A Series of Most Fortunate EventsPt11 p115,Note121 - Page 20

That was beautiful. Amazing update. I loved it. Every time I read this SS, I wish that this was the actual show. You are doing a great job!!! I can't wait for the next part.

Super duper like.. It's like watching a sliding doors/paralleled dimension version of ipkknd...

Love the way you write dear!

*Part 4*

*A tale of when the right things happen at the right time*

NK hit the replay button a second time, his brow furrowed as he re-watched the scene he had captured on his camcorder.

There could no doubt about it. True, he had not heard the whole story, and neither did he have all the details. But the sudden slipping away of the treacherous mask of Shyam Manohar Jha had been far too plain to miss. He felt a pang of the same shock, the same paralysing incredulity that had frozen his footsteps outside the terrace as he heard the good natured voice of his Jeejaji turn into something so cloying, so poisonous, that it chilled him to the core.

The threat had been too obvious to ignore. The smugness had been palpable. The menace unmistakable. NK might have doubted his own ears of the exchange he had stumbled upon on the terrace, but with his camcorder repeating each and every accusation Bhabi had hurled at Shyam, and the disturbingly offhand way in which the latter had brushed them off without any attempt to deny them, left no place for doubt. His blatant, self-satisfied admittance of the fact that Bhabi would not be able to prove anything against him, his confident arrogance as he boasted of his control over the Raizadas, and that vindictive suggestion that he would stoop as low as stopping Payal's weddinig and ruining Khushiji's reputation had all been captured on tape. Play-by-play.

NK had the bare facts. Shyam had, at some point, pretended to be a bachelor and lived at Buaji's as a tenant. Somehow he had managed to emotionally blackmail the family into getting him engaged to Khushiji- evidently against her will. He had heard about Khushiji's broken-off engagement after he had arrived in India, and had tactfully remained silent on the subject. But it fit in. It explained, for instance, why Khushiji's demeanour would abruptly vacillate from exuberance and enthusiasm to awkwardness, stiffness, a silent revulsion whenever Shyam would be anywhere near her. It would explain why she did not seem to be as upset over a broken engagement as he would have expected a traditional-minded girl like Khushiji to be.

And it would also explain the strange, questionable behaviour of Shyam over the past few days. His unexplained bad temper after Nannav danced with Khushiji. And that day when he had been creeping in the sidelines, while he and Akash had been plotting to foray into the women's mehndi ceremony...he had not been spying on Di, as he had initially suspected.

He had been spying on Khushiji.

NK felt sick. He was repulsed, bitterly, violently repulsed. It was sickening, downright sickening, that a man that he had always considered the archetype of a perfect husband, a perfect son-in-law, a perfect brother-in-law, a perfect human being, had been nothing short of a backstabbing villain.

Villain, villain, smiling damned villain... The line from Hamlet floated easily into his mind. Grimly, he acknowledged how fitting this quote was with regards to Shyam. Always hiding his craftiness, his deviousness, behind a smile that NK had begun to see to be as synthetic as an over-exaggerated, painted one across the face of a joker.

A smiling villain...a terrifying picture. With no regret, no guilt, over the perfidious duplicity he had committed against nearly a dozen loving, trusting people. Despite having been caught. Despite having been given a second chance for atonement. With no intention of curbing his immoral, dishonest, cruelly deceptive, and totally, thoroughly wrong attempts to woo an innocent young girl several years younger than him and his wife...even if it involved destroying her life in the process.

Villain, villain, smiling damned villain...A haunting, horrifying image. A man without a conscience...was a dangerous man.

An unbidden, cold dread sprouted roots within him and climbed up his frame , like creeping green ivy. NK shut his eyes as the tape wound to a close, the screen blacking out. He could understand, now, more clearly than ever, the urgency behind the last request Bhabi had made as a precondition to returning to her room to prepare for the wedding.

He would not let her down. Shyam Manohar Jha would not succeed- not on his watch.

***

Arnav's fingers gently continued to play with the bangles he had, in an unexpected, almost nerve-wracking turn of events, brought for her the previous night. With every tinkle, her heart leapt a little higher, until lodging in the vicinity of the base of her throat. She struggled to swallow, breathing laborious.

There was something so...so familiar, so intimate...about the way he seemed to have no qualms silently reminding her of his gift to her, his actions speaking a thousand unspeakable things, doing worse damage to her nerves than had he been saying anything in that devastatingly spellbinding voice...questions, queries, confusions popped into her mind without being summoned.

Why, why, WHY did I have to wear these bangles? Why did I have to wear THESE bangles?? I have other red bangles...in fact I have green and gold bangles too... And besides, I wore these yesterday...and all night...and for a while in the morning too...STOP! That's not the point. The point is...why did I have to wear these ones again, when he only bought them because...well because...he didn't have to...and they're a 'perfect fit'...stupid, stupid, stupid! I shouldn't have worn these bangles, I shouldn't even have worn red, I shouldn't have come here of all places...why would Jiji be here?! I should have gone straight to the terrace instead of- what must he be thinking? Devi Maiyya...please help me...please make him stop...smiling...

She drew in a shuddering breath. The buzzing in her head did not subside.

She needed to distract him, distract herself, before she lost the few fragments of sanity left inside her.

With difficulty, Khushi cleared her throat. Arnav didn't respond, but continued with the music he was making against the intricate, dainty bands of glass around her fragile wrist.

'Arnavji,' she managed hoarsely, willing herself to be coherent, willing herself to come up with something sensible, something logical to say, to break the trance that had pinioned them both to the poolside. The world outside seemed to have faded away. 'You- you said- you said you wanted to talk to me?'

'Hmm,' the deep, guttural hum seemed to reverberate through her, from her hand frozen as he held her in place, paralysed, rushing down to her toes, and she repressed a shudder.

'W-what...what did you want to talk to me about?'

***

The corners of Anjali's lips turned down in bitter disappointment, a few tears automatically springing up to her eyes. The flush that customarily coloured her face whenever she was distressed displayed tell tale signs as she reread the piece of paper she was holding before her eyes, her heart sinking.

Pregnancy Test- Negative.

Anjali thrust the report back inside its envelope before squaring her shoulders, inhaling deeply, and hobbling over to a chest of drawers to stuff it inside.

There was no point in crying over things that do not happen. It was better to live for what did. And today one of her brothers was getting married. And the other was embarking on a beautiful journey of self-discovery, of fulfilment, of love.

She would not cry over something she never had, and consequently something she had not lost.

She would smile. She would smile in gratitude for what she did have. What she would have.

The happiness of her family.

And...an impish smile suddenly eradicated the gloom written on her face...maybe ANOTHER sister-in-law.

With that thought in mind, she wiped away the remnants of her tears before hurrying out in pursuit of Nani, wondering whether the case of the missing Panditji had been solved yet.

***

There was a slight pause. The wind washed gently over them, shushing the faint ringing of Khushi's bangles. She waited breathlessly for him to answer, for him to betray any sign of having heard her, even. The seconds ticked tirelessly by.

'Why, Khushi?' When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than the hush of the wind as they jostled playfully against the plants bordering the poolside. Khushi felt her throat tighten further.

'W-why wh-what?' she heard herself whisper, drained almost from the superhuman effort she had to harness to utter those monosyllables.

'Why were you so upset that day...that day when the mehndi ceremony was going on and I wasn't at home? Why did you keep calling me? That voicemail...why did you sound so worried? Why did you start yelling at me when I got home...as though you had a right to?'

***

Arnav watched as Khushi almost staggered backwards under the abrupt, unexpected tirade of his questions, clearly caught off guard. Her wonderful wide eyes, flecked with hazel and brown, were stormy, reflecting each emotion that crossed her mind.

He was quite taken aback too. He had never imagined he would ever verbalise every question, every doubt that had crossed his mind, that had dwelled about his heart like insistent moths about a flame, their shadows haunting his subconscious, lingering... persistently lingering. He had not planned, not intended to ask what he just had. Not when he had never even fully, consciously admitted to himself that these were scraps of the very same intangible, incomprehensible, formless puzzles that had insidiously appeared in his clinical, precise life, and occupied his nights of sleep, and his nights without them, since Khushi had become part and parcel of his life.

And something about the atmosphere tonight, something almost magical, something almost surreal about being here, his favourite haunt in this house, surrounded by starlight and moonlight and fairy lights winking down at him, egging him on, about being alone, cloistered in one corner of that same house with people milling in every direction as though they did not even exist, with her...looking so divinely, almost painfully beautiful...in red, in his bangles...The torrent toppled the flimsy barrier of denial that feebly attempted to fend it off, and the flood surged out, without even the slightest of chances of being abated.

And he did not want them to be abated. Because only when he heard his own whisper did he realise the desperation with which he had wanted to know, needed to know, needed to convince himself that...he could feel what he felt...without the fear of being...broken.

'Why were you...?' Khushi's soft, choked whisper hesitantly, nervously, tapped against his hearing. His desperation, his ache, built to new heights, his heart smothered as he earnestly, helplessly searched Khushi's expression for the rest of her question. But she had lowered her head, and the drapes of her hair cast a shadow across the myriad of emotions that would bloom there.

'Why were you upset that night when I went to get the ghee?' her tone was imbued in a strange, quiet hush, as though she were frightened of speaking louder, 'Why were you so worried? Why did you run after an ambulance thinking I was in it? Why did it matter to you? Why did you...shout at me...when you found me...as though...you had a right to?'

Arnav's eyes shut themselves tightly, instinctively, as a deluge of unwelcome, harrowing memories crashed down on him. The world suddenly seemed to spin in a dizzying axis about him, the reeling sensation that had seized him, that had rendered rationality obsolete in him last night, threatening to take over again.

It had been frightening.

In that one, frightening, terrifying, horrifying moment Arnav had seen any light that might have burned in his dreary existence extinguish, and all he could see was- darkness. Acute, black, darkness. Engulfed suddenly in shadows, dumped suddenly in the bitter cold. He had felt his existence, his world, shatter into so many fine particles, like glass crumbled underfoot, without a hope of being mended. And just as frenzied thoughts, painfully in denial, grappled with one another to assure him, not knowing whether to continue to race after that ambulance, watching helplessly as his life speeded away before his eyes, not knowing whether to surrender to the urge to collapse on his knees and allow the bitter, biting, stabbing cold of fear, of loss, of pure pain...he had felt his heart...break. And begin to bleed freely.

He opened his eyes.

Khushi stood before him, oddly still, oddly silent, as though she had been carved of stone. Her shoulders hunched over, her hair hiding the window of her emotions, her soul, her beautiful face, from view. A potent pang made his heart quake, like a giant bell under the blow of a mallet...if just the thought of losing her made him feel that way...what if...?

And he answered her question with a question of his own.

'Don't you know?'

She raised her head, excruciatingly slow. He felt his breath catch.

The same pain that he felt locked in his chest, rattling about against his ribs, threatening to destroy him from within, was reflected across her visage.

'Don't you?' That same fearful whisper.

***

Two souls yearning for one another, incomplete, barely breathing.

Two souls with the sordid memories of pain and loss, of betrayal and hurt, of undeserved accusations and undeserved punishment separating them from each other.

Two souls not knowing how to clear the worn-out battlefield lying smoking and in ruins before them. Not knowing how to cross over the devastation to reach each other.

Afraid...that if one broke down, history would repeat itself, and they would never be able to live again.

***

'I should go,' her tone sounded dead.

No, no, NO!

Arnav's mind screamed in protest, feeling a sudden, empty hollow begin to carve itself into his heart. He had tried, tried desperately, to push her out of his life. And she had defied all his attempts, and made a permanent place for herself in a domain over which he had been the only one in command. And now, no matter what he did, that chamber that exuded her scent, that echoed her laughter, that sang with her voice and shone with her colours, could not be eradicated. If he let her go now, that compartment of his being would be left vacant, with him forever aware of the omnipresent emptiness, the incompleteness, sucked into the whirlpool of existence falling in within itself.

But how could he stop her? How could he begin to find the words to set right every wrong that had happened in the past, to repent for every time he had bent, in unthinking cruelty, all his firepower towards this heartrendingly fragile creature in front of him? How could he begin to find the words to convince her that he would lay down his life to keep her from harm?

And then, for the second time that evening, chance played into his hands.

***

'Uffo, what now?' a highly frustrated Nani's voice could be heard echoing in the midst of the sudden confused scurrying that took the place of the lights, which had, without warning, gone off, plunging the entire Raizada mansion, previously ablaze with festivity, into pitch black darkness, 'Hari Prakash! Check the generator!'

There was more confused shuffling about, a shout of acknowledgement and more noises of people bumping into the furniture as, presumably, Hari Prakash went to investigate why the generator, an automatic one, had chosen today of all days to misbehave.

'Devi Maiyya, sambhal lena sabh,' Anjali murmured devoutly under her breath, as she sat beside a Buaji swaying from side to side in frustration

***

The minute the lights died, Khushi froze.

It had been so abrupt it took her some moments to get her bearings straight. Rather disoriented, her eyes shot first in one direction and then the next. The streaming, twinkling fairy lights were caught in deep slumber, and the bright light bulbs encased in the sconces lining the walls by the poolside had also flickered off. Every corner that had previously been iridescent, or bathed in the warm glow was now closeted in shadows.

The familiar suffocating feeling draped itself around Khushi like a thick, woollen muffler, tightening about her like a straitjacket. Distress gripped her, exacerbated by the desperate, alien longing that had gaped open within her, a longing that she knew could not be quenched, with every straw she could snatch to haul herself towards her heart's desire severed, but could not keep herself from craving.

And then she turned to look at him, and her frozen heart melted like wax dripping off a candle.

There was light. Those two beams of sunlight flickering through his eyes to hers, warming her instantly, the bubbling, sweet, syrupy liquid her blood had transformed into steadily resuming their course about her body, stretching the reaches of warmth to every frozen inch of her.

Those two beacons in the dark, illuminating the path for her to take to leave behind the darkness.

Those two pinpoints of light blazing brighter than anything Khushi had ever seen before in her life, imprisoning her in their captivating depths, snatching her up and pulling her out of herself, leaving behind thinking, leaving behind reasoning, with just a heart thudding rapidly to a melody she had never heard so clearly in her life.

Thought had shrivelled up and died, and Khushi gaped at the man standing before her, seeing him as though for the first time. Bathed in the soft, pale periwinkle shimmer capering about from the pool, his skin suddenly appeared darker, olive-coloured almost, and at the same time seemed to emit a strange, secretive glow that made her scarcity of air worse. Her mouth was dry. The shadows cast across his face defined more clearly than ever his eyes, saying everything his lips couldn't say, lips which at the moment were parted and sucking in air as though there was a dearth of it, in the same way she was. The sight held her enthralled...

He was advancing towards her. The remaining, enervated vestiges of self-preservation frantically tugged her backwards, and she felt herself stumble as her feet dragged her away from him. A million volts of invisible current leapt between them...she would be electrocuted, burnt alive, if he got too close.

Just as she felt her back bump into the cool surface of the wall behind her, the same wall she had been cornered against on Diwali, Khushi felt panic grip her.

Not again, Devi Maiyya, please, please, not again...I can't live through it...

'Arnavji...please,' she managed to gasp, begging him unabashedly, 'please, let me go.'

And Arnav heaved a great, shuddering sigh, his eyes closing briefly before catching her in their caramel depths once more.

'That's not an option any more, Khushi.'

***

He closed the last few millimetres of distance between them in a heartbeat, intent on stamping her as his, once and for all.

To finish off a task he had left incomplete for far too long.

So what did you think?? This SS has been named by my friend the 'keeping in denial' story...and I guess it's true. I'm getting fed up with the MU and Shyam and Anjali and Payash and practically everything else, so I'm making up my own version of events :P Please leave your likes and comments:)

Next update will be for Mohabat Door Jaane Na De:)

I reserve all rights over this work of fiction and request that readers do not reproduce/copy/modify it elsewhere and or claim credit.

Res!!

*sigh* If only! This seems to be my only thought every time I read this SS.

I love NK for getting involved in the action. :) And Anjali is such a sweetheart! She is finding her happiness in her family's happiness rather than drown them in her sorrows. And about a second sister in law ! LOL :D

Oh and they finally verbalised the questions that have been plaguing them since the beginning of time! And what a way to do it. The hesitancy, the fear of the response. It was so perfect. And the Khushi withdrawing into herself almost waiting for a lashing like that of Diwali night! But no! :D This is a series of fortunate events is it not! Sad, Khushi didnt know that! :P

I loved the moment the power went off! Fate favouring Arnav again! :D And how she found respit in his eyes. And the last moment left me speechless! And since the events here are fortunate I'm happily assuming that they wont be interrupted ! :P

Please dont stop there! I want to see what happens next, of course after you update Mohabbat! Cause you know how much I love that! :P

🤗

oh wow!!!!pls continue soon!

the diwali memories are just killers! loved it!

'Arnavji...please,' she managed to gasp, begging him unabashedly, 'please, let me go.'

And Arnav heaved a great, shuddering sigh, his eyes closing briefly before catching her in their caramel depths once more.

'That's not an option any more, Khushi.'

OMG! What an update! Loved it! Loved it! I've been missing your updates by thhhiiiss much every time - and I'm finally there! *Pheww!!!! There are just sooo many things I wanna quote here - I would probably end up quoting the entire chapter! LOL!

I wish they had the time to ask each other why it made a difference to them! How life would have turned beautiful then! How I wish her pregnancy test was negative... *Sigh!

Uh-mayyy-zinngg chapter! Thanks for the PM! I hope you get all your links you've been waiting for soon! *Hugs*

Not again, Devi Maiyya, please, please, not again...I can't live through it...

'Arnavji...please,' she managed to gasp, begging him unabashedly, 'please, let me go.'

And Arnav heaved a great, shuddering sigh, his eyes closing briefly before catching her in their caramel depths once more.

'That's not an option any more, Khushi.'

loved it that was so beautifully written loved the emotions i am loving the retelling of the whole misunderstanding glad khushi and arnva is getting closer and anjali is not pregnant and payal and nk are dealing with the snake loving it thanks for the pm

NK knows the truth. [:D/] Arnav finally admitting he can never let her go. 🥳 Thanks for the happy update. 👏