This chapter is dedicated to every single one reading this story.
Thank you.
Queen of Hearts and the King of Spades.
Rudhra and I were sitting on the couch while he scrolled through his social media lazily and I changed the channels on the TV, bored.
"It seems like a lot of people want our story back, Rudhra." I said.
"Lol, weirdos hehehehehe." He chuckled.
"How rude! They are our precious readers. They take some time out of their lives and read and vote for our story! Without them, we wouldn't exist." I said.
"They're wattpad readers. It's not like they have a social life anyway." He said.
"True." I agreed.
" But what should we tell them? We have to give them a reasonable excuse for our absence. Even if it's a lie."
"Just tell them that the author is a lazy idiot."
"But where is the lie?"
Our convo was interrupted by a knock on the door which was revealed to be the image of my bestest friend-the one you can count upon to make decisions worse than you-fiery yet bizarre and lovable, Meera. If I could describe Meera in two words, it would be- Meera, ketchup hater. You get the idea.
"Where the heck have the two of you been all this while!" She said.
"What do you mean, we're right here in front of you." Rudhra said, his face showing just a hint of his trademark ridiculous grin just beginning to form on his face.
"Hahaha. Mr Rudhra, there you go, enchanting everyone with that marvellous wit and charm of yours, as usual no doubt." She said. "Now shoo, shoo." She made a retreating gesture with her hand, as though she was warding off flies.
"Okay, stop." I said. " It makes me really uncomfortable when I have to step up and be an adult when it's the two of you."
"Where have you been?" She demanded angrily. "I call you, but you don't answer. I send thousands of texts, but you reply with a 'k'. I even call this Rudhra but he never picks it up."
"I don't pick up your calls not because I am busy." Rudhra said, the trademark ridiculous grin forming on his face. " I just don't."
"You must be mistaken if you thought I thought you were busy." Meera retorted.
"Okay, stop now." I said.
"So...where have you been?" Meera repeated. "The two of you practically went MIA. "
"I...." I trailed off, unsure of what to say. "We..."
"We went places." Rudhra said.
"Oh you guys went on a tour?" Meera said, still surprised that we'd go on a tour without telling her, but as fiery as she was, she was good natured."Where did you go?"
"Lots of places."
"Where?"
"Lots of places."
"Oh is it like a secret couple trip?"
"Y-yes." We said in unison.
"How nice and romantic. I'd like to go on a secret couple trip too. Stupid Rudhra, why don't you just introduce me to one of your airheaded friends?" She said.
"They aren't airheaded enough to date you." Rudhra said.
"You –" She began.
"STOP" I said.
"So why are you here?" I asked her.
"What do you mean? I am here to help you pick your wedding saree."
"Whaaat?"
"Your wedding's only four months away." She said.
"Whaaat?"
"We made plans, remember?" She said
"Whaaat?"
"Well, to be honest, I kind of invited myself. Thought helping you pick your wedding saree was a sure shot way of killing time. It's mid May and the weather's making me annoying. Also, remember it's your turn to give me a treat. You haven't still given me one for buying that cute pink tops last month. You think you can conveniently escape from it, but I keep tabs, you see. I even downloaded an app for reminding myself. You can run, but you can never hide." She said, as she showed me her phone, with dates marked 'Sams Treat Days.'
"I empathise with you but sorry bih, not interested." I said, petting her head like she was a cute puppy.
Rudra, who was in the background all this while, let out a snort.
Meera's face contorted into a grin. "I empathise with you too."
"Why?" I asked, puzzled.
"Your entire family's just waiting outside."
.
.
.
Damn.
.
.
BRB time to use floo powder and live in Hogsmead forever.
BYE
As if on cue, the familiar voices popped up, and my sister's two kids came inside, each holding a piece of the transformers toy they'd clearly just broken (one clutched the head while the other clutched the torso), followed by my evil sister, who, if drama could be mined, she'd be a multimillionaire, and then my parents, my BIL's parents, and Rudhra's mother.
"Hey guys. What a pleasant surprise." I said.
"Where have you been? We thought since we're all together today and bored, why not do some wedding shopping?" My mom said. " Come, come, you both."
"N-now?" I asked.
"Yes, yes. See, I sent you a text ten minutes ago." She said, scrolling though her whatsapp.
Damn.
"Oh, never mind. I forgot to hit send." She continued.
"What's this about a 'vacation' I hear?" My sister asked in a suspicious voice, and her face looked like she had some fresh axe to grind.
"How long have you been standing outside and overhearing us, you evil devil?" I said.
"Heyy, excuse me. I don't overhear, I was uh, adjusting the straps of my shoes."
My mom, whose ears always seemed to float away to a different constellation every time my sister and I used to fight when we were younger, looked up from her phone and declared. " What vacation??"
My sister's face morphed with delight at the prospect of new drama. " I thought Sams no longer shared things with me, but she no longer shares anything with you too, mom?"
"Sams aunty and Rudhra uncle went on a vacation. I heard." One of the kids chimed in, not even looking up and just doing Mongolian torture that they were doing to the poor transformer toy.
"How scandalous!" My sister added.
My mom literally clutched her pearls in shock, while my dad looked as though he foresee all the juicy drama that was about to come, and looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here, and my sister's children just resumed to perform lobotomy on the transformer, and my sister's in laws looked pretty amused, no doubt I'd be the subject of their telephonic calls for at least a month, while Rudra's mom seemed pretty confused by everything and had no idea what was going on.
"The two of you went on a vacation without telling any of us?" My mom gasped.
"No, uh we didn-" I faltered.
"Where did you go?" My mom asked again, still reeling from the realisation that she'd raised an unholy daughter who went on vacations without telling her.
"We didn't-" I began. But was interrupted by none other than the horrible guy I was engaged to.
They say that the devil works hard but Rudhra works harder.
"Amritsar." He uttered.
He just rolled off the first thing that came to his mind, it was so ridiculous that it made no sense. However, none of the fam seemed interested in the logical course of things, and began clutching their pearls harder.
"Okay now I don't believe it." Meera whispered to me. "Who can go to Amitsar and be back in four days when you're supposed to be on a vacation?"
"Because we didn't go anywhere." I said. "We just spent the entire weekend playing a single game of monopoly."
However lie had already transcended to the point of no return as the two parties; that were separated by an invisible line of cosmic divinity that separated the good from the evil, marked by unfathomable forces that constituted the nature; looked at each other.
Goodbye planet earth, I thought. Sorry for not separating the trash last week.
"Where are the cashews?" My sister asked.
As soon as they heard the word cashews, my sister's kids jumped up and began chanting 'cashews, cashews' albeit a little annoyingly and wouldn't stop.
"What cashews?" I asked, flabbergasted.
"Amritsar is famous for its cashews, right? Didn't you get us any?" She asked.
"It's not famous for it's cashews." I said, as if it was the most important thing.
"Lassi." My mom said. " It's famous for lassi."
"Yes mom." I said. Devil works hard, Rudhra works harder but I work the hardest.
" In fact I obtained a two generation old secret gulab lassi recipe from a very ancient man. Would you like for me to make some?" I said, endearingly, the two generation old recipe from an ancient man actually being a wise intelligent guy called youtube.
"Maybe some pakodas to go with it?" I added.
Whether it was the prospect of free food in the hot sun, or perhaps my family had already washed their hands off me and Rudhra, I didn't know, but somehow they sat down, as though grudgingly, and my mom said in a fake uninterested voice, "I suppose if you insist".
They were so cute and hilarious. :D
And that's how I ended up making amends, but I didn't mind, cos somehow this weird situation made me realise how much they baby-ied me .
"So, would you both show us some cool pics?" Rudhra's mother asked.
My face harrowed into an evil grin. This was my chance to hurl the Lakshmi bomb that Rudhra had tossed to me earlier. "I couldn't take pictures because my phone doesn't work properly. But Rudhra was the one who took them on his mobile."
Rudhra looked like he didn't expect the hit so quickly. He sighed and sat down next to his laptop. "Just give me a few minutes to transfer the pictures, amma." He said.
My devil grin became even wider. "You poor thing, whatchu gonna do?"
"Already on it." He said amused. "Photoshopping our faces at the Golden Temple."
"Good luck, devil."
"That was a low blow." He said.
"All is fair in love and war." I said. "Do you know, I just realised something?"
"What?"
"I love you for the same reason I love my family." I said.
His ears turned red at the mention of love. Anyway he tried to put on a sturdy face even though he was all mushy inside. "I suppose if it's me, you can't help it."
"No. You're both unintentionally funny."
"Well." He said, a little devil grin forming on his face. " If my comedic sense is too good that women keep falling for me left and right, then so be it. I am glad."
LOL. He was so cute.
"You just unironically proved my point."