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I remember the exact day I fell in love with him. It was a day like any other. I had worn my usual black salwar kurta. Neelu Bhaiya was waiting downstairs to drop us off to college. I was hoping Gauri would be ready by now.
"We better leave early or we are gonna be real late today.", I perceptually screamed at Gauri
"Cant you see I'm still to be done with my makeup and hair? And since when do you start caring about me getting late, Kali?" I shrugged and feigned hurt.
She seemed to have gotten the message and didn't question me further. She got done in about 5 minutes and we left to catch the usual car trip to college. The ride was too monotonous. She kept taunting me about hurrying her up and what she would have done if she had gotten enough time to fix her beauty. I almost drifted off to sleep when I was rudely woken up by Gauri and told we had reached college.
When I went into the college premises, there was nothing that I wanted to do more than hurrying to class, taking down notes and getting lost in my own world. Gauri, on the other hand, was excited about getting to class and passing notes to the guy she had recently acquired a crush on- Rohan.
"Whats so great about him anyways?"
"Well..he is dreamy, sweet, smart and gorgeous.."
"Gorgeous?!" I accidentally snorted and cracked up till Gauri glared at me.
In the class, I was painfully aware of Yug's presence as he sat right behind me and kept finding reasons to crack jokes and entertain people. My feelings towards him were of indifference, carefully masked with sarcasm. There was a crowd of girls surrounding him and it was honestly annoying how he did not notice their OTT feelings.
"Can you be a little less loud? The teacher has come to take a lecture, not to see a casanova being serenaded by girls.." I snapped at him just as the teacher walked in.
He glared at me for a moment before he focused back on the class.
*Today we are going to be studying about...* I zoned out, thinking about how Badke Papa had insulted Manjri Maa's memory today morning, awakened from my trance only when I heard Yug's voice.
"I guess we are working together then."
"Wait..whaaat?!" I almost screamed out in horror before I realized class was still in session and everyone was staring at me. I glared at Yug with as much poison as I could, but he just broke into a bout of laughter.
Visibly embarrassed, I took a sigh before quietly asking him, "So what is our project on?"
Instead of giving me a reply, he said, "Why do you hate me so much?"
Looking at him, I was speechless. Before I could retort to that with some quick witted sarcasm, he continued: "I think you are cool and nice and pretty, so why cant we be nice to each other?"
"Why dont we choose the topic for the project now...it will take time to work on it.." I added hastily.
"Can we talk about this?" He shrugged and looked at me expectingly.
I looked around the room to try to avoid this conversation. Everywhere partners were conversing about the topic for the project they would like to work on. Seems like I had absolutely no option but to answer him now.
"I haven't really trusted anyone since incidents that happened during my childhood.", I admitted, glancing up to see what Yug's reaction was.
"Can I talk to you in the hall quickly?", he said, barely audible in the old, loud and crowded classroom. I nodded and followed him outside as he led, shutting the door quietly, in order to NOT draw attention on us leaving without permission and getting reprimanded for bunking.
The moment the door shut, Yug told me, "I dont wish to know anything about what happened that made you so repellant to people, unless you wish to tell me about it. But whatever it is, I can guarantee I wont breathe a word to any soul and your reputation wont be blemished. Would you choose to trust me about keeping this our secret?" He gave me an unsure look, knowing that I could react in the most adverse way possible too.
I was honestly too shocked to react. Here was a guy, not expecting me to tell him anything about the incident that probably scarred me for life, and yet wanted me to trust him to keep his silence on the fact that he noticed how eccentric I was, despite being close to invisible compared to his crew.
That was the moment I fell in love with him. No words, no actions were needed to convince me he was anything but perfect for me. The best moment of my life.