Chapter 54: A Goal

“Oh…I see what happened there,” Aakash smirked knowingly. “Of course if you’re suggesting that we-

“I’m not suggesting anything!” Aanya smacked him. “And stop making that face, you annoying ass. I was telling you to ‘fuck off’.”

“You sureeeeeee? I mean your reaction-”

“You were the one who said ‘Let’s get right to it’ and made me misread the situation!”

“You’re blaming me now?” Aakash clicked his tongue. “I thought you were gonna say ‘fuck off’ in the sense that you were about to explain the event that happened back in Class 9th. That’s why I said we should get right to it.”

Spreading his arms, he shrugged, “It’s not my fault that you were actually thinking along another line and expected we were getting right into fuckin-”

Aanya raised another clenched fist with a done expression on her face and Aakash left it right there, choosing safety over smugness.

“Done joking?”

“Yes, yes. All done. We can get over this ‘fucking’ business now.”

“…”

“Sorry?’

Heaving a sigh, Aanya just stretched her body with a grimace on her face. “You aren’t joking about not remembering what happened?” There was a suspicious tone in her voice.

“I’m sure I wasn’t an uncultured lout.”

“Since when did not knowing slangs become uncultured? What a ‘progressive’ society we live in.” Aanya murmured eliciting a grin from Aakash. He concurred with the statement but shrugged mentally.

“Well, we did call those who didn’t use slangs or didn’t know about them as ‘pure idiots’.”

“What an interesting term.”

“Well, they were pure for not being ‘tainted’ but technically, being unaware and so goody two-shoes is pretty idiotic.”

“You were one of them till Class 9th.”

“…still don’t think so.”

“Maybe this will change your mind. It went something along these lines.” Aanya snorted and launched into the events of that day long past.

*****

“Get off of me, man! That’s part of my lunch!”

“What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is also mine! Give me that Chocopie!”

Swift as an arrow, the arm reached out over the boy’s shoulder while another pulled his head back to grab the treat right out of the lunchbox.

“Don’t be too sad, I’m leaving you your pasta, aren’t I?”

“You already ate half of it, Cabir, you glutton!”

“Now, don’t be such a crybaby, Harshil. Aakash always gives me his.”

“He always brings two! One for you!”

“You can do so too. Shut up.” Savouring the treat, Cabir took all the time in the world to eat it, gesturing how sweet it was to the fuming Harshil.

The four students near the two friends just concentrated on their food, too used to this familiar scene to even bother rolling their eyes.

“Hey, Harshil, pass me my water bottle, can you?” Aakash indicated as he wiped his hands on a tissue before rolling it along with the aluminium foil which had stored the food inside the lunch box.

As Harshil turned to grab the bottle, grumbling all the while, Aakash took aim and threw the aluminium ball at the dustbin.

The ball soared through the air but nobody would ever know if it could have gotten into the opening in the dustbin’s lid. A student ran through the area and out of the class and the ball harmlessly struck his side and bounced off.

“Oh, c’mon!”

“That’s not how you do it, Aakash! This is the correct way to do it!” Cabir hollered from behind.

Whisking away Harshil’s unattended lunch, the boy emptied the box in seconds before rolling the foil inside the box where the pasta had been moments before and threw it with impeccable aim. The ball flew and landed right in the bin.

“And that…is how you score a goal!”