We're friends, right?

"You're not serious, are you?" Anuj asked while casually turning the pages of The Quantum Theory by Alex Rook.

"What if I say I am?" Anushka questioned in reply. She entwined her curls between her fingers as she looked out of the window.

"Ah! Let me guess. He reads 5 point someone, listens to Beiber and wears I'm-so-kewl band around his wrist," teased Anuj.

"Shut up! He's nothing of that sort. And how come you're mocking him when you haven't dated any better yourself. Remember Miss Page 3? Or, forgotten about already?" smirked Anushka which visibly irritated Anuj. He never liked the mention of any of his exes. He wasn't the kind of person who entertained memories of the past.

"He's into Poetry. A big fan of Edgar Allan Poe. Also, he's got such an impeccable taste in music. I happened to be at the College Auditorium where he effortlessly played Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight. Everybody was so awed by the end of it. But you know the best part of all this? He's amazingly grounded. None of that I'm-so-popular swag. It's like he knows he's kind of a phenomenon in the college and yet he's so rooted," Anushka said in a single breathe. Anuj could sense the magnitude of her keenness by the way she smiled while talking about him. He had never seen her like that before. Sure, she did beam whenever she happened to talk about any of her crushes but he could tell it was something different this time. She was smitten hard. And Anuj couldn't understand why but it pained him somewhere. He put his book down and fixed his gaze solely on his best friend now.

Anuj and Anushka had been the best of friends for so long that now they did not even remember what it meant being without each other. Nothing could keep them from sharing things about each another. At times, they shared their silence too. Their relationship stood the the test against envy of their respective exes. In the brief time that she spoke about the new crush of hers, it grieved for Anuj to know that someday he might just have to let Anushka go. He could not fathom what it would mean to lose her — his best and only friend.

"Well, what about him? Any sign he's interested?" Anuj asked keeping his tone normal while a storm seethed inside him. He was hoping for a negative answer.

"We did have a chat on Facebook the other day. He's asked me if I could show him around a bit since he's new here and doesn't know a lot of people. Good thing Apoorv had already introduced us to each other on his first day here. Let's see what happens next. I honestly have no idea," Anushka said as she clubbed her loose hair into a bun while Anuj sheepishly watched her so as not to catch her attention.

"So, what do you think? Will it work between the two of us?" Anushka asked her best friend.

'I hope not,' said a voice inside his head somewhere. "No harm trying," Anuj managed to say.

"Anyway, I'm not pinning my hopes much. Don't want to be a stupid fangirl. You'd tell me when I start behaving like one, wouldn't you? We're friends, right?" asked Anushka as she got up to leave.

"We're friends. Yeah, right. We're friends." said Anuj like he was in trance.

Anushka grabbed her bag, waved goodbye to a lost Anuj and made her way out of the empty classroom. "We're friends," Anuj kept repeating under his breath while he watched her go.