"Randhir, you'll be paired up with Sanyukta for this year," Professor Vardhan told him.
Randhir's mind went blank after that statement. He couldn't believe Vardhan would do this at a time such as this. Just when he was saying this Farzi everywhere, Vardhan Sir just had to swoop in and make it more complicated, didn't he?
Chal beta Randhir, let's begin,' he thought to himself.
"Sanyukta, what are you doing? You are not going to touch any machine here and spoil the whole project. Let me handle this. If you dare to do anything around here, I swear I will make sure you get the worst grades of your whole life," Randhir told Sanyukta and started making designs of the machine.
"Shut up Randhir. I'm not interested in working with but I swear to god, if you don't let me work, you can bid goodbye to your Rank no 1. Now just shut up and get to work." Sanyukta told Randhir.
"Listen you Farzi..." he began but was cut off by Sanyukta, "No, you listen, you MCP. We will be working together, whether you like it or not. I'm not going to put my career at risk just because I had to work with an egoistic and overconfident batch mate."
"Stop murmuring and get to work everyone. Just because you had a party last night doesn't mean you're going to be let off so easily." Vardhan Sir spoke and the class began to work.
When three hours were over, Sanyukta and Randhir were the only ones to have completed the design. How they managed to work together was a mystery, even to Vardhan.
After the design was ready, Vardhan told them to go to the mechanical lab and start working on the machine they had to make.
They went there and got everything ready and wore the glasses for protection and began on the machine. Sparks were flying everywhere when Vardhan came to check in on them as they had been in there for five hours already.
He saw them still working silently on the machine, an unsaid agreement between them to not fight at least until the machine was over after which they would go back to their usual modes.
From afar, standing that close to each other with their hands intertwined in some form, he had to admit, they looked like a couple who was working on a machine and they strangely reminded him of Niharika and himself. Vardhan stood their observing them for a few minutes and then left them to themselves.
After Randhir and Sanyukta were done, they both took a seat on the tables nearby and sat there in the tranquil silence, neither saying a word to the other.
"Randhir, I'm just going to leave now, bye," Sanyukta told him softly and got ready to stand up when she noticed that he had fallen asleep on her shoulder. He was disturbed by the sudden movement but Sanyukta ran her fingers through his hair and patted him lightly so that he could sleep. She too eventually fell asleep and they both sat there like they were meant to be.
41