YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL (Completed)

part-14

**** YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL ****
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PART:- 14
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Manik is about to tell Nandu something, starting, “ Nandu, I… you…” But then, he’s interrupted by excited fans, who wave excitedly as they arrive in buses.
Manik is annoyed with the interruption, particularly since Nandini takes it as her cute to excuse herself. Explaining that she’ll act as though he’s just sending her off, she starts to leave.

He holds her back, saying, “Hear me out first.” Leaning in close, he says, “I like you.”

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Having gotten that out in the open, he lets her go, but now she’s so shocked that she stands in a daze. As the fan girls swarm around him, Nandini wonders if she heard right. She thinks, “I wish the world would quiet down so I can hear the soft words in my memory.”

She thinks back, confirming that he had indeed said those words, and suddenly the world around her is all roses and butterflies. LITERALLY.

As this finally sinks in, Nandini starts giggling out loud in glee, exultant. She doesn’t see Manik sitting in his car a short distance away, who smiles and says, “So she did hear me properly.”

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On the plane, Dhrov looks at the empty seat next to him and tells himself, “I knew she wouldn’t come. But since I told her that I’ve already begun [to have feelings], that’s enough.”

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Almost immediately, photos pop up online of Manik and Nandu at the airport. Aliya is annoyed — why would Manik go to the airport to see Nandu? — and displeased.
/

Manik gives Nandini a ride home. Nandini wonders how to handle herself around him, given his declaration: “Should I tell him that I heard him and give him permission too?”
However, she imagines him issuing a gruff response, and considers trying the opposite instead — she could say she didn’t hear what he said and ask him to repeat it. But she imagines him sneering at that, “You didn’t hear? Then cancel it!”

Nandini decides to accept his statement gratefully, and figures that she doesn’t need to hear him say it anyway, because “if I hear him say that he likes me again, my heart may burst.”

Manik breaks the silence by suggesting they grab something to eat, and asks if she likes spaghetti. Nandini hiccups. Puzzled, he repeats the question, and she hiccups again. Testing out a theory, Manik enunciates clearly, “Do you LIKE fish ? Do you LIKE Pizza  ? What about Pasta, do you LIKE it? I LIKE Pasta .” She hiccups every time he says the word LIKE.

He prods her to answer (which is his way of getting her to say she likes him back). Nandini answers, “I really, really like [it] very, very much.”

Pasta lunch. Nandini takes all the shrimp and crab off his plate because of his allergies, happy to eat them. When Manik tells her to give him two pieces in exchange for the ones she took, her face falls — she was counting on eating them. So Manik relents and tells her to eat them all, so as not to lose points. (“Why is it so tough to preserve my score?” he thought ..)

When Nandini brings up the issue of photos from the airport being made public, Manik answers that he’s not very worried. There’s nothing scandalous about him seeing her off, although he is aware that fans often create stories out of nothing. He adds (with a perfectly straight face), “There are a lot of love stories that don’t even feature women.”

He’s talking, yup, about fanfic. (I love it . he he he !) he explains, “Most of them are a love triangle between me, Dhrov, and Cabir.”

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LULZ! Imaginations run wild in his exaggerated examples: two hands cover Fanfic Manik’s eyes and he asks hopefully, “Dhrov?” The hands move aside to reveal a hurt Cabir, who says, “You’re always looking for Dhrov.” Holding Manik’s hand to his chest, Fanfic Cabir says, “You’re inside my heart.”
At that moment, a glass shatters — Fanfic Dhrov has walked in and seen this intimate moment. Angry at being thus replaced by Cabir, he vows, “I’m going to destroy you both!”