Cries: "Absolutely!," hugging couple of students (5)
I believe the answer is:
yells
'cries' is the definition.
('yell' can be a synonym of 'cry')
'absolutely hugging couple of students' is the wordplay.
'absolutely' becomes 'yes' (both can be used to give an affirmative answer).
'hugging' is an insertion indicator (outside letters hug or embrace inside letters).
'couple of students' becomes 'll' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'yes' going around 'll' is 'YELLS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for yells that I've seen before include "Cries out" , "Screams" , "Shouts loudly" .)