Part 1: It happened one night
It happened just the way it did in the movies: a stormy, tangled Mumbai night, a woman in need of a cab, at the airport and a man who wouldn't let her take one.
"You know better than I do that I wouldn't have been able to run into you, even if I had planned it," Arnav said, leaning against his car. "You have mastered the art of evasion. It has been years of missed calls, unanswered emails, telephone messages to your headquarters and now, this happenstance meeting."
Happenstance, indeed! - she had called Swami uncle, her parents' manager from Buenos Aires airport, to inform him of her Mumbai stopover. She'd given him only a day's notice to prep any papers that needed her signatures, to let go of all ties with the city. Her next destination was Bali where she was to attend a photojournalism convention and then head to the next assignment, National Geographic would throw her way. She'd meant her Mumbai stay to be a day's worth of legal hassle and nothing else. All that care to avoid the likes of him and it appeared, she'd bumped into the ill-luck she'd hoped not to face again, if the bad weather wasn't enough to distort her plans.
Mumbai! - her breath quivered, at its mention - the place where she'd spent the best days of her adulthood with her parents; and him too. But, today was far from counting as one, when she still hadn't come to terms with the events that had made her run from the city. From him. From everything that had once denoted sanity and solace.
"Gwaenchana-yo (it's ok,)" she said, affording a wavering smile and a measured indifference, which she was aware would annoy him further, if her initial refusal hadn't already. "I'm sure they will be able to resume air traffic tomorrow. I will shack up in a nearby motel."
Her habit of dropping Korean in their conversation hadn't changed from their days at the Korean language and culture center. Although, it had been her manner of speaking that made him scoff that instant; that her way of addressing him as her Oppa had been omitted, though she'd accounted for their three year age difference and spoken to him in formal Korean.
In attempts to hail a taxi, she was already drenched to the bone, but now that his adamant self had stepped out in the rain, after having sighted her on the pavement, she knew it was going to be impossible to dodge his request to accompany him.
"Shiruh! (Hate it!) I hate getting drenched, right next to corduroy pants and over-ripe bananas. They all make me feel like I'm inching towards old age," She remembered his declaration from the time, she'd snapped her first polaroid of him.
"I think that would be best for both of us," she raised her pitch to be heard over the pitter patter of the rain, while she balanced the mountainous backpack she was carrying on her shoulders.
Slicking his hair back, he straightened. Tugging her arm to have her face him, he yelled, "What good has come out of running away, Kushi? Or what has your leaving given me? Care to explain?"
In the misbehaving flicker of the street light under which they stood, she finally saw that his eyes held no understanding for her disappearing act. That instant she prayed, she could bear seeing anger, contempt or anything that didn't represent the jagged truth - his disappointment in her.
His disdain for her silence manifested into a forceful push, when he let her go and she swayed a bit before she held her footing. "Fine! Fine..." He bit into his words, as held his forehead and looked to either sides of the road in deepening frustration. "I won't stop you from leaving tomorrow. I won't question about the time you were gone."
Sighing, he said the only words that might buy him the time he wanted with her. "I will not ask you about us. Or if there would be an us in the future. Will that do?"
In the window of the moment, when she averted her eyes unable to answer him, she knew she'd lost the fight to him. Clasping her wrist, he dragged her towards the car in no time. "Oppa*," she cried in faint protest, which did little to alter the course of his action, except from giving him transitory relief that she'd resorted to her old ways of calling him Oppa. With the backpack eased off her shoulders, he gently shoved her into the backseat.
Right as he slid into the car, from the other side, the driver asked him if they were going to the hotel, like they always did. "No, drive to the apartment," he told the driver, while never taking his eyes off her awkward form; the veil of distress over her face, revealed to him the Kushi he'd always known.
"Hungry?" he asked, right as he dug out a towel from the storage underneath the cup-holders and threw it at her.
Again, she didn't answer him, as she caught the towel and heaped it on her lap. Instead, she chose to look out the window, while her fingers threaded and re-threaded in nervousness.
"Gachi bab meogeoyo (let's eat together,)" He said letting out a small smile, as he twisted his face away from her.
It was going to be either, a long night or a short, ugly one, depending on how their fates unfolded. Despite not knowing the outcome that awaited him, he knew he had to do this today, for their tomorrow.
To be continued...
*Oppa - A respectful Korean term used by females to call older males such as older male friends or older brothers. Its weird that they use the same honorific for brother and boyfriend/husband, I know.
Edited by -Mitra - 11 years ago
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