Posted:
Warning: not the usual fluff, angsty because ShraMan are killing me, slowly.
Brrr. Brrr. Brrr. BRKKK.
"No, no, no!" Sumo screamed as her car
started making funny sound and jerked a few times before coming to a complete
halt. "Arghhh!" She let out a loud groan and leaned forward, placing her head
on the steering wheel and cursing her wretched fate.
Her car would break
down in the middle of a torrential rain storm, in the middle of a dark, emptystreet
while she was alone. She thought her day couldn't have gotten any worse, today
she had visited many old customers that had withdrawn their orders once they heard
about PCT being closed down. And on top of that, her house was a hot mess -
people lived and worked there now. If all of that wasn't
enough, now her car had broken down. "I should just listen to Preeti and get a
new one...not that I can afford it right now." She mumbled to herself and grabbed
her bag to search for her cell phone, she found it easily, thankfully. But
sadly, luck was not on her side yet again and it was dead.
"ARGHHH!" Sumo screamed grabbing her
head, tears threatened to leave her eyes at the frustration and anger she was
experiencing. But she held them back and took a deep breath trying to collect
herself. "I have two options." She murmured. "Either, I can try and see what is
wrong with the car and wait for someone to drive by. Or I can set out on foot
and try to find help."
She sighed realizing that both plans
were horrible, no one would be out so late during a storm and she knew for a
fact that the nearest house was more than two kilometers away. On top of that,
she didn't know exactly who or what she would
run into on the peripheries of Delhi. But she couldn't stay sitting in the car
either, and she knew that there was no way that she would be able to figure out
what was wrong with the car. She needed a phone, and with that she took a deep
breath and decided that she needed to get moving.
Sumo grabbed her trusty purple
umbrella, thanking God that it was in the car, and her purse before throwing
the car door open and opening the umbrella. She was accosted by a gust of
strong wind and with it the warm rain drops, the wind and rain, although not
cold made her shiver. She closed the door behind her and locked the car before
setting off on foot in the direction in which she was headed praying that she
got home safely and wondering why everything seemed to be going wrong these
days.
X-X-X-X
Shravan Malhotra needed space, from his
family, from accusations and suggestions. Pushkar's words kept ringing in his
mind, that he was a horrible friend and he hated how Pushkar
just assumed that he would sabotage her on purpose. Shravan
knew himself well enough to know that if he was aware that PCT was on the
disputed land, he would have not taken the case, rather he would have made sure
that Sumo had a fair warning about the dispute and how it may affect her even
though they were fighting.
But alas, he had unintentionally
sabotaged the one thing that meant the most to her, and he knew she was hurt.
He saw it in her eyes, the disbelief and the pain - he didn't want to see it
because it pierced his heart. He had to remind himself that he hated her, that
she was the woman who tried to help Nirmala Ahuja and hurt him and his father.
But it was so hard to hate her, it felt unnatural, and he knew that he would
never be able to accomplish it because she was Sumo. He couldn't
get himself to hate her last time, and he couldn't do it now.
Her pain hurt him, and he hated himself for
it. The way she had looked at him and murmured that she should have understood
that he was behind it made his heart hurt. When she backed away from him,
staggering, all he wanted to do was close the distance between them and wrap
her up in his arms, to convince her that he didn't mean to do it, that he
didn't know. But he could feel his father beside him, and even
though his heart screamed at him to end her pain, his brain stopped him. Her
pain always pierced his heart, he had realized as much with the Khosla
situation - but the Sumo in front of him then made him feel like his heart was
breaking into a million pieces.
She left, but her thoughts plagued him.
He beat himself up over it wondering how he could have missed that detail - he
tried to convince himself that it didn't matter because what he did was right
legally. But it felt so wrong. And if that wasn't enough, he kept seeing her
and the pain in her eyes, he ached to speak to her but his own guilt and her
accusing eyes held him back.
He tried to immerse himself in work but
his mind kept straying back to her, the harder he tried to not think about her,
the more he seemed to. He had taken to driving around at night because he
couldn't sleep, as soon as he closed his eyes, he saw her, and it wasn't the
bubbly Sumo he saw, it was the Sumo that looked at him accusingly and walked
away from him.
Shravan sighed and shook his head
trying to focus on driving instead, the rain was hitting the windshield hard,
and the wipers were frantically moving in an arc. He could hear his tires
moving through the accumulating puddles of water. This was supposed to be
calming, but it never seemed to clear his head. A nagging voice was always at
the back of his mind telling him that he was still running from himself.
Shravan ran his hand through his hair,
and closed his eyes for a quick second. His heart jumped in his chest when he
opened his eyes and he swerved the car hard to avoid the car
that was parked in the middle of the street. He managed to avoid hitting it, barely.
"f**kkk." He murmured as his heart seemed to settle back down into his chest.
A few things clicked into place in a
matter of seconds, the car definitely belonged to Sumo. He could already guess
that it had probably broken down in the middle of the road and let out a groan,
he knew that she was attached to her car but it was unsafe. He felt the anger
well up in him just as quickly as he had pieced the puzzle together, and he
wondered what she was doing all the way out here so late. She had lived in
Delhi for longer than he had, and she of all people should know how unsafe it
could be at times, another memory hit him, her insistence that he drop her off
at the bus stop in the middle of the night.
He wanted to just leave, he could
easily move his car and pretend that he hadn't seen her - that is what his
brain yelled at him to do, but before he even processed what he was doing, he
was throwing his door open. The rain drenched him completely within seconds,
but he didn't care, his feet moved towards her car and his heart sank when he
realized that there was no one in the car.
A million thoughts ran through his
mind, at first they were irrational - like someone may have taken her if she
got out of the car - and as he had time to process things he realized that
maybe she had called someone to pick her up, she wasn't stupid. But he wondered
who she would have called, and a fleeting thought in his mind yelled that it
should have been him - he knew she would have called him if it was a few weeks
ago. He wondered if she had called Pushkar but he didn't want to call and
check.
He walked back to his car and got in
before closing the door behind him, a shiver ran through his body as the cool
air of the fan hit his wet clothes. He turned the fans away from him and
put his car in drive again, lurching forward just as fast as he was before, his
mind once again plagued with thoughts of Sumo.
He came to a screeching halt only a few
minutes later, despite the darkness and the rain, he could recognize the purple
umbrella anywhere. She was slowly walking down the street, the umbrella in her
hand, he doubted it did much to help her though. He saw her jump when he hit
the brakes on the car, he was out of the car and walking towards her when she
turned around. A strong gust of wind turned her umbrella inside out and it flew
from her hands, he noticed how her eyes grew wide, and her body tensed. He
wanted to laugh at her reaction, he was the least dangerous person she could
run into.
X-X-X-X
Suman Tiwari didn't know if she should
be happy or angry, no matter where she went he always seemed to end up there.
What were the chances that he would be driving around here at this time?
He was marching towards her, fully drenched, his perfectly coiffed hair was
plastered to his forehead and his jaw was clenched.
"Do you have any semblance of safety?"
He snapped once he was within hearing distance. She felt her body tense up
again, this was the first time she was hearing his voice since that day,
and he sounded just as angry again.
She didn't say anything to him but
turned back around into the direction she was heading and started walking
again, she had nothing to say to him anymore.
"Where are you going?" He asked from
beside her grabbing her hand to hold her back. Sumo turned around and pulled
her hand out of his hold roughly, glaring at him, taking him aback. That was a
reaction he had never gotten from her, he was so used to touching her that he
didn't even think about it.
"Leave me alone." She said, her voice
was even and quiet, but still alarmingly angry.
"If I did you'd be found left for dead
in the middle of this street somewhere." He snapped back.
"Why do you care?" She
asked looking up at him, she cursed her heart for the way it jumped when she
looked at him, and she wanted to cry because no matter what he
did she still loved him.
He had no answer, of course he cared,
no matter what happened between them he still cared for her, always would but
he couldn't tell her that.
"I'll drop you home."
"I don't need help from strangers."
She answered looking up at him again, his breath hitched for two reasons, the
first being her words and the second being the way the raindrops seemed to
cling to the skin of her face and her eyelashes.
"I am a stranger?" He asked, stepping
closer, before he could stop himself.
"You're worse than a stranger." She
answered, she could feel tears streaming down her face, they were too warm to
be raindrops. She didn't want to waste anymore tears on him, but she couldn't
help it. He felt his heart clench at her words, and his mind screamed at him to
tell her that he didn't do it on purpose but the words wouldn't come out of his
mouth.
"I was your friend once." He said
stepping even closer to her so they were almost touching and peering down at
her, he was invading her space without even being conscious of it.
"I wish you weren't." She answered, she
was never the one to back down. "It would have hurt less."
"You hurt me too." He said.
"I didn't know it was a competition.
And Shravan Malhotra, I wasn't trying to purposely sabotage my friend."
The accusation hurt, a lot, because he
didn't do it intentionally. But he knew that she wasn't ready to listen to him
yet, she believed that he did it on purpose, and the way things had happened
had set him up with the perfect motive. He still wished that he hadn't said
those words those day, he knew that she still believed that he couldn't do that
to her until she remembered his words. There was so much he wanted to say but
he couldn't, so he chose to say nothing.
She wanted to look away from him and
start walking, but she couldn't, his eyes were locked onto hers and she
couldn't look away, he always had a strong hold on her, and that hadn't changed.
She was glad that the rain was falling as hard as it was, he couldn't see her
tears that way. She looked at his face carefully, and noticed the dark circles
under his eyes, he looked like he hadn't slept for a few days. She wondered
what he was doing out here this late. His eyes seemed to be screaming at her,
floating with what she could only label regret, she wondered what he actually
regretted.
"So that's it for us then?" He asked, his voice almost a
whisper among the pitter-patter of the rain.
"It doesn't matter what we say or do, we always assume the
worst of the other and end up hurting each other. We're toxic for each other, and
I think it'd be best for the both of us if we remained strangers." She said,
she wanted to laugh at the irony, a few days ago she wanted to tell him that
she was in love with him, and now she was suggesting that they remain
strangers.
He felt an immense pressure in his chest, like his heart was
being pulled in ten different directions, these weren't just the words of a
friend, but the words of the girl he loved, the girl he had loved for years. He
wondered if they could ever be strangers, if they could ignore the other person
when they saw each other - even when they didn't talk to the other, their eyes
spoke.
"Let me drop you home, for Nanu's
sake." He said, his voice suddenly detached and unemotional.
"You shouldn't have a problem leaving
me stranded in the middle of the road again."
"As the friend you hurt, I didn't. But
as someone who Nanu trusts, I do. Get in the car, please."
Sumo sighed and considered her options,
as much as she didn't want to get in the car with him, she knew her options
were limited and he was right, it was dangerous to be out here. So she sucked
it up and stepped away from him. He got the hint and turned around walking
towards his car and she followed him, grudgingly wondering why she always ended
up running into him. She opened the
passenger door with an ease and comfort that reminded her of all the others
times she had sat in this very car, next to the man she loved, next
to her best-friend.
They didn't say a word as he got into
the driver's seat and put the car in drive. She shivered as the cool air of the
AC hit her, realizing that she was soaked for the first time. She didn't say anything,
but he turned the AC down without looking at her once. His mind was running a mile a minute, the smell of her perfume lingered
in the car, the rain bringing it out and he knew that it would linger for days,
as if he needed another reason to think about her.
They were hyper-aware of the other as
always, but they didn't say anything. Both their minds went back to the time they
were sitting in this very car, following Googlo, and laughing. He missed
bickering with her, he wished she would yell at him, scream at him, be angry
with him - anything other than being a stranger. He wondered how much PCT had
really meant to her, he knew she loved it, but he didn't understand how much it
meant to her until Pushkar had said it. This wasn't the Sumo he knew, the Sumo
he knew would yell and scream, at least the old Sumo would have. And for the
first time, Shravan thought that maybe she had actually grown in the ten years
they were apart, ten years was a long time. She wasn't the old Sumo, but a part
of him was still the old Shravan, the one that seemed to be stuck in a moment
of time where he was betrayed.
He pulled up in the familiar Tiwari
Villa driveway in no time due to the empty roads and the rain that had eased up
a little. He put the car in park, and finally spoke, "I didn't know PCT was on
the land, I didn't mean to do it." He murmured.
"I didn't mean to hurt
you either, both times." She
answered, her voice cold, she threw the door open and got out of the car, not
looking back at him even once, she didn't want him to see her tears. He watched
as she disappeared inside the house, closing the door behind her, leaving him
sitting in the car. Both times. A
few things clicked for him, and he suddenly realized how horrible it felt to be
held accountable for something that you didn't mean to do. He had walked away
from her then, and she had walked away from him now. Life had come a full
circle, and he was standing at a place he hated.
X-X-X-X
A/N: I am getting a lot of messages from people asking me to write on KRPKAB, I don't watch it, I will probably never watch it. I am highly selective with the things I choose to get obsessed with, and from what I've heard about KPPKAB it really doesn't seem like my kind of show! I thought I'd clear this up here rather than answering all the PMs and scattered comments.
Also, do let me know what you think of this! I don't usually write angst because I am so senti that I literally got teary eyed imagining this, and I'll probably be continuing the angst in my head hahahaha.
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