Chapter 3 You are a fool in love, aren't you

"And, what is this for?" I crossed my arms while glancing at the bowl of honey pistachio ice-cream lying in front of me on the table.

"It's my treat, for being the best fake girlfriend." Abhi said, playfully.

"As much as I want to say it wasn't needed, I won't. Cause it definitely was needed." I said before picking up the spoon. "Only I know how I tolerated you for two months!" I put a spoonful of ice cream in my mouth before savoring its taste.

"Come on," he sang making me narrow my eyes at him. "Admit it, you enjoyed hanging out with me. And I am damn sure you are gonna miss it." he leaned in a bit, teasing me.

"You wish." I scoffed but deep inside I knew he was right.

"Oh, pepper, it's okay. There's no need to be ashamed, I understand. As much as I would love to hangout with you, we can't do it." he whispered while glancing around, as if someone was eavesdropping. "In everyone's eyes, we have just broken up and, Shagun, thinks that you still love me. So it would be weird, for them."

I scoffed. "As if. Don't hype yourself. And stop calling me that!" I exclaimed. "I'm not your girlfriend anymore."

"It's a habit, okay. It takes time to lose it." he said before putting a spoonful of his ice cream in his mouth.

In the long list of the most annoying things about Abhi, being a sweet tooth would be on top. Now you must be thinking that it's not that annoying. Yeah I know, and you are right. Its not annoying that he has a sweet tooth, but the fact that even after all that sugar intake he effortlessly manages to stay so fit -more than fit actually- is annoying. I'm so envious.

He literally has tried every ice-cream flavor available in the ice-cream parlors of this town. Like literally. And out of all the ice-cream flavors available in this restaurant, his favorite is the Marzipan Maraschino Cherry Ice Cream (I can't even pronounce it right,) which is what he is having right now.

I rolled my eyes. "Why did you even give it to me in the first place?"

"Then what should have I called you? Who was gonna believe that you are my girlfriend if I didn't even give you a cute nickname?" he licked the ice cream off of the back of the spoon.

"Cute?"

"To me, it is." he shrugged and I sighed, shaking my head.

I eyed the imbecile creature sitting across me, enjoying his ice cream. I didn't even realize when this dumbhead became so close to me. I don't get along with people very often and the last person I expected to get along with, was him. I was rather surprised when I realized he knew my name.

If someone saw the way I treated him, they would think of me as a fool. But I never thought of Abhi as the football star or the chess champion of the school, I always treated him as a friend.

Abhimanyu Sinha is perfect. Well, at least that's what half the population of this school thinks(mostly girls). But I didn't, and I still don't. But still, I feel he is the type of guy every girl would want to be with. He is good looking, smart, funny, popular, understanding. And unlike other popular guys of this school, he treats people nicely. But I won't lie, he does gets a bit over dramatic sometimes, but you would still find yourself wanting to hangout with him.

The table vibrated bringing me back to reality.

"Shoot!" Abhi sighed glancing over at his phone. "I had to take, Shagun, shopping," he chewed his lower lip, pondering. I guess he didn't want to leave. He put a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth before standing up.

He picked his bag and hung it over his right shoulder before picking his bowl of ice cream. "See you later, pep--" he paused as I glared at him. "Fake girlfriend?" he pointed at me, correcting himself. "Bye, fake girlfriend." he waved at me, flashing his irritating smile and I felt like punching him in the face.

"Fake girlfriend?" our body froze upon hearing that voice. Slowly, we turned our heads towards the source of the voice and found Harpreet and Palak staring at us with confused expression on their faces. Well, only on Harpreet's face. Palak's face was as usual, emotionless.

"Pepper would have been better." I heard Abhi murmur under his breath.

Harpreet glanced between me and Abhi. He forced a smile before looking at me. "You take care of them. I'll take my leave, bye."

"Hey," he greeted them awkwardly as he walked past them.

Harpreet looked back at me before saying, "What the hell was that? Fake girlfriend?" they were now standing in front of my table.

"That, is what I wanted to tell you," I smiled nervously.

She crossed her arms. "When?"

"Now,"

"Then go ahead,"

"Okay, please sit down." I gestured to the empty seats. They glanced at each other before complying.

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"Hey, did you see?" the girl sitting behind me whispered to her seat partner.

"What?" the other girl spoke in a not so interested tone.

"Abimanyu, just complimented, Aashna, for her hair in the hallway." my body halted at the mention of my name.

But before the other girl could say anything, I heard Shagun exclaim. "What?"

I slowly turned my body to find Shagun standing behind me, staring at me like she was trying to figure out something.

I looked away as I felt a bit judged under her stare. You don't want to get on the bad side of Shagun. Why? Well, for starters she is the most popular and the meanest girl of our class. She loves to see people get humiliated and will do anything to get what she wants. She often reminds me of my cousin who is a lot like her, just a little bit extra bitchy. You'll meet her soon.

"Yes. Isn't it hilarious? Your hair looks far more better than her's." the girl told Shagun, trying to get on her good side.

I could feel them scrutinizing my hair from behind.

"Maths homework notebook?" I heard someone say and when I looked up, I caught an angry Shagun throwing daggers at me with her eyes.

'Shit, I guess I'm in trouble.' I thought.

I handed her my Maths homework notebook which she was incharge of collecting and looked away quickly, feeling intimated by her.

"It's not my fault," I mumbled to myself when Shagun moved away from my seat.

I thought about Abhimanyu. I wondered about why the hell did he have to compliment me. There was nothing special about my hair today. And this wasn't me criticising myself, there literally wasn't anything special. My black hair was as usual tied up in a plait, just like every other girl in this school (except for the ones with short hair).

Shaking the thought out of my head, I decided to go back to study. I opened my maths textbook and went to the page that our maths teacher had asked us to. Suddenly, the whole class fell silent making me look up in confusion.

"May I come in, sir?" I found Abhimanyu standing at the door. Abhimanyu Sinha is a class senior than us. And there are only very few occasions when he visits our class. I looked around as the whole class gazed at Abhimanyu.

'They treat him like he is a king of somewhere. Morons!' I thought.

Rolling my eyes at the whole class, I grabbed my water bottle from the table. The water was still in my mouth making my face look like a monkey's when the teacher, Mr. Sharma and Abhimanyu, both looked at me.

"Aashna, principal sir, wants to see you." Mr. Sharma said to me. I gulped the water down my throat quickly.

"Me! Why?" I asked the teacher.

"Don't know. But just because the principal wants to see you doesn't always mean it's for a bad reason." Abhi said and I felt a bit relieved.

Abhi followed me as we walked down the hallway. I don't know why he was walking behind me when he could simply just walk with me. We were walking down a quiet and empty hallway when Abhi spoke. "Your laces,"

"Huh?" I asked, clueless. He motioned towards my shoes. "Oh," I murmured, looking down at the same.

I bent down to tie my lace and when I stood up I realized Abhi was gone. I looked around in confusion before calling out his name, but he was nowhere to be found.

'Where did he go?' I thought.

As I was about to turn, I felt a hand on my wrist, pulling me inside an empty and dark classroom. Everything happened so fast that I didn't even get to react. I felt relieved when I realized that it was none other than Abhimanyu himself.

"What the hell, Abhimanyu?"

He closed the door. "Relax, I just need to talk to you."

"Then, do it like us humans. You scared me," I said.

"Sorry, I just wanted to make it a little dramatic." he smiled.

'Is he crazy?' I thought.

"Whatever." I shook my head. "Just be quick, before principal sir starts announcing my name on the PA." I turned around, crossing my arms.

"He won't," I smiled cheekily.

"And how do you know?" I turned around to face him. "Wait, did you lie?"

"Congrats on your first light bulb moment," he said sarcastically.

I stared at him with gritted teeth. I swear if he wasn't so good looking, I would have punched him by now. "Whatever. Tell me, what is so important that you couldn't even wait till lunchtime?"

"Umm... I, heard that you are moving away," he crossed his arms.

"Yes?"

"When?"

"Obviously, at the end of the semester."

"It means you are here for another 3 months, right?"

"Yeah. What do you want?," I said, trying to understand what he was trying to say.

"So, would you like to do a favor on someone before you leave? I mean, would you like to become someone's cupid?" he hesitated.

"Can you please get to the point?" I said, feeling a bit irritated.

"Okay, here's the thing, I'm sure you must have heard about mine and, Shagun's, break up?"

"Yeah, I heard she left you because you are too over dramatic." I said trying hard not to smile.

It was a lie. I hadn't heard about his break up. I was just trying to mess with him. His face went flat. "Moving on," he raised his eyebrows and I found myself smiling at the way he dodged my remark.

"I like, Shagun, and she likes me too, but she just needs, a little push, you know,"

"Okay, but why are you telling this to me?"

"I am asking you to be my fake girlfriend,"

"What?!" I yelled.

"Lower your voice, we'll get caught!" he whisper yelled at me.

"Are you crazy? Do you even know what, Shagun, will do to me? She was throwing daggers at me with her eyes today, just because you complimented me! As if that's my fault." I explained.

"Exactly! See, she reacted like that because she still likes me! A few times she sees us hanging out together and, boom, she's gonna come back to me," He said, like he was some kind of genius and had come up with a very original idea.

"Were you always like this or did you just fell down the bed today?" I said, narrowing my eyes at him.

"I know I sound crazy but please help me. I can't ask anyone else, they all have a crush on me and I don't wanna hurt anyone's feelings. But you are different, and plus you are moving away so we can make that a reason for our break up." he pushed.

I stared at him for a moment. The idea of dating the most popular guy in school did seem exciting even if it was just for show. And also I couldn't help but notice that he called me different.

"And what makes you think that I'm going to help you?" I said.

"Because..... you are a very helpful person," I blinked. Seriously, that was the lamest reason I have ever heard.

"I'm leaving," I said while starting to walk away.

"Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait!" he held me by my upper arm. When I turned my head, I realized how close we were but this did not seem to bother him as he kept staring at me with those pleading eyes. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

For some reason, I eyed his face. "What can you do for me?"

"Anything... valid." he whispered. I stared at him, half expecting for wind to blow suddenly out of nowhere, making my hair dance in slow motion.

"You are that desperate?" I questioned.

"I love her,"

"You are a fool in love, aren't you?" I slowly freed myself from his grip and backed away. "Meet me at the Salt & Pepper Café. 4 o'clock."

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"What did you make him do?" Harpreet inquired.

"Nothing. I had my own motive."

"What?" I stared at her hesitantly.

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