🎶 Iktara
Published on 07.01.2023
❝ sunn rahi hu sudbudh khoke
koi mai kahani,
puri kahani hai kya
kise hai pata. ❞
🥀
I think I'm going to imagine Rohit Saraf and Shraddha Kapoor as Ayansh Mehra and Inaaya Rai. What are your opinions on it? Obviously, you're free to imagine whoever you want or just nobody. Curious to know if you actually vision them as someone, lemme know! Happy reading 💓
🥀
Ayansh swallowed and his eyes softened as he gazed at her. "I know you hate staying alone," he said gently, taking her aback. "So, how could I just let you be your own?"
She was caught off-guard by that reply and her heart skipped a beat but soon the feeling subsided, making way for self-consciousness to tug at her heartstrings. "I don't hate staying alone," she said defensively, her face miffed off. "And who even told you that?"
Ayansh tucked his hands in the pocket of his sweater as his cheeks warmed up. "Akira had mentioned it during the podcast thing," he answered coyly.
Her annoyance increased. She didn't want to be babysitted by her ex boyfriend and current boss. She assessed him with a pointed glare and he certainly felt nervous under it. "And how did you know I'm alone?"
"Uhm.... I had called Maya to ask her to check on you but she said she's at a party and you refused to join so you're... you know...," he drawled, raising his shoulders.
Inaaya gritted her teeth. "Go away."
He frowned. "No."
"I'm not scared of being alone, Ayansh!" She snapped, her temper flaring.
"I never said you're scared," he responded quickly, defying her. "Look," he said in an explaining tone and she tilted her face, looking at him annoyedly. "You hate being alone. From where does that imply that you're scared of being alone?" He waggled his brows and she stared at him in disbelief.
"You— "
"Let me complete," he cut her off. "I hate Greek food but does that mean I'm scared of them?" He gazed at her with understanding.
The disbelief etched on her face morphed into horror. She was baffled by the comparison. "Ayansh," she started in a no-nonsense tone, "I'm not in a good mood and the reason is you," she says blatantly. "So, kindly go away instead of making it worse."
Instead of responding, he gazes at her, his brows furrowing. "Were you crying?" He asks softly, his tender eyes caressing her.
She blinked, the anger dissipating and being replaced by the dull ache that she had been feeling before. "Just leave, Ayansh," she murmurs tiredly.
"I'm not going." He says adamantly.
She curls her hands into fists. "Fine! Then, stay outside."
"I will."
"Enjoy the night." She slammed the door on his face.
Ayansh settled down on the floor, removing his shoes and folding his legs, pulling the sleeves of his sweater till the very tip of his fingers to provide himself as much heat as possible in the freezing cold. Atleast he wasn't waiting in the open or else he would've frozen himself to death.
Inaaya laid on the couch, staring at the ceiling idly, all her thoughts centred around one person, wondering the amount of tolerance levels she had added to her personality because of constantly dealing with that guy.
"Are you there?" Ayansh asked after a few minutes.
Inaaya's body jerked up, she was startled. She got down from the couch and went to the door. "What are you still doing?" She gritted out. "Go back, Ayansh."
"No," he replied like a petulant child. "And you need to start taking me more seriously."
"Ayansh," she spoke a lot more calmly. "You'll fall ill and then, don't blame me that I didn't warn you."
"Can we talk?" He asks instead.
"No."
Silence.
"You're really not going? Because I, for sure ain't letting you inside."
"I'm not, Inaaya." He said in a lazy, soft voice making her sigh.
Reluctantly and without much thought, she slid down on the floor and pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them.
A moment passed, a beat skipped.
"I know I had no right to do that," Ayansh starts and she listens to him quietly, too tired to fight or respond. "But wasn't it my fault in the first place that you had to suffer? And if I decided to rectify it a little bit then was it wrong? It wasn't a favour Inaaya. I wanted to redeem myself and help you. I was selfish," a knot forms in his throat as he reminisces the memory. "I should've stopped you when you said you didn't want to go to Cambridge, you wanted to stay. But I couldn't," he chuckles sadly. "I was too scared to lose you that if it was in my power, I would've caged you forever and that's what I tried to do, as much as I could."
Ayansh breathed out shakily and rested his head against the door, staring into space. "Just think about it once. Don't you deserve to be where you're? If I had never entered your life, you would've gone forward with your plans and moreover haven't you worked hard to be here? I didn't do anything except give you a chance to prove yourself. The hardwork, the time invested, everything else was done by you."
Like a lullaby that puts you to sleep, like a song that transcends you to an another world, like a breeze that envelopes you, his words made her close her eyes and want to just allow them to coax her burdened soul.
Ayansh didn't get a verbal response from her for all he said but he knew she was there, on the other side, listening to him and even understanding him. He didn't mind sitting outside for the whole night if that meant the progress they had made would be saved. It was too precious, she was too precious to him to just give up and go away.
"Inaaya?" He called her name, with uncertainty, with hope, with love.
She didn't reply but he smiled when he heard a faint drumming of knuckles on the door indicating him that she was still there.
"Happy new year," he wished her, an uncanny mixture of melancholy, nostalgia and dreams of new beginnings lingering in his tone.
A sigh left her lips and she opened her eyes, tears swimming in them. Memories engulfed her like a sweet poison and she found herself gasping for air because of how much meaning it held for her. He was with her then when she needed him and he was with her now too, despite her stubborn attempts to push him away. He might not be standing in front of her, holding her in his arms, taking her breath away with that soul stirring kiss as she couldn't help but giggle, but he was here, making her feel less lonely, less miserable, less self-conscious, tenderly harbouring to the self doubts that were crawling on her skin and brushing them away.
And because she was still Inaaya, the girl who had given her all in love, the girl who was a little foolish, a little naive yet a braveheart for she had managed to dream of light when she thought her world consisted of darkness and loneliness was her companion, she wished deep down in her heart for this new year to be indeed a happy one.
Silence fell over them like a curtain which nobody tried to pull away for quite a while.
"Are— are you still there?" She asked hesitantly, pressing her ear to the door.
Ayansh's flawless face scrunched up slowly as a sense of deja vu hit him, making him feel disturbed. His heart pounded in his ear and his brain was on a run of its own, utterly confused and perplexed. He hated that yet again somehow the stranger had managed to slip into his thoughts but he couldn't shake the eerie feeling that made his skin crawl. He remembered vividly how he stood at a distance from the cliff, staring at her back and when she felt he had went away, she had asked the same question.
"Are— are you still there?"
What shitty game was life playing with him?
"Ayansh?" Inaaya whispered again, her voice coming out a little scared as she thought he must have left her.
"I'm here," he replied, snapping out of his thoughts, feeling a little disturbed. "I'm here. With you."
"Can I ask you something?" She inquired after a moment.
He gulps audibly, the feeling getting stronger, making him want to get rid of it desperately. "Yeah," he forces out.
"Do you think you took the right decision by helping me to get in Cambridge University and then hiding it from me?"
Ayansh thinks for a while. "If I would've told you then and there, would you had accepted it?"
Inaaya doesn't reply and he takes her silence as the answer.
"If being happy that you came here, completed your education, got a job in one of the prestigious company means I took the right decision then, be it." He smiles a small one. "But truthfully, I don't know what a right decision is. There are so many things that I feel don't even fall in the bracket of rights and wrongs. They're just choices made, chosen with an artless hope that in the end, it will work out in your favour. And when it doesn't, there will be ifs and buts and that's about it. They'll just be limited to being ifs and buts because you can't draw a conclusion and believe it to be real when the other choice was never made, never given the chance to morph into reality."
"You know," he says after a long stretch of silence that spread between them, piquing her interest. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you," he adds and immediately cringes at how stupid it sounded,"I mean, I'm not talking about the Cambridge thing," he clarifies quickly, "I'm talking about whatever I started, right from an independent business and then, propagating it and achieving so much in this field, it would've been impossible without you."
Inaaya waits for him to continue, confused by his statement.
"If you didn't push me to think about myself, do what I want to do instead of thinking about what my family expects from me and doing as per their wishes, I would've never got the courage to take the step. You believed in me when no-one did. My success belongs to you as much as it does to me if not more," he admits sincerely, a reflection of Inaaya at IA crossing his eyes, making his heart overwhelm with emotion. "So, it only feels fair to return the favour," he adds lightheartedly.
Her mind was in a frenzy, her thoughts were all over the place but for a change she wasn't bothered, neither unsettled. This was the kind of chaos she seemed to welcome for it gave her new perspectives to look at other than the conventional one that she had chosen to see.
"I don't understand you." She breathes out finally.
"You do." He says instead confidently.
She scoffs. "I think I framed that wrong. Let me try again," she says and it elicits a chuckle from him and he tries to shrink more into his sweater because of the cold he was feeling and yet was trying to act as if it didn't affect him much. "I don't understand myself," she says, a bit more firmly. "Because no sane woman would be so fucking mad at a guy and sometime later, she would find herself agreeing to his words and feeling herself calmed down. Is this some kind of syndrome?" She inquires sarcastically. "Like we have Stockholm syndrome and all?"
Ayansh laughs as his teeth begans to chatter. "That's my charm I guess," he says breathily.
Inaaya frowns, a tinge of guilt seeping within her. "Are you feeling cold?"
Ayansh's mind goes numb for a split second at that dumb question. "Ofcourse not," he answers after a moment. "In fact I'm enjoying here. I'm competing with cold, desperately trying to make a point that it doesn't affect me. Haha." He mocks.
Inaaya huffs and gets up, going to her bedroom to snatch some things. She comes back and opens the door, catching him off guard as he almost stumbles behind into the house.
"Atleast give me a warning before letting me inside." Ayansh whines, rubbing the back of his head as he straightened up.
"Who told you that I'm letting you in?" She furrows her brows as if it was a baffling assumption on his part. "Take these blankets," she places the pile of blankets on his hands. "I'm still telling you that you should leave but if you don't want to then make yourself home here." She gives him a sickly sweet smile and was about to shut the door when she stops, her gaze softening a little. "Happy new year," she whispers in a gentle voice, a sincere and solemn one and closes the door before sliding against it once again.
"A happy new year indeed," he munbles to himself, smiling and leaning against the wall perpendicular to the door and pulling on a blanket over him and then placing another folded one upon it. "What do you expect of me?" He asks, pushing his luck.
"A normal person with two brain cells atleast would choose to go back and get a peaceful sleep." She states in a clipped tone.
"Well, unfortunately I don't seem to be falling in that category anytime soon," he responds cheekily and snuggles into the blanket outside the closed door.
It was around six-thirty am in the morning when Maya returned alongwith Akira and Khushi. Maya got a call to attend so Akira and Khushi moved forward.
Akira's eyes narrowed infinitesimally to see a pile covered by blankets. In the absolute silence, she could hear the soft snores making her aware that it was a living, breathing human being. Her eyes then moved to the open door where inside the house across the wall that supported the human engulfed by the thick blanket lied Inaaya leaning against the door jamb, her legs crossed and a stoll was clumsily covering her front in a poor attempt to keep her warm. She patted Khushi's back whom she was holding in her arms.
"Khushi, baby, wake up," she murmurs, shaking her softly.
Khushi wriggles a little before snuggling into her mother's hold more.
"Khushi!" Akira grits to the half asleep girl. "Wake up."
"Mom— ," she starts to whine but Akira puts a palm over her mouth.
"Shhh," she hisses and gestures towards the pile.
Khushi annoyedly rubs her eyes as she follows her Mom. "Wha is hat?" She asks brokenly in her baby voice. "And why is Inana leeping here?"
"Let's find out," Akira slowly puts her daughter down and gesticulates her to be quiet. "It can be a burglar for all we know," she whispers although she knew a burglar wouldn't be sleeping with Inaaya giving him company at the door.
She tiptoes until she's standing near the human that had caught her attention and slowly outstretches her hand towards the edge of the blanket before pulling it apart harshly. Her eyes widen on their own accord at a familiar figure.
"You!" Akira screams and the loud sound was enough to startle him, making him hit his head on the door frame. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Inaaya too shifted in her place, her eyes slowly opening.
Ayansh's hand goes to his temple as he rubs the spot which sting, a little swelling starting to develop already. He struggles to open his eyes and adjust to the light.
"What's..... happening here?" Maya who just got there mumbled at the scene unfolding in front of her.
Khushi rushed to Inaaya, the sleep vanishing from her eyes and got in the dazed woman's lap, hugging her with her tiny arms. "Good morning," she wished merrily.
Inaaya lazily brought her arms around the kid as her eyes traced the outline of her mother who looked on the verge of snapping.
"What are you doing here?" Ayansh inquired groggily, pulling himself up with the blanket hanging from one side, his face scrunched up in displeasure at the sight of Akira early in the morning.
"Why do I always keep finding you outside the house?" She lashed at him, digging holes into his skull with her glare.
Inaaya's brows pinch together, the question making her wonder. "What do you mean by always finding him outside the house?" She asks, making their heads turn at her question as she stands up, freeing herself from Khushi's hold, her eyes looking at the two sceptically.
The fury from Akira's face recedes back as her face blanks and Ayansh swallows inaudibly, fear tugging harshly at his heart. As an instinctive action, they both look at each other, not knowing how to answer the question.
"I asked you something Akira." Inaaya looks at the woman with confusion.
Akira slowly brings her eyes to her, the gears in her brain running to come up with an excuse. "I meant.... I meant I always keep finding him outside," she rushes, "remember the podcast?" She raises her brows, anticipation swirling in her eyes. "Outside the house. The podcast was obviously outside the house," she chuckles awkwardly.
Inaaya frowns more at her weird behaviour. Akira chuckling? What has the new year done to her?
"You're blabbering nonsense," Maya mutters. "This is what happens when you're sleep deprived." She takes a jab at Akira, walking ahead and going inside her house while Akira thanks her mentally for coming to her rescue unknowingly.
"What are you doing here?" Akira directs her question at Ayansh, putting him under the radar.
"Inaaya was alone." He keeps the answer short.
"I told him about this," Maya adds. "Ofcourse, he had called me to ask about Inaaya."
"And you were here?" Akira points to the area outside the door, looking at him dubiously. "Whole night?"
Ayansh rubs his neck and nods grimly.
She resists an eye roll and throws an unreadable look at Inaaya before turning to Maya. "So that's the reason you dumped yourself at my place in the middle of night?"
Maya gives a sheepish smile. "I didn't want to be a third wheel."
Inaaya's jaw drops at that statement.
Akira gazes at Ayansh, scanning him from head to toe. "Looking at him, it seems he would appreciate a third wheel."
Maya cringes. "I didn't know she would make him wait outside the door like a homeless guy."
"I didn't call him here," Inaaya says immediately, defending herself. "I'm not going to let a random guy inside in the middle of the night." She takes Khushi's hands and goes further inside the house.
Ayansh's brows raise at that remark. "So, now I'm a random guy?"
Inaaya ignores the accusation and Akira too follows Maya and Inaaya inside, abandoning the so called random guy with the blankets pooling around his legs.
"So......," he trails off awkwardly as four pair of eyes turn around to look at him. "Am I allowed inside?"
***
Hope you liked the chapter. Will be looking forward to your views on it and ofcourse, don't forget to vote! Have a great day/night 🌻
Target : 25+ votes!?
• Thank you for reading •