Ansh simply can't navigate logic between the coiled grooves of his brain. Sometimes he wishes to be a woman and other times, he wishes to transgress boundaries of gender and become a synthesis of all the mistiness he feels inside. Feeling entirely...
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Chapter 1// Ansh Is Begrudging
Ansh stood, drenched in the heavily pouring rain, waiting for the front door to open. As it opened, he came face with his tenant. The one and only, Vinodh. The most inane aspect of all of this was Vinodh was only 22. And yet, Vinodh's muscular disposition, his tall frame of 6 feet something and his very constantly disgruntled self, was always detrimental to Ansh and his energetic and impulsive ways with things.
Vinodh ungallantly glared at Ansh, who bellowed at him in an apparent displeasure, while Ansh continued to smile at him in innocence, like he always did. As the beast in Vinodh gandered out of himself, he pushed Ansh further out from the doorframe and Ansh fell on his butt on the cold, hard and squally mud. Vinodh, then shut the door in Ansh's face.
Ansh sighed. Heading back inside the bookstore which was thirty-four steps down on the staircase from the first floor house he lived in. He would have to materialize a good night's sleep in the storeroom.
In spite of Ansh being seven years older than Vinodh, there were a number of things that made him an easy target for Vinodh's constant annoyance. First, Ansh was highly misunderstood, everybody thought he was idiotic owing to his highly jittery behaviour which automatically made him absent minded and clumsy. Second, Ansh's face made him seem insensitive to people's twitched expressions. Ansh couldn't help it, his facial features were aligned into a smiling face. Third, Ansh's light brown curly hair, big eyes and lean proportions made him look physically weak and people picked on him. But, most of all, random strangers from the neighborhood ridiculed him, usually, "Baa, nekku baa" (Translation/ "come lick.")Everyone knew Ansh was gay. His father's friends were still around and the teasing was bound to stay, specially when his father had grown used to drunken revelations with them, he had outed his son.
Ansh sighed. He constantly thought of ways to win Vinodh's affection, only in vain. He was growing weary of Vinodh's hostile behavior. He hadn't even done anything.
Ansh remembers the day he first met Vinodh. Ansh's bookstore wasn't fetching him enough income. So, Ansh had decided to partially rent out his ancestral house to Vinodh. It's a shame really, the bank owned his house now and he was trying to win it back. Clearly, Ansh had to resort to alternative means of earning an income.
Ansh has cursed his deceased father's name multiple times for leaving behind so much debt. It felt like, even after his passing away, his father would continue to dictate his choices and his life. Ansh had a Masters in Library Science, and he briefly worked as a librarian in the city's biggest public library. He earned enough for himself and would make a few investments out of his savings. Everything would soon become insufficient after his father died, he inherited not only the bookshop but also the debt.
Ansh snuck into the backdoor of the bookstore, turned the key in the keyhole, the door clicked open and in went Ansh into a bleak room filled with dust from the books that were stored there. Ansh spread out the spare bedsheets he kept 'just in case' for his makeshift bed. Ansh huffed feeling unjustness. Tomorrow shall be the day he conquers Vinodh.
- Ansh had bad dreams. Very often. It wasn't one persistent dream that played but rather an array of dreams that were so vivid that when he woke up he was in tears. He wanted to explain these dreams and the feelings they aroused, but he never remembered those dreams. After he woke up, all that remained was a solitary memory of feeling immense sadness.
Ansh had a bad dream that day. He woke up to the stuffiness of the storeroom and the beetling smell of dust. Ansh got up in a haste and dashed out of the room. He stared out from a massive window and let the cool air blow in his face.
He thought of Vinodh. Vinodh's mighty self. He figured the reason he could never bring himself to completely hate Vinodh was because of a fond memory he had of him.
When Vinodh was wearing the same old discontent expression, a kid had asked Vinodh to play ball with him. Ordinarily one would expect Vinodh to have ignored the kid and walked away or scared the kid away. None of that happened. Instead, he bent over to the kid's height and took the ball from the small boy whilst they both played silently. It was such a cute memory that the only reason he put up with Vinodh's constant grunt, was he knew that deep down Vinodh was a decent boy. And Ansh wanted to be the one to show Vinodh that.
Ansh fell asleep later that night by the window. None of that had been the first time. What was new however, was the quilt draped upon him. It didn't belong to him.
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