Chapter 1

elaichai

@elaichai

A/N: this is my first fanfic for this fandom (and also just generally in over a year) and is entirely unedited so sorry in advance for any mistakes with grammar/pacing/characterization bc I'm a little rusty. I'm looking forward to seeing what you all think! 

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“Mr. Kapoor?” 

There is, finally, a lull in what has felt like one disaster after the other since the moment Akshay and Shivina decided that no, they really couldn’t live without each other after all. For once, Priya is able to spend an entire evening on the text her syllabus claims she will be teaching the following week, and only surfaces from Dickens when she notices that her husband has returned. She checks the time -- 10 pm. Not bad. 

Mr. Kapoor startles. “Priya?” His eyes snap first to the phone he always seems to be clutching before settling on Priya at the dinner table, surrounded by covered dishes with a book still open in her right hand. “Haven’t you already eaten?” His head tilts slightly, brows furrowing. “Are you alright?” 

Priya stifles the fond smile that so often seems to be twitching at her lips nowadays. “I’m absolutely fine Mr. Kapoor, I was just....” she breaks off, flushing slightly before shrugging. “I was just waiting for you, I suppose.” 

Mr. Kapoor’s look of concern deepens. “Is there something wrong?” He carelessly drapes his jacket, probably worth at least three months of Priya’s salary, on the back of the chair at the head of the table before taking his seat. “Is it Meera Ma? Has something happened to her? Or Shivina, is she in trouble?” 

“Mr. Kapoor—“ Priya tries to interrupt, but a month of marriage has not yet taught her how to take part in a conversation carried out almost entirely within her husband’s mind. 

“I heard about her putting salt in the chai again,” he continues blathering, having clearly not heard Priya, hands reaching behind him for the pill organizer he keeps inside his jacket pocket. 

“Mr. Kapoor,” Priya tries again.

“—but tell Mami that I can pay for cooking lessons, in fact I know the head chef at the new Oberoi and—“ 

“Mr. Kapoor!” Priya winces slightly at having raised her voice, closing her eyes for a moment to organize her thoughts. If only the brief moment of silence she needs to think didn’t come at the cost of--

“Priya I’m sorry.” Worst of all is that he looks like he means it.

Priya sighs. Nearly a week has passed since Diwali, but Priya still doesn’t know what to do with the things Mr. Kapoor told her. Priya knows better than anyone that she is a difficult person to live with; full of lectures and cynicism enough to ground an entire fleet of helium balloons. She could live knowing that her husband disliked this about her -- it is, after all, the reason Neeraj left her to marry Maitreyi. That instead these parts of her make Mr. Kapoor feel lacking and unwanted is a revelation Priya can’t bring herself to ignore. 

Even now she knows that more than anything he most likely regrets having disappointed her. Why one of the country’s most beloved businessmen cares about what cantankerous, curdled over Priya Sood thinks is beyond Priya’s understanding: especially given that her own mother prefers Mr. Kapoor, but she knows that what he told her in the garden that night was his truth. It is a heady thing, she can admit, to be respected by a man everyone else respects in turn.

“Mr. Kapoor,” she decides on, finally, “why are you apologizing?” 

Mr. Kapoor stutters for a moment, flushing before finally looking away. He snorts. “I don’t exactly know,” he says, voice now wry as his gaze finds Priya once more, “but I’m sure Madam has an explanation at the ready.” 

Priya smiles. “It was a genuine question. I don’t know either.” 

His eyes widen. “But I must have upset you, or you wouldn’t have yelled!” 

Priya shakes her head, cautiously extending her left hand to rest gently on one of Mr. Kapoor’s. “You didn’t hear me the first few times I tried to interrupt. I’m really sorry.”

“Oh.” Mr. Kapoor’s entire head tilts with his gaze as both he and Priya look at her hand covering his. “I suppose I’m sorry about that, then, that I didn’t hear you.” He clears his throat, and Priya takes this as her cue to snatch back her hand. “What did you want to say?” 

Priya blinks, trying to remember what she was thinking about all of three minutes ago. “Nothing is wrong, not with Ma or Shivina or me.” She pauses, amending the last statement. “Sandy told me about Shivina’s chai, but if Shivina wants to learn there’s no need to hire someone to teach her how to cook. I can teach her myself on the evenings I'm not working at the cafe.” 

“Priya...” Mr. Kapoor’s voice at times like this, gone gentle with what feels like overwhelming gratitude, makes Priya squirm slightly in her seat. A man who does so much for the people around him shouldn’t be so touched by an offer this simple. 

“I like to cook,” Priya reminds him, “and I certainly have enough experience as a teacher, even if not in the kitchen.” Mr. Kapoor raises an eyebrow and Priya answers the unspoken question. “Maitreyi only learned after marriage, and Sandy has no interest in learning at all.” Priya raises her chin slightly. “Mami can say whatever she wants, but I was the one paying the installments on the house she’s currently staying in. Shivina should only learn to cook if she wants to.” 

“And how will they eat if she doesn’t?” Mr. Kapoor’s voice is amused rather than accusing. “They can’t live off of Meera Ma’s mercy forever, can they?”

Priya raises her own eyebrow, fending off the urge to smirk in response. “Then her husband is equally capable of learning, no?” 

Mr. Kapoor throws back his head and laughs, the sound seeming to echo off the too-tall ceilings of this ridiculous mansion. “Right as always, Madam. But I’m sure Shivvi would be more than happy to learn from you.” 

“I’ll teach them both.” Priya realizes all of a sudden that she’s smiling. “Cooking anyways is a good life skill to have, and if Akki really wants to be an actor with away shoots and all he should know how to make a meal for himself.” 

“Speaking of meals!” 

Priya’s eyes widen: she and everyone else who has met Mr. Kapoor even in passing knows how hungry he gets, how starved he must be after returning home from a long day’s work. “I apologize, Mr. Kapoor, here let me--” 

“No, it’s alright I can—” Mr. Kapoor too reaches for the covered bowls but Priya gently brushes his hand aside. 

“Mr. Kapoor, you should go change and wash up. I will have your plate ready by the time you come back down.” 

Back to the furrowed brow. “You don’t have to, Priya. I can ask Tarun, or do it my—”

“It’s no problem at all, really.” 

Most times Mr. Kapoor is an easy read: he laughs, cries, pouts, with an ease Priya can’t help but admire. But then there are moments like this, where something passes over him and twists his face into a language Priya hasn’t yet learned. 

“Priya,” he says after a moment, “are you sure you’re alright?” 

Priya blinks. “Yes,” she says, nodding slightly, “why are you asking?” 

“And you’ve eaten dinner already, yes?” 

Priya nods again. 10:30 might be an improvement for Mr. Kapoor’s meal times but they both know that it is still later than Priya has ever eaten outside of an emergency. Where is he going with this? 

“I just don’t know why else you would be waiting up,” Mr. Kapoor says after a moment, wincing just slightly in the silence that follows. 

There are a number of responses Priya could offer at this moment -- that the last few weeks’ near-constant turmoil has made an average day seem just a little boring, that she grew up in a house that almost always had more people than rooms and so is still unused to the quiet that comes with living in a 30 room mansion with only 3 other people. But those are, no matter how accurate, not quite the truth.  

“Would it be so shocking if I said I wanted to?” 

Mr. Kapoor’s wide-eyed expression conveys that apparently yes, it would be. Priya sighs, shifting awkwardly now that she’s gotten herself stuck into the mess of talking about feelings. She should have just told him she was bored, never mind the 15 things Mr. Kapoor would probably ask poor Tarun to order as a solution.

“I am your wife, Mr. Kapoor,” Priya starts, trying to modulate her voice into something that sounds equally firm and gentle. Then something occurs to her. “If you have work to do, or would prefer to eat alone—”

“No!” Mr. Kapoor yelps, flushing along with Priya when the sound echoes just as easily as his laugh before. She hadn’t been looking for it before, but now that Priya knows the signs of his loneliness are just as apparent to her as her own. He clears his throat. “I...I wouldn’t prefer it at all.” He looks away. “You don’t have to trouble yourself, though,” he nods his chin towards the hand Priya realizes is still holding open her Dickens. “I know you must have work of your own.”  

“I’ve read the book before,” Priya says shrugging, “and taught it a few times as well. Revision is important, but not so much that I can’t take some time to sit with my husband.”  

“You really don’t have to,” Mr. Kapoor tries one last time, voice just slightly plaintive, “you know I don’t expect anything.” 

“I know I don’t have to,” Priya responds, before taking a breath and looking away. Her own family would have known without Priya having to say, but Mr. Kapoor is still a near stranger. She knows now that he needs words, no matter how painful and awkward it might be for Priya to speak. “I want to.” 

“Really?” When Priya looks back Mr. Kapoor is smiling like a child that has been given every cracker he wanted for Diwali. She ignores the warmth that blossoms somewhere near her heart, the stray thought whispering that it is so easy to make him happy. Mr. Kapoor must be a braver man than Priya herself, she realizes — he is still reaching out, despite being gripped by the same fear of loss that has Priya constantly building thicker walls around her heart. She might not be able to love him, but she can do this much. 

“Go,” Priya commands, but tries to gentle it with a smile. “I and your dinner will be here when you finish.” 

“Promise?” That strange expression from before has made its return, but Priya, already turning towards uncovering the dishes, doesn't think much before responding. 

“Promise.”