All the eyes were on them. Everyone was staring at the couple entering the party. Arnav Singh Raizada and Khushi. To say they looked stunning with each other would be an understatement. They looked like royalty. They looked like the world was under their chant which safe to say was true.
Khushi turned towards the people gawking at them. As soon as Arnav left her side, all the eyes which were praising them silently, turned into something different. Or probably it was because Arnav made her feel safe, made her feel like the world was alright for them, for her. She could easily recognize the looks on the faces of the onlookers. She had seen them too many times to just consider them normal glances. Some people looked jealous. Of her.
A few months ago she would have laughed out even thinking about it. To think that someone would be jealous of her was itself a blasphemy. But now, they had a reason to grow green. The reason was standing a few feet away from her. Being with ASR was something which could burn every other girl's dream and make her want Khushi's life.
But this was not was she disliked. She did not hate the jealous looks people passed to her, because somewhere or the other, she knew that she really did have something which people should be jealous of.
What she detested were the looks of pity and understanding people gave her. Worse, she knew why those glances had that emotion. She knew that they were empathizing with her but for the wrong reason. They were compassionate with her because of the same reason others were jealous of her, Arnav.
Everyone present in the room, in fact everyone in the city knew the reason they were together. Finding out that Shyam, Anjali's husband, the one person Anjali lived because of, was cheating on her had come as a big blow for both of them. Arnav, in his disposition to look out for Anjali, had hastily asked her out.
And what could she say? The person she loved whole-heartedly, in spite of his wrathful behavior and arrogant attitude had decided to take her responsibility. But the reason they had started living together had soon turned fruitless because Anjali found out about her husband's atrociousness herself. But unlike what Arnav thought, Anjali had turned out to be a fighter-cock of a woman. Yes, she was unhappy but not broken.
And Arnav couldn't ask for more, Khushi thought. She could see it in his eyes. Of course he couldn't see Anjali sad, but it was far better than knowing that she was being cheated by her own husband and in spite of being Arnav Singh Raizada, he couldn't chuck that person out of his house.
Everything changed after that. The strong wall he had built around himself fearing that Khushi, like Shyam had, would shatter his world, gradually began to collapse. The Arnav Singh Raizada had turned into just Arnav. Her Arnav.
And this is why she hated those looks. People felt she was the one subject to the rash bluntness of Arnav, his sarcastic and heart-breaking insults. But he isn't anything like that, she wanted to shout out. They didn't know that they weren't on talking terms at the moment because she had refused to wear a red sari, his favorite. The party's theme was blue, and weren't they supposed to dress up according to the dress code. When she had told him that, he had simply said, "Arnav Singh Raizada doesn't follow rules. He makes them." But she wasn't Arnav, she was just Khushi, and so she had worn blue, just to get silent treatment from him.
They didn't know that Arnav, the person who saw red if even a small petal or leaf in his garden turned yellow, his entire garden was wilting because he spent most of his time attending just one plant, the one she had gifted him on his birthday. They didn't know that lying on the same bed together every night, he would always hold her hand tight, because he knew how afraid she was of darkness and how adamant she was too that she didn't want the table lamps on as she was brave. They didn't know anything about their relationship. Yet they acted and gave her looks as if she was some damsel in distress and he was the villain.
He isn't the person he portrays himself to be, he isn't, she knew that and she wanted Arnav to tell the world that. But he didn't and soon she realized he couldn't. He couldn't because he felt that showing his vulnerable side would bring out the pity in people for him. But what about looks she had to survive through, she thought spitefully!
And the last looks she got was of pure disdain. The people who loathed her, who hated her guts. And she knew that too. The only reason that she was their reason of contempt was that Khushi was still Khushi Kumari Gupta. Although she lived with Arnav, she was still a spinster. They weren't married; they were just living in, something Khushi hadn't even known while living in Lucknow. Arnav had taken her hand in the heat of the moment, she knew, and he didn't believe in marriages. He had never said it out loud, but she could see it in his eyes, reading which was an art she carried a diploma in at the moment, that he loved her. And if staying with him was the reward she got, in return of having to stand high with all those scorning looks directed towards her, Khushi would do it. Anyday.
Arnav was talking to one of his business partners. Well at least for the world he was. As a matter of fact he was looking at Khushi from the corner of his eye. It had become his habit to look out for her, just like he did for his sister; just the kind of relation he shared with each was different.
To catch her when she was tripping, which happened very often to say the least, to see her smiling animatedly while chattering away to glory and like now, to watch her display of so many emotions. He could guess she was cursing the world under her breath and mostly him.
He couldn't believe she had refused to wear a red sari. No one defied him but well, when it came to her, everything changed. She, it seemed, was unfazed by him and his intimidating personality. She could shout, be angry, pout, defy, care for him and no one; even he himself could stop her. That was Khushi Kumari Gupta for him.
But to say he disliked it, would be a downright lie. He had seen a quiet, scared, so unlike herself, Khushi for the first few months after they had started living in, partly because her family had refused to accept her after her decision to go on with the relationship even without getting married and partly because Shyam lived with them, under the same roof.
When he had asked her out, the only reason he had was to save his sister's marriage. That act by Shyam had shown him that he could go to any levels to fulfill his obsession. And to save Anjali's happiness, he had simply decided to ask Khushi to begin a relationship with her. But who was he kidding? He knew and his conscience, as much as he may deny, told him every time he saw her laughing that it was just a half truth.
The truth was that he knew how distressed Khushi was, how much her Buaji would pester her to marry Shyam, because he knew that for Anjali' s sake neither Arnav nor she herself would tell the truth about Shyam's infidelity. And the only way he had found to save her from all the heartache and whirlpool of troubles was to start a relationship with her.
But after his Di got to know about Shyam's lies, something had changed between them. Khushi still didn't talk to her Buaji and Amma because of the insults they had thrown on her character and him. The latter being the major reason, he knew that.
After that, there was a genuine smile on her face, which he could bet increased a bit each time he did something as small as going to a Pooja or not arguing with Nani for a change. Looking back he knew that she hadn't changed a bit. Only he had. He had changed from a arrogant Arnav to her own expressive partner.
It amused him how little things she did could change him for good. Something like eating less jalebis just because he couldn't, like not sleeping with the lights off though she was afraid of the dark just because she knew he couldn't sleep in an illuminated room, though she disguised it as her "challenge" to herself, like not asking him instead ordering him to take her around the city for shopping, to come to Poojas.
Everything had changed drastically in these few months and for the first time in his life, pessimistic Arnav knew that this was here to stay.
They were both past confessing that they loved each other, their actions, their emotions, their care said it all, and he knew that they both were aware of how much they loved each other.
He had done everything in his power to see her happy and he knew that there was only one thing lacking in her life. Something he knew she dreamt of everyday, something he knew would wipe off the frown from her face.
He slide his right hand in his pocket and jingled it. There it was. Khushi's dream. A ring.
That's it. I know I suck at writing OS-s but bear with me on that. And moreover it's my first time writing anything on ArHi, in fact any couple other than AR. Please comment and tell me how you liked it!Bisous,
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