Warnings : Different approach and REALLY short? :P
ArHi OneShot |What You Dream Of|
He wondered what she was dreaming about.
Stabs of pain were beginning to slice at his stiff shoulder-muscles, but Arnav dared not shift from his awkward position, crouching until he seemed almost trying to melt into the mattress and disappear into it.
He could not risk moving.
If he shifted, she might wake up.
If he shifted, he might end up blocking the faint bluish slivers trickling into the bedroom, over the carpet and on to the bed.
If he shifted, he might end up casting his shadow over her.
The thought made his heart constrict, each spurt of breath escaping dry, parted lips a new experience in pain.
He could not afford to cast her in his darkness now.
She was smiling.
Arnav sidled lower down the bed, until his head had almost left his pillow and his feet almost touched the foot of the mattress. His efforts brought fruit - the faint silvery beams now illuminated the sleeping features of his wife, breathing deeply, curled up beneath the duvet with her cheek pressing into an open palm.
She was smiling.
It was not a conspicuous smile - certainly not the huge, toothy grins habitually gracing her face. The dimples at the corners of her mouth quivered up ever so slightly, the seams of her lips barely parting at all. No one would have been able to tell unless they had been looking closely.
But Arnav was looking closely.
Intently, even.
As though every next breath of his somehow hinged on that smile.
It was so tender, so fragile-unassumingly innocent.
Just like her.
But that was not what had caught his eye - that was not what had made the air stick against his windpipe and a blade-like spasm run through his bones.
It had been a realisation.
It had been the realisation that this was the first time - the first time in a long, long while - hat he had seen her smile genuinely.
Honestly, sincerely.
Happily.
It was there, poised as he had been when he had been trying to snatch back his corner of the duvet from the person snuggling deep beneath it, that he realised that all those smiles from all those days, as he wished her 'Good morning' or nodded good-bye before leaving for work, as he met her eyes over his sister's shoulder, as he quietly asked if she was alright - that all those smiles had been a lie.
A lie, a falsehood, a pretence he had been more willing to believe than reality.
Because in reality, there was no reason for Khushi to smile.
No reason for her to be happy.
He had not left her any.
It was there, drowning in the sudden sweltering, smothering softness of the snuggly-made bed, that his guilt finally caught up to him, and shattered his ego and his ignorance and his delusions to bits, trampling on them, stomping on them until nothing else remained.
Nothing except the guilt. Nothing except the remorse.
Nothing except the knowledge that he was the one who had stolen her smiles.
He was the reason she closeted herself in the kitchen while everyone else gathered for meals.
He was the reason she would quietly, unobtrusively slip away when his sister approached him.
He was the reason she would spend hours and hours by the poolside, alone, unaccompanied, staring into the water to bide her time.
He was the one who had pardoned Shyam by throwing him out of the house - and punished her by locking her in it.
Tum meri zindagi mein aayi hi kyun...
Main tumse mila hi kyun...
You're the biggest mistake of my life, Khushi Kumari Gupta. I wish I had never met you.
They were lies, lies, horrible, horrible lies. He had known it even as he recklessly hurled them at her, keen to hurt her as much as he was hurting, keen to find some relief from the torment searing his soul.
But she had believed him.
And when she had believed him and tried to leave, he had stopped her.
He had forced her to stop.
Blackmailed her.
But she had believed him.
And though she had relented, though he had given her no choice but to relent, he knew now that she still believed that lie.
Because he had given her no other option.
And now he was an outcast to her dreams and her happiness, as he had inadvertently made her an outcast in his life.
So, as he lay there, stricken by his sins and shackled by their weight, he stared at Khushi with remorse boiling through his veins at her sweet, feeble little smile.
A candle-flame in a storm.
He wondered what she was dreaming about.
He wondered if he deserved to know.
He wondered if he would ever be able to make it come true.
A rather different venture from my usual works...and much shorter too. I was depressed and a little angry and I suppose that reflects in this OneShot. Also, I kind of have never managed to forgive Arnav for the way he acted during this stage of the show. Lets call this a little experiment, shall we? :)
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!
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