Behind the curtains

The Practice Session

In the morning, he received a reply from Mr. Tahir, but to his expectations the answer was no. According to Mr. Tahir, the list had been finalized and they couldn't change it now. If they had changed their pairs then everyone would ask him the same. Why is this thing happening to him? He thought in his mind .It was like he was running in a circle and all the distance he had covered the starting point was again waiting for him.

But after all this, he was getting late for college and he had to get ready for class, which was at 8 am. That day he arrived late for class but he was not alone; there were 20 to 30 students already waiting outside the lecture hall. His class was not a small one; there were about 300 students in it. The teacher had closed the door at 8:15 am and he was reaching there 5 minutes later. First that text in the morning and now standing outside the lecture hall, he was thinking that it would be one of his worst days because every day was bad for him.But the door was opened again and all the students went inside, marked their attendance and got seated. 'Finally a good thing happened today ' he thought in his mind.

After a 2 hour lecture, there was a break of half an hour. He was sitting comfortably on the chair watching some lectures on his mobile phone when he saw Aman coming towards him. Like always , he got perplexed in front of him. He didn't know whether it was love or something else, but he could not say anything properly in front of him. Love has strange effects. Seeing someone you always had a crush on always gets you confused, but in his case, he had gotten a recent proposal from him.

'Hi! What are you doing ? I want to discuss something with you,' Aman asked him.

'O hi! Nothing, just watching some lectures. You please go on' he replied.

'Bro! there is a world outside the books and also pay some head to it ' he told him with a broad smile on his face. And then he asked him a question: ' Are you okay with our pairing, I mean in the badminton tournament?'

' Yeah ! After all, you're my teacher of badminton. Why should I have any problem ' he lied effortlessly without knowing the thing that the person in front of him had already heard his heated conversation with his roommate.

' Well, then I think we should start some practice sessions after college. Which time will be better for this? Can we start it from today? Are you free?' Aman asked some questions again.

He was free that day but he needed some time to mentally prepare himself to confront him on a regular basis, so he replied, 'I think 5 pm will be best for it, but today I have to complete my project. We will start tomorrow. '

'Okay then , see you soon ' Aman turned back to his seat after saying this.

Omar had a sigh of relief.

After returning from college, he kept on thinking about how he would be able to face him. Will he be successful in controlling his nerves? Finally, he decided that he would not let his emotions control him, but he would control them.

So, finally, it was the day when they had to meet again. They could see each other in the class, but in the lecture hall full of 300 people, Omar could easily ignore him.

'Don't let your emotions control you' he was saying this line continuously in his mind. Ahmad was accompanying him, of course, he could not take the risk of meeting him alone. Also, there would be other students in the badminton courtyard. Both roommates reached the courtyard at exactly 5 pm. Aman and his friends were already there. Aman was wearing blue shorts with a black t-shirt and white joggers. After looking at him, he thought how could such a handsome person fall in love with me.

Both said hi to each other , made their teams and started practicing. During the whole time, he tried his best not to look in his eyes. There was a magic in those eyes that no one could resist.

During practice, Omar asked for water from Ahmad but they had run out of it as they had already finished it. Aman offered him his bottle, which he accepted immediately because he had to pretend that everything was okay between them. But when he was giving him his bottle back , their fingers touched each other. He could feel the spark, the spark about which Aman had told him. At that, he saw in his eyes there was something that was telling him continuously that he shouldn't do this to us. I will not break your heart. I will fix you. But Omar had yet to heal.And he was not letting anyone do it for him.

Their practice ended at 7:30 pm and then they all decided to go for dinner together, but Omar was not ready for that. He said sorry for this after giving a fake reason he created in his mind immediately after listening about it. He had become an expert at lying and giving fake but valid reasons for not doing anything. This practice continued for a week and every day he said sorry for dinner by making fake excuses like he had to go every day , work on a new project etc.

After that week, the actual matches started and their match was on the very first day. Aman wanted to win this tournament at any cost because he didn't want to lose the tag of the best player. Omar also wanted to win it because he didn't want to make Aman feel that they lost because of that taboo thing between them.