Conundrum 》ICT AU

-47-

"I would like a dozen roses, please." Virat said to the florist as the man packed up the flowers, wrapping the stems with brown paper and tying a bow around it.

"Any message?" The florist asked.

"Happy birthday to my one and only." He nodded, smiling as he payed for it and walked off with the roses, ecstatic with the purchase.

-

"Girl, what's up?" Ritika asked Anushka as she stormed into the bathroom, making Ritika leave her lipstick on the counter and rush to the stall. She knocked on the door and put her ear to the door - hearing a rustling noise.

"Are you okay?" Ritika knocked again, hearing a groan.

"I'm fine." Anushka grumbled out. "This bitch Shruti vomited on me. God, the audacity of this bitch." She continued as she heard Ritika burst into laughter, unable to process what was going on.

"Please tell me you tore a new one." Ritika gasped out, snickering quietly.

"I was about to, until Hardik came and took me away." She grumbled as she opened the door of the stall, watching Ritika look up and down at her before bursting into laughter, again.

"Yeah, yeah laugh it off." Anushka moved to the sink as she attempted to wipe off the dress with the many tissue papers that she could find. She finally gave up with a groan, throwing all the used tissue papers in the dustbin.

"Come on, let's take a selfie." She giggled, looking at the mirror. "I need to remember this night as the night that someone puked on the Anushka Sharma. Hey, where's your phone?"

"Oh, yeah." Anushka muttered. "Shit I left it on the bench!"

"Which bench, Nush?" She asked as Anushka ran out, the washroom door slamming behind her. She put her lipstick back in her clutch and ran after her, stopping at the last mirror to correct her lipstick before running out, slamming the door behind her.

In front of her, Anushka was speed walking towards the garden, pushing everyone in front of her in a hurry to get to her purse. She was sick with worry, remembering the fact that she had left it on the purse with Shruti, who was one of the suspects.

She stormed into the garden to find Jasprit and Shruti sobbing on each other kneeling on the ground, hugging. She looked around for her purse and found it on the bench but found her phone had been taken out of the purse. She quickly picked up the purse and took her phone - trying to switch it on but to no avail.

Behind her Ritika quickly came, stopping at the weird scene of Jasprit and Shruti kneeling on the grass. Behind her Gia came running, having seen the two walk fast towards the garden.

"What's happening there?" Gia pointed out standing close to Ritika as they both observed the crying couple when suddenly Anushka stormed in between the couple, shouting loudly.

"WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE TO MY PHONE?"

The couple broke apart, Shruti looking at Anushka with a horror struck look on her face. Noticing this, Ritika and Gia moved closer to the trio, looking at Anushka.

"Anu, what's wrong?" Gia asked, pondering.

"My phone was perfectly fine when I left this place. Tell me why when I come back, my purse looks like it's been fiddled with and you two -" She suddenly broke off as she pointed at the two of them. "Are crying hugging each other?"

"It's nothing, just some personal stuff." Jasprit looked at Anushka, standing up and helping Shruti stand up as well. "We'll go now."

"Jasprit, you do remember what we spoke about, right?" Ritika suddenly asked, looking pointedly at them. "If there's anything that's going to happen tonight, you better have taken care of it." She smirked, while the couple looked more and more guilty.