjali, she's the prettiest girl in this school"

"And they are smart too?"Khushi asked, still concerned about brains then any other specialty about his siblings.

"Yup, they are really smart, only that he is smarter. They are our seniors". As Vivek said this, the period over bell rang and Khushi found herself getting amused soon, that as soon as the teacher left the class, everybody heaved a sign of life, and then was when she officially entered into a zoo of humans. The noise they made, she had to literally jam her fingers into her ear so that the high pitches of the people would stop going into them. However, there was one thing that she kept her eyes even in all the howling, it was him, Arnav, who was there sitting silently, doing God knows what work, not even contributing the slightest to the noise at all. He was so silent, so into himself, that he didn't even care about what was going on around him, it made her wonder, if she really still felt confident in defeating him, he seemed a bit too much to defeat, now that she observed him carefully, he was different.

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It was the third period, Khushi walked out of the classroom with Vivek carrying a large stack of papers that she had to give to the librarian. As she walked away chatting with Vivek, little did she know two boys approaching the pair and it was not until one of them knocked her to the ground that she realized, that she on the ground looking at her perfectly piled stack of papers flying away in the air, with that ruthless boy practically stepping over half of them.

"Hey you, watch it, can't you see" she angrily called out to the boy who had just knocked her to the ground, while Vivek helped her pick up the papers and compile them together, she kept her glare fixed in that boys direction, until he turned around, a not so important look on his face.

"Not my problem, if you have buttons instead of eyes" Arnav told her haughtily, as she passed another angry glare his way.

"Oh yeah? You have eyes? Use them then!"

"If ducks quack around in the corridor that really is not my fault or is it?"

"How dare you call me a duck!"Khushi got up to her feet, her eyes burning with fury. What irritated her most was his calm reaction to all of it. Where did he come from? Directly out of the zoo or something?

" I can call you whatever I like Gupta, my tongue, my words" Arnav replied back non chalant and saying that turned around and walked his way out of the corridor, leaving a threatening Khushi behind who kept mumbling all kind of names between gritted teeth. How could he refer to her with her last name? Did his mother not teach any manner to him, or was he born eating crows?

Keeping a hand on her shoulder, "Relax Khsuhi. I told you he's cranky".

"Cranky? He's cranky? That was way beyond that, stupid Raizada!"

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Arnav and Karan walked in the corridor enclosed by gray walls all around, making the two boys appear shadow appear even darker, it flinching as they took steps further, their ties swaying away in the air. A erry silence had prevailed between the two, and Karan not being able to take it was the first one to break it.

"Arnav, you knew it was your fault, you should have at least said sorry" Karan out into his thoughts in words, trying to calm a fuming Arnav down, who seemed shaken by the kind of back answering that girl had done to him. How dare she? Nobody talked to him like that how could she?

"Oh please, Karan, since when did you start caring for that 'nice' girl?"Arnav burst out on him, strangling the poor boy, who would have had easily been shaken under Arnav's hold but was now use to of his untimely tantrums. As soon as they came they would go even sooner, and then everything would be back to normal.

"Look, I am not saying that she was not at fault, but if she doesn't have manners, you do, don't you, you could have said sorry?"

"I don't say sorry, when I am not supposed to. Besides, who is she anyway, the Empress of India? And even if she was, do I give a danm? No, never." Arnav told him stubbornly, making Karan shake his head violently, at his best friend's harsh words. Since the time they were friends, he had always wondered why was there so much diversity in his nature and that of his elder siblings, but neither had Arnav ever told him, nor had he ever found the answer to it, so he had let it be because this guy was one mysterious character, nobody knew that better than him.

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Regarding the Title:

PRESERVED IN A SEA SHELL- I know many of you must be thinking, why I choose this as a title, as it had got nothing to do with the chapter itself, however, this Chapter 1, is the beginning of their journey, from being two sea shells, enclosed with their shells tightly around them, not letting the other person see through it, but only the hard side that is visible. As you people saw above, it is easy to decipher, how hard the two are on their own lines, the best at everything, and against each other for the best. Arnav still, doesn't know about her, but Khushi does have a fair idea of how he is, and so has made it an agenda to beat him, whatever it takes her. This fighting to prove the best, will bring them closer, and land them together, which all this story is about.

For now, this chapter depicts them closed, stubborn, not willing to show their true colors, and its like the wave action opens the shell of the sea shell, similarly the waves in their lives, the high and low tides, will finely lead them to opening up to each other in full view.

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Events In the Chapter:

Since this was the first chapter, I couldn't really portray much of the story to you people, because they have just only met. They don't know each other, and it's all starting from a scratch. So I can understand that this chapter might appear boring but I promise that from the next chapter the story will kick start soon.

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Vishaka's Character

Remember in the character sketch, I left a question mark regarding Vishaka's character. Well this was because I don't really know how to decide the fate of the character, I have given you people the overview, please when you comment, do include if I should portray her love as pure or just the kind who knows how play with people and then leave them.

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Precap:

Khushi smiled an evil smile to herself, as she waited by the door of the classroom, her body in mid way, between the inside of the class, and the outside of the grey corridor. She felt devilish at the moment, like a witch waiting to catch her black runaway cat. She had devised the perfect plan, to teach that ape Arnav Singh Raizada, a lesson. He had pushed her, stepped on her papers; it was because of him, that for the first time in her life, she had someone shout on her, it was the first time that she had disappointed someone, and all because of him. Him. She would not let him get away with it so easily, not until he paid for it as hard as she did.

She could hear the sound of his shoes, drawing closer towards the classroom. She hurried inside, so that he would not see her, at the edge of the door, and seeing him carrying a large pile of numerous encyclopedias in his hand, her smile widened even more. Now it would be even more fun to hurt him, to have things falling on him, to spoil his record of perfection like he had spoiled hers. As he approached closer, she got set on her position, and hearing him coming closer, carrying the heavy load in his hand, she moved her foot pointing towards the ceiling, and inched it forward, to be a obstacle in his path, and sure as hell, as she had planned, his vision was blocked by the books he was carrying making him unable to catch sight of her silly trick.

Books flew away in the air, half of them landing on his head, while the others found their way on the ground, making a alarmingly noisy sound as they hit the ground with a bang. His eyes were closed, and as he opened them, every part of his body shaking with anger, everything was blurry around him, his head throbbing, with the large books that had fallen on him, and he himself, rubbing his cheeks on the dirty sandy floor of the corridor.

"Gupta, you idiot, how could you?"Arnav looked at her, his eyes wanting to rip her apart, as her smile grew larger and larger by ever minute that his anger rose, as if they were directly proportional quantities to each other.

"Oh, Raizada, you on the ground?" Did I make you fall? Aww..I am so sorry I didn't mean too" she replied chirpily with a wide smile on her face, enjoying every moment of the hurt and anger sprouting from his eyes. Serves him right she thought to herself, and not giving another look at his miserable flat form which was trying to collect it self back groaning in pain, she skipped away from there, happy with the revenge she had accomplished.

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Honestly I am not very contented with how this chapter has turned out to be, so I want you people to bash me for it if its not worth the read at all. Leave back your comments people, I love to read them all, and try my best to give a written reply to all of them. Btw, if it's not much of a trouble I would really appreciate, if you people would analyze my work, and give a little extensive comments, instead on word phrases. No you can give one word phrases too, but just asking if you people could make it longer.

Do hit the like button to appreciate, and as stated in the note, I'll be observing the pattern for five chapters, after which I'll start un buddying people from my buddy list.

Love,

Batool😳