NOT EDITED

Nandini and Navya made their way through the corridor towards the room at the end of the corridor. They reached the room and Nandini put her hand on the door handle to open it before looking at the plate hanging above the door. 'Store Room', it said. She pushed the door open and stepped inside, Navya just behind her. She was surprised with what she saw next.

The usually dirty and cramped room was looking relatively cleaner and the middle of the room had been cleaned and musical instruments had been set up. Aryaman was there on the drums, Alya on the keyboard and Dhruv and Mukti on their electronic guitars. As these two enter the room, they looked up and saw them looking back at them with surprise in their eyes. Aryaman grinned at them and said, 'Hello beauties! Come inside. Welcome to the new Fab 5 jam room.'

'Jam room!', Nandini and Navya blurted out in shock. Mukti smirked at their reaction and said, 'Yes darling. Jam room. And that bloody Maddy can't make us leave this room. We can practice here whenever and for as long as we want.' Mukti finished talking with a drum roll from Aryaman for effect. All the friends burst out laughing at their dramatics.

Upon calming down, Navya praised their presence of mind saying, 'Wow guys! This is amazing! I am super impressed. Now stupid Madhyam won't be able to do anything.' Nandini agreed with her saying, 'Yes! I am so happy! By the way, whose idea was this?' She looked at her friends expectantly for an answer. In response, all of them pointed towards Alya who gave them a small shy smile.

Nandini happily praised her and said, 'Wow Alya! This was such an amazing idea!' Alya smiled and said, 'Thanks. But, now calm down. It is not very great.'

Navya suddenly spoke up, 'Why didn't you all call us earlier. Do you have any idea how worried we were. You all weren't in the jam room and on top of that, that Madhyam. He...'

She was interrupted in her rant by an angry looking Mukti, 'What about him? What did he do now?' Mukti roared. Navya narrated the entire incident that happened between Nandini and Madhyam. By the end of it, Mukti was ready to crack a few bones, preferably of a certain arrogant little jerk.

If Aryaman and Dhruv hadn't held her back, she would have been off on her mission. They calmed her down somehow. When she agreed not to go off on a murdering spree, they finally left her. Remembering something, Aryaman turned to Nandini and said, 'This reminds me, why did you cut my call and then switched off your phone afterwards?'

Nandini recalled getting the call from the unknown number again and then when her phone had rung the second time, she had simply switched off her phone. She then realised that she was so caught up in the moment that she hadn't even bothered seeing who was calling her the second time. So it was Aryaman and not the mysterious caller.

Remembering that her phone was still switched off, she took it out and pressed the power button. While it switched on, she turned towards Aryaman who was still looking at her waiting for her answer. She briefly told him about what happened and he immediately became worried. He said, 'Now this is not good. It is getting creepier by the minute. I think we need to get the police involved. What if it is some crazy stalker? This might get out of hand easily.'

Seeing him getting so hyper, Nandini spoke up, 'Calm down! Stop getting so worked up. This isn't such a big of an issue. That person hasn't even done anything. Let's wait for some time, if I sense any trouble, we can approach the police.'

Hearing this Mukti snorted and said, 'Your "trouble" sensor is clearly broken. Once in the past, you almost got killed because you couldn't sense the trouble till the last moment. Remember Soha?' Immediately after the last sentence left her mouth, her eyes widened in realization of what she just spoke. As if on cue, eveyone looked towards Aryaman who was simply staring down at the ground with an unreadable expression. What was that? Guilt? Anger? Regret? Disappointment?

To Nandini, his expression was a mixture of all these emotions. Mukti was looking very guilty for bringing up Soha in the conversation. She could only imagine what Aryaman would be feeling at that time. She looked towards Nandini and pleaded her with her eyes to talk to him.

Nandini blinked at her and turned towards Aryaman. She took a few steps towards him and stopped just in front of him. 'Aryaman,' she said. At first he gave no response but then he raised his head and gave her a small sad smile. 

Nandini exchanged a look with Mukti. Mukti stepped forward and keeping a hand on his shoulder, said, 'Aryaman listen to me. Look I'm sorry!! I didn't mean to hurt you, you know that!! I'm really sorry.' 

Aryaman shook his head and looked at her with a small smile. He said, 'You don't have to be sorry. I know what my sister did and I know what you meant. Me and my sister have been the ones hurting you all. I should be saying sorry, not you Mukti. What you said is absolutely right.'

Nandini looked at him in disbelief and started scolding him, 'How dare you think like this? And that too, after all this time. Whatever happened was in the past and it cannot be changed, So, then what is the point of dwelling in the past. What has happened has happened, nothing can be done about it. We don't think about it, so it would be best if you too stop thinking about it. Do you understand?' She asked him with a stern expression.

Aryaman was a bit taken aback by her serious demeanour but he just nodded his head in response to her question. Seeing his reaction, Nandini's stern expression fell and it was replaced with a mischievous smile. She pinched his cheeks and said, 'Aww! Look at you! You look so scared! This is so funny!' Saying this she started laughing. It took a few moments for the rest to realise that she wasn't actually angry. A smile crept up everyone's face. Even Aryaman gave a small chuckle looking at her expressions.

Nandini calmed down and looked at her friends. She then said to Aryaman, 'All the people you are seeing here, in this room have made mistakes. Nobody is perfect. We all have hurt each other at some point in our lives. But that doesn't mean that we are not friends. Everybody makes mistakes and we learn from them. We grow because of those mistakes. Everyone deserves a second chance. When we got it, why not you? Why are you being so hard on yourself? Nobody here has any grudges against you. So, just let that guilt go. OK?'

Aryaman simply smiled and nodded at her. Seeing the emotional atmosphere, Navya decided to break it. Hence, she shouted, 'Time for a group hug. Come on everyone!' All of them laughed and joined in the hug.

The hug lasted for a few moments. Then Aryaman broke the hug saying, 'Enough now. Time to go back to practice.' All of them went back to their places and continued the practice. As Nandini watched them practice, she couldn't help but miss Manik even more. But she successfully hid it from everyone.

After two hours of practice, they took a break. Suddenly, her phone started ringing. She looked at it and sure enough, there was an unknown number flashing on the screen. The phone's ringing had captured the attention of everyone in the room. She looked towards her friends and said,'Unknown Number.'

Everyone suddenly became alert. Nandini picked up the call and brought the phone to her ear. She spoke in the phone, 'Hello.' As expected, there was no reply from the other side. Being frustrated, she said, 'If you don't speak up right now, I will block your number and report you to the police.'

Contrary to what she thought, a voice spoke up, 'No don't.' The familiarity of the voice froze her actions for a few seconds. While the other end went silent once again. Then she heard him mutter, 'Shit,' and the line went dead.

All she could think of was the voice and the only person to whom it could belong.

'Manik,' she whispered.

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I will accept all your eggs, tomatoes and chappals. I won't be surprised if you have already forgotten what was there in the last chapters. I know I am very late. No excuses. But I will try to be regular from now.

Now, about today's update. Too much drama happening. I know. But I hadn't planned this chapter. I just went with the flow and wrote whatever came to my mind. I have absolutely no idea what was I even thinking while writing this. Earlier, this chapter was very small and then as I was writing, it became this length.

Anyways, vote and comment if you guys like it.