Aditya
They'd been friends for a long time. Back when she thought frayed slogan shirts were cool and never left the house without her big hoop earrings. She had fifteen pairs of those - he'd counted them. He was there when she'd joined art school and switched to khadi kurtis and big bindis. He'd watched her go from a meat lover to a vegan, a hoarder to a creator, an activist to an artist. He'd been her first kiss, first date, first everything.
He remembers it all. Except the last time she had reached out and held his hand that tight.
Pooja
Art is influential. It has the power to change moods, perspectives, lives, and even the world, they used to say in art school. She truly believed it. Believed her art could change lives. That she could be the change the exception to the rule. That nothing could hypnotise her the way colours could.
But it was only when he addressed her as aap first and then tum (when she'd only ever been a tu) shattering her walls and changing the semantics of her world with an everyday pronoun that she first realised how powerful words could be and how hazardous.
Yash
He couldn't decide who loved him more his mother and sister or his devoted wife. If he did, perhaps, he wouldn't feel so claustrophobic all the time. With his mother's hopes, sister's dreams, wife's faith, his own manly pride and their quiet confidence (barely masked expectations) pinning him down there never seemed to be enough room to rise.
He isn't ungrateful for the high pedestal they place him on; simply undeserving. But as he hears his wife's soft snores on the other end of the line, he feels less akin to a god, and more like the loneliest man alive.
Zoya
She spends the night trying on all her rings: the bronze one he'd gotten her that summer day they'd bunked college to visit the travelling fair (She's terrified of bike, but she had such a lovely time), the simple band he'd proposed with (She hates yellow gold, but she loves him, so she puts it on with a wide smile), all the ones he insisted she buy, and even the grass ring he'd tied around her finger as a joke that one time.
She puts them on, one by one and finds them uncomfortably tight.
(They actually all fit right.)