Avantika!!!!!!
Happy Birthday!! I know that I've been a horrid person and been completely missing and you probably hate me and I deserve it but it's your birthday so of course I had to give you something even though it's probably not so great!! *takes in deep breath*
This is AU and idk if it's ok because I wrote it really quickly so I hope you like it even a little bit!
Happy birthday again and I hope we get to catch up real soon!! *huggles*
ArHi OneShot |Well-Known Fact|
It's a well-known fact that he likes getting on her nerves.
He knows it, she knows it, their respective sets of friends know it, and most certainly the neighbours who get an earful of them bickering on the way to school every morning know it.
He's been told off for this by his mother, chastised by his older sister, mildly reproached by his younger cousin, but he can't really help it.
There's no particular reason he does it either - not that he knows of. Di likes to wax poetic about his tendencies (since she's a psychology student and all) and tries to dissect his motives and intentions, pegging everything from an inferiority complex to being a closet sadist to his habits, but he doesn't really care. It's just one of those things that are natural and just happen, things that you don't really question. Like preferring coffee over tea, or liking long hair instead if short. It's just a thing - a preference that comes from deep within and is sure and certain and you just accept it as a part of yourself, something that's as comfortable as a part of you that you don't really need to question the existence of.
But psycho-analysing his intentions has never been his style, and his motto in life is pretty much go with the flow.
So when he spots her, the hem of her sundress fluttering just above the knee, her shivering visible even from across the street and under the cover of her umbrella, he grins and unquestioningly responds to the bubble of excitement that sends him sprinting to reach her.
She glances up at the sound of feet slapping into rain-drenched tarmac, her slightly surprised features morphing into one of resignation as he slows to a stop beside her.
She's pretty much used to the routine already to bother with a reaction.
'Nice weather we're having,' he begins casually, as though they'd started their homeward journey from school together, as though he was just picking up the thread of a fallen conversation. As luck would have it he manages to time his jibe with a particularly chilly blast of wind - he can feel its icy touch even through the thick wool of his cardigan, so it's not much of a surprise that she trembles bodily as it passes by, clutching her umbrella a bit more tightly. He jauntily spins his own with one hand, his other tucked into the warm confines of a pocket.
'Yes. Absolutely peachy,' she bites out through tightly clenched teeth and it's a bit hard to tell whether this is because she's reining her temper in or trying to suppress her shudders.
He grins to himself, giving his umbrella's handle one more, adroit spin and feeling more than seeing the sharp glower she fires askance at him. He's taken aback though, just a little bit - usually she chooses to ignore him, tight-lipped and silent as he drones on and on and on, somehow instinctively knowing just which buttons to hit to get her to toss her patience to the side and rage at him. He never gets tired of that rush of victory that washes through him the moment he's chipped a bit too deep into her resilience and her fury, hot and molten and burning, starts surging out of the cracks (he remembers Di had once spent a day wondering whether he might actually be a masochist).
If nothing else, it makes the twenty-minute-or-so trek home a bit more interesting.
'Oh? You don't really look like you're enjoying yourself,' he teases, tongue-in-cheek. It's not like he tries to be subtle, really - he knows that she knows exactly what he's gunning for. It's just a routine that they've abided by for far too long, ever since their morning walks to school somehow fell into synchrony, and it became only normal for them to fall into step with each other because after all, they studied at the same place, and lived right next to each other. People grow used to the weirdest things after a while, and maybe it's not so strange that she's gotten used enough to his insatiable need to bother her for her to not even attempt calling him out for it, like people get used to sleeping to a medley of creaking pipes and ceiling-fans.
'Gee, what makes you say that?' she asks, tone withering and dry with sarcasm. He even catches her rolling her eye under the dip of her umbrella, which is something, since the total circumference of both their umbrellas means they're walking further apart than usual and he doesn't really have an unobstructed view of her expressions, quick to give away her anger or impatience or plain exhaustion. It's always interesting to see how she reacts - they've been at this for months, maybe years now, and they haven't really changed, but he still finds them so...captivating.
Maybe that's the reason he -
'Hmm,' he cuts himself short, not thinking twice about it because what's the point? It's something they did, it was kind of entertaining, and it made him feel good, so he wasn't too keen to pull a Freud on himself, 'Maybe because you're kind of blue?'
She doesn't look at him this time, the upturned cup of her slate-grey umbrella tipped a bit forward, against the oncoming, wispy needles of rain, and he can't really see what look she's wearing, but then she speaks and her voice is light, almost completely devoid of any of the emotions he thinks are scribbled across her face.
'Nope, I'm on top of the world, thank you.'
It takes him a couple of seconds before that line gets through to him, and he staggers almost imperceptibly when he does, because this is a bit new - a bit more recent. She's been content mostly glaring at him and putting up with his nonsense in suffering silence, until she's had enough, until she just throws caution to the winds and rants at him, typically involving a lot of violent hand gestures and a flushed face and a diatribe of how he just needs to leave her be that he's got more or less memorised. But they've gradually moved past that, and she occasionally drops these come-backs on him, and maybe because he's so used to her responses being either null and void or screeches of frustration, they catch him off guard. And maybe, maybe, all that jargon Di spouts with her glasses perched on her nose and an accent that doesn't sound like it belongs anywhere, and most definitely not to her, about change being the only constant and other philosophical wish-wash might be true -
Because she's gotten used to him, and she's started to adapt, or perhaps that's not really the right word - react? But then she's always reacted, that's what made it so fun...fight back? No...'fight back' was what happened when the metre of her temper hit the roof and then spilled over...retaliate?
But then, semantics, and who really cares about that, because the fundamentals have not changed - he's irking her and she's getting irked, and as long as that basic equation is the same why give himself a headache thinking about the variables (he likes math, because math is absolute and there's one right answer, none of the possibilities Di waves her hands around trying to expound to him).
'I didn't mean blue as in your mood,' he quips, as usual skipping over the inconvenient doubts of whether explicitly mentioning that he understood her pun is necessary and just jumping back to the road he'd been beating before, 'I meant you. You're skin seems to have gone kind of blue -
It hasn't, really, and despite his attempts not to he's experiencing some second-hand embarrassment at being so damn obvious, which surprises him, because hadn't they already established he wasn't subtle? Because they had, and it shouldn't matter if he just said something really stupid and really juvenile in a bid to keep her talking and is that what I'm doing - ?
'Maybe you should have dressed warmly,' he says, a bit too loudly, but that's only because the rain has picked up and it's drumming pretty hard, against the slopes of their umbrellas, sizzling and hissing and whispering into the pavement and thumping into the road they trudged alongside.
'Maybe,' she tacitly agrees, and she's sounding entirely too unaffected for his liking, but it could be that he's not at the top of his game today either. The back of his neck is kind of hot - but that's just a physiological reaction, isn't it, since the body's wired to warm up when surroundings are cold, and he's snuggly wrapped up compared to her, barely managing to stifle her shivers as the wind teases and flirts with her flimsy sundress as she hurries on -
'You ought to have dressed warmly,' he says again, and this time the second-hand embarrassment is a bit more first-hand because why am I repeating myself?! But why should that matter because he likes being obnoxious to her, and that look of oh not again as he had skidded up to a stop beside her earlier is only evidence that she was expecting this, so why -
'Unfortunately I can't predict the weather,' she responds coolly and the rain really is loud, because it messes with her tone, like interference on a radio, the crackle of static from an old television set, and he can't place it, can't read whether she's annoyed or angry or speaking with that same nonchalance from before, the nonchalance that drives him to bring her composure to shambles.
And it's that compulsion, far too familiar and far too much a part of him, that keeps him going even though he can't see her face and what's the point if he can't see her face and is that the rain or is that noise in his head?
'If you thought to bring an umbrella, you ought to have had the foresight to at least -'
'-t my umbrella.'
He squints and seriously, is the rain getting harder? Because there's a thin, translucent curtain shimmering in between them, as though the added cover of the umbrellas weren't bad enough and not only is it muffling her voice and the delightful inflections her emotions wrought out of it, but he can't gauge her features either and suddenly he's at a loss and is this the first time we walked in the rain together? because usually, usually, her dad comes to pick her up in his car when it's raining and -
'Huh?' he hears himself say a bit dumbly and it sounds odd to him, like a very faraway sound even though it's coming from his own mouth - a bubble of noise walled off by a storm.
'It's not my umbrella,' she speaks up, her volume climbing enough for him to make out the words but then again, she's enunciating them clearly and slowly, 'It's NK's -'
And there's something of a sensory overload here because what with how ridiculously raucous the downpour is being and how the capsules of water are packed so closely they're as thick as fog and then the mention of NK and suddenly there's more space between them, and it takes him a while to realise that she's moving away -
With a curt wave of her hand and something that distantly sounds like, On that note -
Bye -
And the question, hasty and frantic and maybe panicked, he doesn't know since he doesn't think about these things, trips out of his mouth, and he's yelling since of course I have to, there's so much noise -
'Where are you going?'
'NK's house,' she calls back, and he blinks stupidly at her, his brain is stuttering and idling like an engine without the throttle running, and his grip on his umbrella is dangerously slack -
Just like his hold on his tongue.
'Why?' he demands to know, aghast; why not, says a tiny little voice that sounds uncannily like Di and is uncannily lucid in the midst of all the racket in his head, and he shushes it immediately, since the answer is obvious -
Is it?
She blinks at him slowly, once, twice, as though she's as baffled by his interrogation as he is, before she decides to humour him with a reply.
'I'm going to return the umbrella.'
'But then, how're you going to get back home?'
She's still moving backwards, edging towards the fork in the road - the fork she is not supposed to take, because they're supposed to keep going ahead together, because that's the way they've always gone and why am I overreacting?
'I'm going to wait out the rain there.'
And he thinks he's never heard a more ludicrous, inane thing in his life, and it really doesn't make sense and the patter of droplets, thud-thud-thud against his ear-drums, is driving him crazy.
'What are you doing with his umbrella anyway?'
'He let me borrow it.'
Still moving away. She's almost at the mouth of the adjoining road and her body is shifting, making to turn her back to him and wait a minute -
The question must have been written into his face because she offers by way of explanation, 'He's got afterschool activity and his dad's picking him up.'
Oh. Oh. The torrent seems to have slowed a little, because he heard her voice crisp and clear and he thinks he can see her a bit better now, and maybe he isn't getting a headache from the muggy, wet, cold, miserable weather they've been cursed with today -
But she's still moving away and it makes absolutely no sense.
'You can return the umbrella later, you know,' he tells her, unthinkingly scooting towards her to make himself heard. He doesn't get a chance to second-guess or berate himself though, because she's stopped in her tracks, peering at him with a small frown, as if it takes her some effort to hear him too.
He leans in a bit closer, and his vision is a lot clearer.
'You can just give it back later, why risk trying to go all the way to his place when the weather's like this?'
He's all the way done talking when he realises she's arched an eyebrow at him, and it's then that he realises he's actually speaking to her normally - normal as a definition for this particular situation being like other people talk to each other, on a daily basis about mundane things, without having to think up new ways every morning or every evening to -
'He might need it tomorrow if this weather keeps up,' she shrugs, and he's saved (from what?), 'besides, we were invited to dinner by his parents so my mum and dad will be driving over there anyway later.'
It feels like there's a restraining hand on his mouth, because he can't talk even though he wants to, and even if he could, what could he say? His umbrella's a little askew, slanted at an angle that lets stray raindrops lick at his face and hands but his brain-cells are too occupied trying to process this concept of Khushi having dinner at NK's (even though he knows they're family friends, even though he knows they've always been close, even though...even though...)
'His place is closer,' she fills in the blanks his head is too busy spluttering incoherently over, 'and I'm cold.'
She's admitted it - admitted what he had been trying in an entirely too juvenile and pitiful way to get her to admit, but it's not the way he'd envisioned, wanted - not with that spark of fury and that warm splash of crimson against her cheeks as her voice goes shrill and her eyes zero in on him and stayed there until -
***
She's almost turned around, slightly amused by the image he makes, his jaw loose at the hinges and his umbrella no longer performing its designed function, and her hand's curling back around her slight frame at a poor attempt to warm herself after she's waved him a perfunctory goodbye, when something soft and a little moist makes contact with her upper arm.
She pivots back, bewildered, startled by the unexpected and unfamiliar touch - only to find the cardigan that Arnav'd been clad in being shoved under the shadow of her umbrella in an unceremonious heap. Automatically, she reaches for it, and the minute her fingers make contact with the fabric, damp slightly, he releases it as though it were a live, flesh-eating animal, and she has to fumble to clutch at it properly before it plops into the puddle at her feet.
And before she can ask him what he thinks he's doing, even though it's pretty clear and she's somewhat torn between amused and elated, he's stomping away from her, calling out grouchily, 'You better make sure you return that!'
Which she does, later that evening when the rain has died down and faded like the last notes of soft song, and the evening is cool and pleasant and smelling of fresh grass and damp earth, and they've driven back home from dinner at NK's.
And just to humour him, she pretends that she's not aware that he'd been waiting - that she'd caught a silhouette a bit too tall and too lanky to belong to Anjali Di or Nani flitting behind the curtains of the front hall, by the door, when she'd stepped out of her dad's car to quickly run over and return the cardigan. Just to humour him, she listens to him whine and complain about how he'd been chilled straight to the bone and almost died and probably contracted pneumonia because he had sacrificed his cardigan for her, and then pretends to be outraged because he didn't really have to, because she doesn't think he can handle it if she does anything else.
Because, after all, it's a well-known fact that Arnav is not very good with this whole business of feelings - and for the time being, that's okay.
It's been ages but I hope you guys wouldn't mind humouring me with your thoughts? Please and thank you!
Advocate Anjali Awasthi
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