Soul Swap!

The awful shocks all around

When they went downstairs for dinner, Jinks grinned widely at their friends and waved, which was out of character, but no one read much into it then.

Jinks sat down next to Rohit and Virat sat down across them.

"Where are Radhika and Aarya?" asked Jinks in an unusually cheerful voice, and Virat mentally lauded Jinks' acting.

Rohit looked a little thrown off-balance and he said, "They're in my room, since yours was locked. They're going to Radhika's uncle's house for the night."

"WHAT?" demanded Jinks in horror. "I thought they'll stay here!"

"Calm down, Jinks," said Virat, sounding amused. "It's not like they're going away permanently."

"No," wailed Jinks so loudly that every single person at the table stared at him in shock.

Jassi was the first one to recover.

"Are you all right, Jinks bhaiya?" he asked, concerned.

"Of course I am," said Jinks, annoyed. "I'm going to talk to Radhika."

With unusual purpose, he walked off to Rohit's room, leaving a silence behind him.

Virat wanted to laugh so badly at their friends' expressions, but he stopped himself with great difficulty.

"He's just overexcited as usual," said Virat.

"As usual?" echoed half the table.

Virat looked at them blankly.

They stared back at him blankly, and it quickly reached a deadlock.

Jinks didn't reappear at dinner, and when the team was passing Rohit's room after dinner, they saw Jinks throwing a Hardik-worthy tantrum of, "You can't leave just yet, Aarya just got here--are you mad--are you mad--"

Radhika looked in a state of complete shock, and so did the rest of the team when they saw Jinks.

Everyone seemed too stunned to speak; everyone except Virat, who walked over to Jinks and placed a placating hand on his shoulder.

"Jinks...it's ok, please calm down for a moment," he said soothingly.

Bhuvi stared at Virat, his mouth falling open.

"What?" asked Jinks ungraciously.

"Radhika wants to meet her uncle, you should let her. Her uncle would like to see Aarya too, you know, and now that they're in the same city, can you deny him that?"

"Virat," muttered Rohit in disbelief.

"All right," said Jinks grudgingly. "Bye Rad, bye, Aarya."

He stomped out of the room in annoyance.

"Jinks bhaiya," whispered Yuzi, staring after him in horror.

Virat turned to the dumbfounded Radhika and said, "Let me drop you there."

"Oh--thanks, Virat," said Radhika, relieved to see that his apparently suddenly-turned-unstable husband had such a sensible friend to take care of him.

So Virat, Radhika and Aarya walked out of the room, and the others collapsed on the bed, their hearts pounding hard.

What was the world coming to?

_____________

When Virat returned from dropping Radhika, Jaddu met him in the corridor outside Jinks' room in an extremely excited state.