Agent 024

HANDLE YOURSELF OR NOT

"Surprise!", we all screamed as Aradhya removed Aviral's blindfold.

"Woah.", he said, his mouth hanging open.

"It was all Aradhya.", I said, pointing towards her.

"You're the best.", Aviral said, hugging Aradhya and lifting her up.

"The team helped too.", Aradhya said in mid-air.

"Not much.", Irrfan said.

"Yeah.", Roger and I agreed.

"Happy Birthday Aviral.", the chorus started and Aviral gave a flying kiss to the garden at large.

Typical Aviral.

We had sent out a general word that we were organizing a surprise party for Aviral in the fountain garden among his friend circles. The word had spread and turns out Aviral knew half the Academy. We were going to run out of the limited food we had prepared but Aradhya and Roger had arranged for an unlimited supply of drinks and no one cared for the food anyway.

"Happy Birthday.", I said, hugging Aviral as he finally got free from the crowd.

"You're my favorite, Tisha.", he said hugging me back.

"Half the girls present here are your favorite?", Irrfan taunted.

"Oh look who's back?", Aviral said with a grand smile.

"Happy birthday, man!", Irrfan said in a one sided hug.

Aviral reciprocated the gesture.

I shook my head. I was never going to understand the chemistry between these two.

"Shots it is.", I told Aviral dragging both the boys to the counter.

"Are you sure? The last time you said, you ended up kissing three guys within three hours.", Aviral reminded.

"I almost kissed two guys.", I corrected him.

"And I can handle myself.", I said crossing my arms as we reached as the bar we had set up.

"Or not.", he said, nodding pointedly at Irrfan before taking a shot.

"You're lucky it's your birthday today.", I said shooting him a death glare for the tenth time today.

Things were pretty sensitive and awkward around this topic between Irrfan and I. But trust Aviral to turn any awkward situation into fun.

"Common.", Irrfan said, taking me to the dance floor.

The alcohol had already hit me and I felt the spring in my step as I followed Irrfan to do the middle of the garden where people had already started dancing around the fountain.

"So tell me about your journey from here?", I said as we danced to the tune of perfect.

The universe had to play Ed Sheeran when Irrfan and I were dancing.

"I had to get out of the Academy. The incident-", he said taking a deep breath.

"Hey, you don't have to.", I said, pressing his shoulder.

I knew this was difficult terrain for Irrfan. For whatever reason, the incident had reminded Irrfan about a mission that had gone terribly wrong. And when you've tried escaping the pain of something by pretending it didn't happen, being thrown into its deja vu, devastated you.

"I want to.", he said, pulling me closer.

"The incident reminded me of my last mission, the one that I had lost a lot of myself in. I couldn't stay in the Academy any longer. I went to Gujarat. There's a monk sanctuary there. I went MIA, out of the radar and just lived there with the monks. Writing sufi songs by the day and singing them by night, under a starry sky, with the wind blowing against you, the fireflies in the distance and just peace around, you know?", he said.

I nodded. His face had glowed while describing that place. I couldn't wait to go there myself.

"That helped me calm things down. Put a lot of things in perspective. So I came back to resume field duty, but the psychologist won't pass me. So, I'm back, probably going to assist one of the professors till I can resume duty.", he said as he swirled me to the beat.

"So tell me about your journey, it got tough after the incident right?", he said.

"Yeah. Like I told you, with you gone and Abhay becoming distant, it was like losing two people at once, people who had become my support and I didn't realise how heavily I banked on you both till you were gone. And Priya got into a relationship with Prakhar so I hardly saw her around. And I didn't want to trouble her with my issues, you know? Prakhar made her happy and I kind of pushed her away to stop her willingly becoming a part of my gloom. She deserves to be happy. And Aradhya and Roger had an on and off thing going on, so they had their own stuff to worry about. And well you know Aviral, I mean the guy guesses everything on his own but there's only so much you can tell him without worrying that he'll split it all out as a party joke anytime. It's just that all of a sudden, I felt left out, I felt alone and yeah that sucked.", I said, all the while looking straight across me.

It had taken Doctor Kumari weeks to get this out of me. But with Irrfan, it felt only right and natural to tell him everything. And that scared me. Crushing on a guy, you knew wouldn't like you back was okay, but falling for a guy who already liked you, that was red flags for me. That was the panic button to run and keep running till you get out of there. The very idea of love, and spending your entire life with someone scared me. It felt claustrophobic and just to think of it would give me the scares.

"I understand. The incident shook you and you needed an anchor to support you as you treaded out of that storm. But at that very time, people you were closest to, you couldn't reach to them.", he said.

I nodded.

"But they're here now. They were always there, Tisha. It's not a weakness to let yourself some support once in a while. It's bravery beyond words to let someone see you vulnerable and trust them enough to bank on them. Becasue at the end of the day, we're all humans and we need a soul to bank on.", he said.

"Aren't you the philosopher today?", I asked as I smiled into his chest.

"Common.", Aviral said as he grabbed the whole team pulling us all into a big circle as the song Party All Night played. Trust Aviral to break up any intimate moment. For a guy, who was hell-bent on setting me up, he did one hell of a job of budging into every possibility of that and ruining it.

I laughed as the song played and we flexed our desi version to the beats of the song.