Hi guys, I'm back with another two shots on Pranbir. Aman gave me the idea, so idea credit goes to Aman. Don't know what gibberish I have penned down. So please do comment and let me know. Stay safe everyone.
Locked in the library
Frustrated, Ranbir kicked the door to the library hard. He had almost succeeded in making Maya confess the truth and prove his innocence against her allegation. He had her under his thumb. That slippery eel of a woman escaped yet again.
Prachi sauntered out of the dark corner where she was hiding to record the confession of Maya. All their endeavours went up in smoke.
“Calm down, Ranbir.” Prachi placed a hand on his arm,understanding his frustration as she was experiencing the same emotion at that moment.
“ I was this close to making her blurt it all out. But she escaped yet again.” He stomped hard on the floor.
“Don’t lose hope Ranbir. We will have to keep trying till we succeed.” Prachi placated him.
Ranbir nodded grumpily and took a few steps away from the door. Sighing, Prachi meandered towards the door with the intention to leave.
“Let’s go, Ranbir.” As Prachi’s fingers wound around the latch, she turned to Ranbir.
Prachi pulled the door casually. It did not budge an inch. A slight frown creased her forehead. She pulled again and harder this time. It still did not produce the desired effect.
Bemused, Prachi tried for the third time but to no avail.Bafflement began to morph into consternation.
“What on earth is happening?” Prachi pulled the latch with all her might.
Prachi’s bewildered exclamation caused Ranbir to whirl around. He was instantly by her side.
“What’s wrong Prachi? Are you okay?” Ranbir was fretful.
The first thought that fleeted across his mind when he heard Prachi. Without him realizing, Prachi was swiftly becoming his first priority.
“Ranbir! I’m alright. But something happened to this blasted door. It’s not opening. What should we do now? Ranbir! Say something.” Prachi threw an exasperated look at the door and turned back to Ranbir.
Ranbir was utterly relieved to hear that she was fine. For a moment there he thought she had hurt herself somehow and the thought gave him a good fright. Then his brows furrowed as her words registered in his mind. The door got stuck!
He trotted off to the door and grabbing the latch, bent it down and pulled using his superior physical strength but the door refuted to succumb to his brawn.
Prachi, who had ambled up to him and was standing anxiously by his side, looked up at him. Her eyes were full of trepidation.
“What shall we do now Ranbir? I don’t want to stay here all night. Do something. Get the door open.” Prachi panicked.
“Prachi! Calm down! Calm down! At the moment we have to keep a cool head instead of panicking because panicking in this situation won’t get us anywhere.” Ranbir tried to pacify her.
But she was in no mood to listen to his platitude. Worry creasing her forehead, she began to pace up and down restively.
“Calm down? You are asking me to calm down? I can’t Ranbir. I want to go home. I want to get out of here. And instead of actually doing something, you are just wasting time on platitudes.” Prachi whined.
“Excuse me! Who do you think I am? The hulk? That I will snap the door like a match box?” Ranbir frowned at her in disbelief.
“I always knew you are of no use. You can only give lectures and be sarcastic. After all even that night when those goons attacked us, I was the one to save us.” Prachi glowered at him.
“What did you do? It was I who….” Ranbir stopped abruptly.
He was about to reveal what actually took place that night but stopped right in the nick of the time. She always looked so adorable when she boasted about her prowess as a fighter and reminded him time and again that it was ‘she’ who saved them that night. He just didn’t have the heart to rectify her. Nor would he do so now, even if that meant surrender. He was forever ready to accept defeat if she was his opponent.
That very thought doused the irritation that Prachi’s words had aroused.
“It was you who? What? What were you going to say?” Prachi stared at him suspiciously.
Ranbir grimaced. Why can’t he just think before blurting out everything in a feat of anger? Now that he had landed himself in such a situation, he needed to immediately invent some cock and bull story.
“It was I who encouraged you to fight them. Otherwise you couldn't have.” Ranbir sighed in relief as that was a very believable excuse and silently thanked his ability to think on his feet.
“Hawww! Ranbir! Now you are stealing the credit away? Okay,so you were the one who encouraged me to fight them. But still it was me who actually fought them off. So the credit goes to me. Okay, 90% credit goes to me and the rest 10% to you.” Prachi pouted childishly.
Ranbir beamed at the rare display of a naïve childlike nature buried under a lifetime of struggle and a drive to succeed.
“Thank you! Oh Goddess of generosity!” Ranbir chuckled.
“Are you poking fun at me?” Prachi glared at him with narrowed eyes.
“I wouldn’t dare.” Ranbir met her eyes with a straight face.
Prachi sauntered up to him and swatted him on the arm with a book she had grabbed along from a nearby table.
“Ow! Prachi!” Ranbir whined.
“Serves you right” Prachi smirked smugly
“Ranbir! We can do one thing! Off course! How can I forget?This is the era of technology.” Prachi began to fiddle with her phone with a buoyant smile.
However, Ranbir was not thrilled at the prospect of getting out as it was offering him the golden opportunity to spend more time with his lady love, away from all predicaments that life had thrown his way. He sighed resignedly, wistfully thinking how good it would have been had the blasted device been not invented at all.
It was almost as if someone up there was feeling extremely generous towards him, a moan of exasperation made him look towards Prachi who was shaking her phone.
“Look at this idiot phone! It had to die right now! No battery! Ugh!” Prachi was about to fling it away when Ranbir rescued the poor device from her death grip.
“No need to take your ire out on the poor device.” Ranbir rolled his eyes and then blinked as it appeared to him out of the blue that each of them was behaving like the other.
He was behaving in a calm and collected manner while Prachi was being the capricious one. The very though made him chuckle which enticed Prachi’s attention.
“What’s so funny?” Prachi stared at him, bemused.
“Did you notice that we are behaving like each other?”Ranbir wiggled his brows with an amused grin.
Prachi thought back to the past few minutes and began giggling as she realized that he was right, they were behaving like each other.
Her giggles subsided as worry replaced mirth. She stared back at the door with frustrated eyes and then at the phone clutched in her grip.Suddenly, her eyes lit up with hopeful expectation again as he looked up at Ranbir.
[Ican suggested this part. So thanks to Ican]
“Ranbir, you can call someone for help using your phone. Go ahead. Call someone to get us out of here.” She stared at him expectantly.
However, Ranbir was in no mood to let the opportunity to spend some time alone with her, away from all other concerns, slip out of his hand so easily.
“Oh! But I can’t, Prachi! I have left my phone in the car.Sorry.” Ranbir was praying fervently that his phone didn’t start ringing before he could put it on silent mode.
“Oh no! What should we do now?” Prachi’s sulkily meandered away.
Ranbir instantly excavated the phone out of his pocket and hastily texted to Aryan about Prachi being with him and that they were alright and asked him to inform Sahana too. Then he put his phone on silent mode and before Prachi turned back, replaced it swiftly in his pocket.
More relaxed than he had been in a while, Ranbir sauntered towards Prachi. Prachi looked up at him with wide, anxious eyes.
“Ranbir! Do we have to spend the night here?” Prachi glanced around the hall worriedly.
“Are you afraid, Prachi?” Ranbir raised his brows with an amused smirk.
“Afraid? Me? Never. I’m not afraid of anything.” Prachi met this amused gaze with narrowed eyes.
“Off course you are not. But what if…” Ranbir trailed away deliberately.
“What if?” Prachi prompted as he had expected her to.
“Soon it will be dark and the lights will go out. We will have only each other for company. We will only be able to look at each other's eye and nothing else. What if you fall in love with me while staring deep into my eyes?” Ranbir cornered her between a bookshelf and his body, placing two strong arms on either side of her, effectively caging her in.
His proximity was having a very queer effect on her. For some reason, the musky perfume of the cologne he was wearing was making her breathless and she was beginning to experience a strange fluttering sensation in her stomach. Her eyelids fluttered and lowered down over her eyes,concealing the tumult of raging emotions in them.
A gust of wind from a nearby window, which was left ajar,made the loose tendrils of her sleek, dark hair swept over his face, making him close his eyes. A strange mood got hold of him. He experienced some unnamed emotion smouldering within him that was dictating him to take her in his arms and kiss her senseless.
Unwilling to scare her away with the intensity of his raging emotions, he slowly backed away, freeing her from the prison his arms had formed.
Prachi looked up at him through a slow haze of confusion.Myriads of emotions chased each other in her beautiful eyes. For a moment there she had felt as if he was going to kiss her. Had it been just a figment of her overactive imagination? And why did the emotion she was experiencing at the moment feels too much like disappointment?
Out of the blue, a loud thud startled her out of her musings and sent her careening into Ranbir’s arms. As she tightened her grip, his arms tightened around her in response, pulling her even closer.
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