6 The scene at the Cafeteria

Wails could still be heard when Karan's lackeys who had surrounded Aditya to beat him up had to abandon their hitting plan and go help Karan get the hot soup off his face.

All the activity and disturbance in the cafeteria paused when students saw what had transpired. Yu Yan who had watched this from beginning giggled as she unconsciously held the back of Aditya's maroon cotton shirt.

Bhadra was still looking at the wailing figure of Karan with his mouth wide open as he thought "How much bad luck a guy had to have to suffer like that? Is this what they call 'Instant karma'?" he had not yet realized that it was not a coincidence.

Only Jatin who usually maintained a calm and indifferent personality was able to connect the dots as he was also very much interested in the potential of Aditya's super abilities.

"Young master Karan! Are you alright?" a sad shout rang out in the cafeteria as a fat figure 'bounced' towards Karan's table.

When Aditya saw the figure, he immediately understood why no one came to the rescue of Yu Yan when she was being bullied. It seems like today's duty of maintaining order in the cafeteria had fallen on 'fatty' Suresh who was a chemistry teacher in the school. He could compete for the most disliked teacher if there was a survey conducted among the students.

Suresh Chakraborthy AKA 'Fatty' Suresh was a lackey of Karan's father Govind Malhotra, the Administrative Dean. So he would always try to pamper and flatter Karan in all ways possible. Even if Karan asked him to set up meetings with some girls Aditya figured that Suresh would immediately comply because everyone knew compared Suresh sir's bootlicking skills, his teaching skills weren't noteworthy.

Suresh sir immediately fetched a bottle of cool water and poured them over Karan's face to wash off the remaining soup as he shouted for ice from the cafeteria's refrigerator.

"What an Idiot, doesn't he know applying ice will cause further damage to the burnt area and pouring water over the burnt skin is like practically injecting bacteria into the injury. What is this, if it isn't bad karma to have this fellow as our chemistry teacher." Bhadra was a chemistry maniac student, so he knew this basic stuff. Although Bhadra said all these points, he made no attempt to stop Suresh sir.

"Big Brother, you are so smart.", Yu Yan spoke as her eyes sparkled. Bhadra was embarrassed when this cute girl suddenly praised him, he rubbed his hair with his hand laughing foolishly as he said, "that is, that is"

Aditya who was watching the 'fire and rescue' show turned back his attention to the small girl who seems to have taken a liking for holding his shirt.

"Yu Yan, your name sounds like you are from China, are you alright?" Aditya asked the cute girl with a smile who looked like she was much younger than him. He always felt east Asian girls looked like dolls making them look cute.

Yu Yan who seemed to have forgotten that she was still holding onto Aditya, jumped in fright when she heard Aditya speaking to her suddenly, her face started turning red again as she looked at her own feet and not speaking up. She only nodded her head slightly.

Aditya was puzzled at her behaviour. When he wanted to confirm if she was feeling ill anywhere, Aditya noticed Jatin walking towards them while eating a burger looking at him like he was a piece put up for exhibition at the museum.

Jatin walked up to them as he lowered his head to look at Yu Yan and asked, "Yu Yan, I heard that they are very interesting meanings behind Chinese names, what does your name mean in Mandarin?"

Yu Yan raised her head as she sneaked a glance at Aditya as she muttered slowly, "My father was a fan of Chinese author Jin Yong, Yu Yan is the name of a female character in one of his books. Also, Yu Yan name is derived from the phrase 'Yu Xiao Yan Ran' which means that 'women who have beautiful smiles'."

Aditya nodded in understanding as he was also learning Mandarin as his foreign language, he could speak and understand a little bit of Mandarin. Jatin also nodded his head as he turned towards Bhadra who was watching 'Fatty' Suresh's 'first aid' with interest and said, "Bhadra don't you think Yu Yan does have the most beautiful smile?" but unknown to all people a burger shoot towards Aditya from his blind angle.

Aditya instinctively caught the burger with him facing the other side, only his left hand moved for a second before it returned to its original spot. Not even Yu Yan who actually had most of the attention on Aditya noticed anything different, she was also feeling happy that Jatin praised her name."

Aditya ate the remaining burger as he glared at Jatin while Jatin was having a cunning smile on his face as he chatted with Bhadra like nothing had happened. Aditya knew that this idiot Jatin at figured out that the soup splash was not a coincidence as he grudgingly took a large bite from the burger.

"Oh god, why can't I have friends who are like those in the novels, where even if the hero danced in front of his friends displaying all his powers, the friends would be ignorant till the very end until the hero took a 'special' class for them at a time convenient for him, to make them understand. Why did my friends have to be this intelligent?" Aditya complained in his mind.

Actually, any close buddies would usually be the first ones to notice if something were to change in one's life. Otherwise how could they call themselves best friends. Especially if Jatin was one of your best friends. Aditya prepared himself for another round of experimentation after the lunch break. He was once again feeling that sleeping by 6 pm was not bad.

"Aditya, how dare you hurt your fellow classmate so cruelly?" a shout rang as 'fatty' Suresh threw the blame on Aditya. Actually, Suresh was cursing his fortunes today as he was making plans to escape responsibility.

Suresh sir had already seen Yu Yan being bullied by Karan but chose to do nothing, when Aditya came to the defence of Yu Yan, he did not care much either as Aditya was only one while Karan had a whole gang with him. Suresh hated Aditya and Bhadra's group as Bhadra would always point out his mistakes in teaching in front of the whole class which made his life miserable.

Even if he had the support of Karan's father, he could not get away with poor knowledge, so if quite a few complaints were filed against him for his lack of teaching skills then no one could save him from being dismissed. So as the more Bhadra pointed out his inadequacies, the more the other students felt he was sub-par, so since Bhadra had started attending his classes, Suresh was forced to keep awake at nights to revise all the topics required for teaching the next day. Sometimes he would think that if he had studied so sincerely during his college days, he would have been working in top chemical industries like in petroleum industry earning 10 times as much as he was earning now.

Though Karan's father acted like he was very strict towards his son, Suresh knew that deep down, the administrative dean favoured and pampered Karan like no other father. Otherwise, how could Karan turn out like this? Now if he came to know that his beloved son was hurt under his watch, Suresh could only imagine the dire consequences. That is why he wanted to dump this tray on Aditya's head as soon as possible and get rid of all responsibilities.

Aditya snickered at 'Fatty' Suresh when he saw that he was being 'framed', though it was true that Aditya truly intended to teach Karan a lesson, he would never agree to it, he knew Jatin would not betray him. So, he had nothing to fear of any possible punishment.

He had no interest in bickering with Suresh sir as it would not help the matter in the least. He only raised his head and said, "Sir, why don't you let the disciplinary committee decide what happened, who was in the wrong and who was attacked? We have many eyewitnesses here, if not sufficient, we know that the cafeteria is under electronic surveillance. So I believe that everyone would want to know what had happened to the last minute detail."

"Also I think that Karan should have more problems to worry about other than these small scalding injuries. Right, Karan?" Aditya smiled as he pointed at Karan's lower abdominal place as he said, "I heard that when pustules form, it will be very painful even to urinate, you better get yourselves checked immediately. 'Better late than never' as they say."

'Fatty' Suresh was shocked when he heard Aditya's words. He also realized that he would not be able to cleanse himself from his negligence. he was now busy thinking of various explanation he could give to get away with minimum punishment like he had thought that it was a small scuffle or that the soup splash was actually an accident which caught everyone unaware.

Karan whose face was covered scalding red patches of mild burnt skin was staring at Aditya like he was going jump at him at any moment shuddered when he heard those words. He immediately called his lackeys as he rushed towards outside. He stared at Aditya and Yu Yan angrily while he crossed them at the entrance. Yu Yan promptly hid behind Aditya while poking her head from the side to see what's happening. Aditya was amused at her action as he rubbed her head picturing himself as an elder brother who was pampering his younger sister. Yu Yan was shocked at Aditya gesture but did not prevent him from doing so.

Jatin looked at these happening as leaned towards Bhadra and asked, " do you think what are the chances that we would get a Chinese sister-in-law?" Bhadra rolled his eyes as he said, "Can't you see that fellow is treating her like some little kid."

Jatin shrugged his shoulders as he muttered, "Well, little kids don't stay little forever, right?"

Seeing that the show was over, Aditya bid goodbye to Yu Yan while she thanked him in a barely audible voice and went back to their table to finish their lunch.

"Anu, Don't you think Aditya seemed to have changed," Kavya asked Anupama who was eating her lunch with concentration.

Anupama lifted her head as she looked at her best friend with big beautiful, honey brown eyes and nodded as she said, "Yes, I have also noticed."

Kavya was shocked at Anupama response as she felt that Anupama did not care about Aditya at all and ignored him for a year since he started pursuing her.

Her interest was piqued at Anupama's response, so she asked, "really, what difference did you notice?"

Anupama hesitated a little before she said, "he has stopped paying attention to me from the past few days."

Kavya rolled her eyes at her friend as she thought, "You also knew he was paying attention to you." actually Kavya who was the girlfriend of Bhadra liked Aditya as a person and her boyfriend's best friend. Mainly Aditya shared many similarities in his temperament with Bhadra, so Kavya had a good opinion on him. When Bhadra had told her last year that Aditya was crushing on Anupama, she had anticipated that later when Anupama accepted Aditya's pursuit, then they could go to all those lover's spots in Bangalore city together. Otherwise, usually, Bhadra had to divide his time to spend with his studies, her and his friends as Aditya could not be the third wheel accompanying them which would be awkward.

Kavya then asked, "then do you think Aditya should pay attention to you." she wanted to ascertain her friend's idea if possible.

"..."

Anupama did not answer and continued eating her lunch. Kavya sighed internally as she felt sometimes Anupama hid a lot of things in her heart and would not divulge them to anyone, not even to her best friend.

"Maybe Aditya felt that there was no use in spending time watching you anymore," Kavya said in a mild attempt to rattle Anupama.

Anupama paused eating for a while, before continuing as if nothing happened.