It was around 6 pm. when Shyam arrived home and was caught off guard by Anjali's presence in his house. She was on her way but stopped after she saw him enter the house.
There was a sudden, excited smile on his face that he tried to suppress as he pretended to look normal, "Hi. I didn't expect you to be here... you must be with Khushi, right?"
But Anjali didn't return her usual shy smile as she nodded her head, "Yes, I'm with Khushi. I've been with her since morning. She wasn't feeling well."
Shyam panicked as his eyes travelled to Khushi's room door with a worried look, "What happened to her?"
While Anjali was still trying to find a better way to share with him what happened. Shyam jumped to react without hearing the full story, as he sat on the sofa with a thud, pressing his temple and sighing hard, "I shouldn't have agreed to her continuing this work. I'm sorry to say, Anjali, but your brother is torturing my sister. What kind of work is it that every day you go home discouraged? Aise toh, she will go into depression very soon. If he doesn't have any problem with your friendship and Khushi passed his test, then what is the problem now? What did he do to my sister now?"
"Well, Shyam, this time it's not my brother's fault," Anjali said, "It's Aman!"
Shyam frowned as he looked up to her, confused, "Aman? Aman ne kya kiya? (What did Aman do?)"
Anjali took a deep breath before she sat with Shyam to narrate the whole incident to him. When she finished, she could see Shyam's eyes burning in anger, as he immediately got up, "Uski itni himmat.. meri behen ke saath badtameezi karne ki (How dare he misbehave with my sister?). I won't spare him today."
Anjali got up immediately as she walked to him, holding him by his arm as he was already taking steps to leave the house, "Shyam, wait.. calm down, please. Khushi needs you more than anyone now. Please go and talk to her once, she will feel better. You will deal with Aman later."
Shyam shut his eyes momentarily, trying to suppress his anger and frustration as he turned back to Anjali, pressing his temple and nodding his head, agreeing to her, "You're right. Khushi needs me."
"Yes.. but first, calm down and be strong in front of Khushi. She has been crying since morning and refused to eat anything. So I put her to sleep and had to force her to eat something for some time as she had a fever and headache due to crying heavily," Anjali said.
"You've been with her all this time. Why didn't you call me then, Anjali?" he sighed, cursing himself for not being with his sister during the time she needed him the most.
"I thought not to disturb you since you were in the shop," Anjali explained, "It's not like Khushi was alone. She was with me. I thought you trusted me to take care of Khushi like her elder sister," she ended with a disappointed tone.
Sensing the disappointment in her tone, he sighed, "Anjali, it's not like what you're thinking. Please understand that Khushi is my only family, my sister. I have the right to know what happened to her, and you didn't need to think which time is good to tell me about this, at any time you could have called me and I would have left everything and come running to be with my sister."
"I'm sorry. My bad!" Anjali said, "I did what I thought was right at that time. It's just... I was taught that way, in my family, we always expected our parents to be free from work or whatever other important activity they were doing so that we could go to them, talk to them or share our problems," she ended with a low emotional tone, her eyes turned misty making Shyam feel guilty.
He gulped, staring at her misty eyes guiltily, "It's okay. I'm not upset with you because of this. And I'm sorry too. I didn't mean to hurt you, Anjali."
