Sanjana's POV:

I quickly dressed in the first outfit I found in my wardrobe. As I was going out my friends blocked my path looking at me from head to toe.



"Miss Sanjana Saxena, where the fuck do you think you are going at this hour?", shouted Tara examining me and making me nervous.

I told them that Akshath was waiting downstairs and would take me for dinner. They looked at me as if I had grown two heads.

They looked outside and found him waiting for me.

"And why are you going out with that Khadoos?", asked Piggy giving him a new nickname. "He asked me to join him for dinner as I gifted him a painting",  I replied to my friends. "Oh the same painting you worked on over this weekend?", asked Sam raising an eyebrow and I nodded. 

"Okay, give me his mobile number so that we can call him if you are late and keep it as a backup", said Tara and I handed them his mobile number and went downstairs.

He looks handsome leaning against the Car. Oh my god, what was I even thinking complimenting him? No Sanjana you cannot do it. I told myself and sat beside him in the car.

We reached a small diner where a middle-aged man greeted us. We sat in a corner and the diner looks very cosy and warm. "Akshath beta, it's been so long since you visited us. You forgot me?", asked the man. "It's nothing like that Ramu kaka (Uncle), I was just busy with work", replied Akshath.

In the past few days, I came to know a lot about Akshath through newspapers, gossip, and social media accounts created by our campus students unofficially. He is a man of few words and does not entertain anyone. So him taking me out for dinner is quite surprising. But you liked it mocked my subconscious.

Ramu uncle came back to take our orders. "Akshath beta, do you want to have your usual?", Uncle asked him. He did not say anything and forwarded the menu to me. As usual, my food fever took over and I ordered almost all the items that I found interesting and new from the menu.  

My order arrived and I saw that Akshath did not order anything. I asked him if he wanted anything and he did not answer. So I forwarded my least favorite dishes on the table to him and he started eating. After tasting all the delicious dishes, I was quite full. And I saw that plenty of dishes were remaining on the table.

I looked at Akshath and he was looking right back at me. I requested him to complete the remaining food and he just nodded and started to eat all the leftover food. He asked Ramu uncle to pack the leftover food and ordered some takeout as well.

In the car, while we were heading back to dorm, I asked him why he did not order the food. "I know that you cannot complete all the dishes", he answered my question in a single sentence. So he already knew that I would ask him to complete the leftover dishes so that is why he did not order food for himself. I smiled internally knowing that he actually cares and understands me enough.

The car stopped and I turned towards him "That was one of the best dinners I had in a while. Thank you for treating me. I will also try to take you somewhere", I told him and got out of the car and headed to my dorm room.

Author's POV:

Jay received a message from Ramu Kaka asking if Akshath had a girlfriend. Jay got confused and showed it to the boys. They called Ramu Kaka and came to know that Akshath had a date with a girl. 

All the guys were shocked as they were trying to set up Akshath with Sanjana. They asked Ramu Kaka to describe the girl and the description matched Sanjana's picture-perfect image. 

As they disconnected the call, they saw Akshath parking his Car and entering the apartment. 

"So we heard a lover boy going out on a date with certain someone", said Pranay smirking at Akshath. "It was Sanjana", he replied in a short sentence and placed the take-outs that he bought from the diner in front of them and left to his room.

All the boys hooted and cheered as they saw Akshath warming up to a girl for the very first time considering his not so great history with the girls. He never took the initiative to take anyone out and girls are definitely out of his syllabus. 

Akshath entered his room and started thinking about her. He did not understand why he took her out and why his heart wanted to be near her, Maybe he found comfort in her words? maybe she understood him better? or maybe he did not have to wear a mask around her.

Her words, her fragrance, her beauty, her smile, her habits, and her innocence are overwhelming him and he is ready to drown in them.  He started to think that he did not feel this way when he saw her for the first time. Infact he hated her and thought she just dumb and pretty. But she proved him wrong and started entering his comfort zone.

He retired to sleep with her thoughts.

(Next day - Tuesday)

Akshath did not attend college as he wanted to spend some time with himself. He bought a music studio nearby when he came to know that his grandpa bought the apartment. After his friends left for college, he went to the music studio.



Music Studio

Today morning when he woke up his brain instantly thought about Sanjana. He did not understand what he was feeling and all these strong emotions towards her were keeping him on the edge. He did not like her overpowering his senses and wanted to get rid of it. So he decided to avoid her by not attending the classes.

He spent 4 hours perfecting the lyrics that he had already written and started jamming. He recorded the song and composed his own music. He later posted his song on the website and a few other streaming platforms without revealing his real name but under a fake account called  "Anonymously_yours".  He has 5 million subscribers. He does not make songs for his audience. He just make them when he feels like it.

He ordered takeout in the afternoon and returned to his apartment in the evening only to greeted by 3 pairs of questioning eyes.

"Where the hell were you Akshath? Where the fuck is your damn phone? We were so worried, you should have at least left a message", shouted Karthik looking at Akshath. "I was in my music studio", saying this he went to his room and started working on business files.

All the guys have been worried since he did not attend the university today. They tried calling him multiple times or even track him but his mobile was switched off. So Jay returned to the apartment during lunch break to check on Akshath but he did not find him in the apartment.

They all silently retired to their rooms as it would be no use talking to him right now.

Sanjana wanted to see Akshath this morning. She has this giddy feeling inside her stomach. Maybe it was because he took her out last night? She quickly got ready and left for college with her friends.

She came to know that Akshath did not come to college and their friends were worried about him. During lunch, the guys did not eat well. Even Pranay and Karthik who usually fight over food, ate small portions. Jay was not even present during lunch.

She knew something was wrong as they were not talking anything related to Akshath.

Throughout the day she wanted to call him or even text him but her introverted self did not let her thinking he might not appreciate the gesture. She restrained herself multiple times.

In the evening she returned to her dorm room. Tara and Sam were busy with their projects in the library while Sanjana's team had already completed it on Monday. Piggy was having a video chat with her family in the corridor.

She finally mustered up the courage and texted him. "Are you home?"

She did not get any reply from him and she started to overthink everything and scolded herself. She kept her phone away to avoid checking it multiple times.

She wanted to distract herself and started with a new painting. In the meanwhile her friends returned and it was already time for dinner.

After coming back from dinner, she checked her phone hesitantly. True to her surprise she got a message from him with a simple "s" that too a lowercase letter.

She did not like his attitude and decided that she would not message him again.

Here Akshath was waiting for her reply as it shows that she has read his earlier message. He waited for a few more minutes and kept his phone aside deciding he would avoid her as she was messing with his brain.

Both of them retired back to sleep with each other's thoughts.

(Wednesday)

Akshath avoided Sanjana at all costs. He avoided looking at her in the classes. And during lunch, he did not even glance in her direction. His friends observed this but stayed silent.

By the end of the day, his math professor asked Akshath to meet him in the staff room.

After meeting the professor and talking to him about a few problems that the professor wants Akshath to solve in a different method, he started walking towards the parking lot.

He then saw a group of people surrounding a girl. He was not the person to get involved in any drama  but something about the scene pulled him towards the girl. 

Soon enough he saw Sanjana being surrounded by the same seniors who asked her number. Anger overtook him as he saw that she was on the verge of crying.

But he has to deal with seniors in a calm and composed manner as fighting them wouldn't be in his favour, not at least now. He slowly went into the group and stood beside her.

"Who do you think you are?  standing in the middle of the group beside the girl. Do you think you are her saviour?", seniors questioned Akshath pointing a finger at him.

"Professors are leaving from the staff room and if they see you guys ragging her, you guys will be in a huge mess", threatened Akshath.

Seniors looked at each other's faces and gave a warning to her and left from there.

He took her hand, led her toward his car and took her to an ice cream parlour. Earlier he had observed that she likes brownie ice cream when Pranay bought her one.

He made her sit at a table and ordered her favourite ice cream and asked her what happened. She completely ignored him savouring her favourite snack.

He felt jealous of the ice cream and snatched it from her and took a bite out of it. She looked at him and the ice cream in his hand. Her lips wobbled and soon tears started to form in her eyes.

He looked shocked and immediately placed the ice cream in front of her and she started munching on it happily as if she was not crying seconds ago. He did not understand her mood swings and waited until she finished her ice cream.

After finishing the snack she got up, went out, and sat inside Akshath's car. He was surprised by her behaviour again. He soon followed her to his car.

He asked her one last time about what happened. "I was going to my dorms as usual then the seniors stopped me as Ankit (her senior) wanted my number. I told him that I did not have a mobile phone. Tara once told me to not give my number to anyone and if they insisted, she asked me to lie to them about not having a phone. I did the same thing not wanting to circulate my number in our campus.

He did not believe me and wanted to check my bag. I did not bring my mobile phone today and kept it in the dorm itself. He checked the bag and did not find any, so he wanted to...", She hesitated and he nodded asking her to continue. "He wanted to check my pant pockets", she completed the sentence with embarrassment in her tone.

Akshath's blood boiled listening to this. He fisted his hands until his knuckles turned white. He was furious and did not like them treating her this way. And then she started crying again.

"Why are you crying now", Akshath asked looking at her bewildered as he did not know how to console her. "You avoided me and did not talk to me today. You are a bad person. Is it because I eat a lot of food that you did not talk to me?", she asked looking at him with innocence and puppy eyes.

She started crying again and Akshath rubbed his forehead and asked her why she was crying this time. "I used a curse word that I did not want to use", she replied. " what is the curse word", he asked patiently looking at her. "I called you a bad person, I am sorry", she apologized instantly.

Akshath was amused as she was such a cute mess. She thought that "bad person" was a curse word. Oh baby you do not even know how many dirty words I can sprout in a single day. He thought to himself.

He stopped the car at her dorms. "I avoided you that's true but not because you eat a lot of food", he answered looking at her.

"Did I do something to offend you?", she questioned and he shook his head negatively and told her "It's just me", saying this he dropped her and went off.

She understood that he was afraid of getting close to her. But she did not want to help him in this as he has to over come this on his own. 

She went to her dorm and completed her day with assignments, video calls, and a lot of chit-chatting with her friends.

In the meanwhile Akshath decided that he will stop avoiding her as she is overly sensitive and thinking that he was avoiding her as she eats a lot of food. He doesn't want her to think that way.

With these thoughts, both retired back to sleep.

Or maybe still awake in each other's thoughts?

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