Disguised Darling|✓

Episode 28

“Bhai!” Mishti exclaims, grinning, her steps quickening from where they were only dragging before.

“Chutki!” her brother says with equal exuberance, immediately taking her in his embrace as soon as she’s in front of him. 

One month. They haven’t met each other for a whole month, and this is the longest, they have gone without each other, safe to say Mishti feels an empty spot in her heart getting filled as soon as she’s reunited with her sibling.

“I missed you, Bhai,” Mishti says with a pout and feels her brother’s chest vibrate as he laughs. 

“I did too, Chutki. But don’t be sad anymore, come on, let me buy you some ice cream.” He says pulling away from her in favour of throwing his arm around her shoulder and walking to the nearest ice cream stall. Mishti keeps clutching at her brother’s shirt as they walk, her over-emotional self still processing that she is finally united with her brother even if it is for just a few hours. 

“What flavour do you want? Butterscotch as usual?” he questions and Mishti nods, throwing a shaky smile towards him. 

“Don’t cry, munchkin.” He says pressing a quick kiss to her temple, glaring at the ice-cream seller who looks at them weirdly. 

“What?” Mihir questions with a threatening voice to which the man just gulps, quickly handing them their ice creams.

They sit with their ice creams on a bench outside the stall, slurping the treat silently until Mihir says, “I wanted to talk to you about something.” He says and Mishti nods because of course, she had an idea that they were meeting not because they missed each other but because there was something so important that couldn’t be communicated through phone. Not to forget, Mishti too has something to tell him. 

“Give me that,” Mihir says taking the wrapper from her with one hand, the other engaged wiping the remnants from her lips with a tissue, just like he has always done. 

“I’m not a baby anymore, Bhai, I can do it by myself.” She whines but of course, he doesn’t stop and only levels her with an impassive glare. “No, you are a baby. You will always be one.” He says, getting up to throw the wrapper in the nearby bin giving time to Mishti to ready herself for the news or information. 

“So, what is it?” Mishti asks him once he is back, not missing the ways his face grows serious and gaze hardens.

“You remember, Chutki, how I had told you about there being something wrong with our mission?”

Mishti nods. 

“Well, I don’t exactly know what it is, but it has something to do with that woman. Samrat’s mother.” As soon as he says that Mishti’s eyes widen because of course, she too had to say something about her. A lot.

The siblings voice out their concerns at the same time. 

“She is the one who killed Tara’s parents.”

“She is Daya sir’s wife.”

“What?” Both of them exclaimed, wide-eyed, trying to ingest their respective shocks. It goes without saying that Mishti’s the one who is much more shocked because till now she hadn’t even known that Tara’s parents were killed let alone by Samrat’s mother.

“H-Her parents? Oh God, Bhai…” Immediate tears spring to her eyes as a hand covers up her gaping mouth. Mihir belatedly wonders if he shouldn’t have told this to his little sister. He was not here to make her cry and since the morning it is the only thing that he has done. 

“It’s ok, Chutki, it – it was a long time ago, and we’re all there to take care of Tara, ok? So, you calm down, yeah?” Mihir tells, caressing his sister’s head who nods though still unable to hold back that lone tear that rolls down her eyes.