TwiNj OS: Tattoo Talks

Hello beautiful people. I have an OS fresh out of the oven for you guys! Lord knows, how long it has been since my last OS. And I am afraid that my OS writing skills maybe a bit rusty but I promise to get into more practice!

Without further ado, here is the OS. I hope you all like it.

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TATTOO TALKS.

When the best time to get a tattoo? Well, it's in the middle of the night on a wet Monday. Well at least that's the best time according to Twinkle, because there is no other conceivable reason for her to wake Kunj up at 12.30 am on a weekday. She calls out his name once, hesitantly. Twice, hesitantly and thrice the hesitantly before giving up all finesse and delicacy, and poking one perfectly manicured fingered in his tickle spot. It does the needed and Kunj opens his eyes into narrow slits. "Kya hua, Twinkle?" he mumbles, rubbing the little crusties from the corner of his eyes.

"Kunj, mujhe tattoo karwana hai." Straight to the point. He hums a yes, and drops his head back against the comfort of his pillow. "KUNJ!" she tries again, forgoing the tickling this time. "Kunj. Mujhe TATTOO karwana hai." She screams in his ears and the trick was successful.

His eyes pop open. "KYA?"

"Mujhe tattoo karwana hai." She emphasizes each word, trying to get through his addled senses.

"Tujhe tattoo karwana hai? Tujhe? Tattoo?"

"Haan." She replies back defiantly, crossing her arms to prove her point.

The egoistical part of his mind tells him that she won't follow through with the plan, so he might as well get it over with if he values his sleep. The rational part of his mind however, argues that he is predictable in her unpredictability and that her body language was evidence of her resolve. But Kunj was half asleep as it is, and the rational side of his mind didn't really make enough sense. So he turns to face the bedside table, the red LED of the clock telling him it was half past midnight. "Ab kaunsa tattoo parlour khula hoga?" He gives himself a mental pat on the back for coming up with such a valid excuse.

"Tum chalo toh sahi, main tumhe dikha ti hoon, iss waqt kaunsa parlour khula hoga." She says and throws him a pair of jeans and a fresh Tee.

They sneak out through the back door, not wanting to chance being caught. It would be a pain to explain the reason for them leaving the house so late in the night. It was honestly better if they snuck out. And as they did so, there was this nagging voice in the back of his mind, telling him to be a little more lucid, but you know what, he knows how stubborn Twinkle is and he knows she isn't going to leave him in peace until she gets what she wants. He also is about 80% sure she will back out from getting herself tattooed and so he wants to get this situation over with as soon as possible. If that meant sacrificing a few hours of his sleep, then be it.

She decides to drive, thankfully. It gives him a chance to rest his head against the cool window glass and doze off for an hour or so. By the time she shakes him awake again, the dashboard clock reads 1.30. She drove for an hour? He gathers his cogence and looks around. They definitely weren't in Amritsar. "Twinkle, hum kaha hai?"

"Hum, Mr. Kunj Sarna, theek Amritsar ke border par hai." And its then he recognizes the place.

Turns out that tattoo parlors are open until four in the morning. Midnight and after is the best time to make bad decision, so a tattoo perfectly fits the bill.

The neon sign of the tattoo studio hurts his eyes and the red title across the pink board does nothing good to improve the situation. Once inside he notices that the place wasn't as shabby as it looked from the outside. Quite on the contrary the place was white walled, tastefully decorated and clean. They walk up to the counter and the nagging voice in the back of his head is back again. Twinkle wasn't supposed to get this far, right? She was supposed to pull up by the studio and chicken out right?

Wrong. Because here they are, here she is talking to the man behind the counter. His nametag reads Rob'. And they are amiably discussing time and cost and care of a tattoo. Kunj's mind yet hasn't caught up with the severity of the situation.

Before he knows it they are walked to a back room that houses an equipment station on the far left corner and that daunting black leather recliner chair in front of the station. Twinkle happily plops down on the chair and makes him pull up the spare chair up beside her.

Its takes CJ', the tattoo artist with brown/red curly hair and mascara overload to bring the tattoo gun down on his wife's skin that his brain finally, finally springs into action. "Twinkle!" he exclaims, startling both the girls. "Twinkle yeh tu kya kar rahi hai?" She was supposed to back out by now. Wasn't she scared of needles? Then why was she going through with this?

"Kunj! Tum yeh kya bol rahe ho? Maine kaha tha na, main tattoo karva rahi hoon. Tum abhi neend mein ho kya?"

"Haan, par-par mujhe laga tu aise hi hawa mein baate kar rahi hai. Mujhe nahi pata tha ki tu itni serious hai." He grabs her hand, convinced that this was a midnight mistake, convinced that she was going to regret this decision. "Chal, Twinkle, ghar chal. Hum iske baare mein aaram se soch kar kal aayege, theek hai?"

"Nahi, Kunj, please!" she extracts her hand from his. "Maine iske baare bahut soocha hai. Mujhe aaj ke aaj tattoo karvana hai."

This was futile and Kunj knew it. Arguing with Twinkle was going to get him nowhere. But that doesn't mean he was going to let her do this. So takes the interrogation approach. "Twinkle tu yeh tattoo kyu karvana chahti hai?"

He instigates her further when she doesn't reply. "Jawab de Twinkle!"

And again he receives no reply. "Twinkle, Answer me!" He didn't want to do this but he just had to raise his voice.

"Kyuki yeh tumhara birthday present hai!" she yells back.

He is taken aback at this revelation. "Kya?" This was too much, she shouldn't be going through this much pain just to please him. He pinches the bridge of his nose to calm his nerves or else he knows he is going to yell at her. Really this girl has an unhealthy amount of self-disregard. She was going to get herself inked despite the fact that she was deathly afraid of needles-all for him? He can't let her do this. He can't! "Twinkle-" he starts but stops when she bores her eyes into his, places her hand across his cheeks delicately and whisper his name in a plea.

"Kunj, please.."

"Twinkle, nahi, yaar! Tujhe aisa kuch karne ki zaroorat nahi hai, yaar."

"Please Kunj. Please." The fact that she wasn't stubbornly arguing her point or raising her voice had him more worried because he knows how determined she is about this thing now. She has it set in stone that she was going to herself tattooed whether he approved of it or not. "Please, I want to do this for you."

And that little part in him, that part that couldn't deny her anything was back in full fledge, clawing at his heart, making him guilty for rejecting this one little wish of hers. "Par kyu? Tujhe needles se darr lagta hai, phir bhi? Kyu?"

"Tumhare liye."

It will be in the dark of some distant night that she will let him know that she wanted her body to bare a tribute to him, that she wanted this mark to be proof of her trust, love, reverence and pure, unalloyed loyalty to him. She wanted this to be proof that she can face her worst fears if he was by her side.

And in a sense that was exactly what she was doing. Of course she could get a tattoo without his knowledge and surprise him, that way he would just have to accept the ink since there was no way she could erase it. But then, she was afraid of needles and she knew she couldn't do it alone. She needed him by her side and that meant she had to convince him for it. Fair trade she guesses.

He deflates after that, his slumped shoulders, a physical representation of his defeat. She gives him a small smile to help better the situation and plops down on the chair. "Thank you" she says and he knows for what exactly. He smiles back at her. Understanding that his raging anger had now dissipated, she tried her luck once again. "Haan par tum yeh tattoo apne birthday tak dekh nahi sakhte."

And just like that he flares up again. But before he could gather his voice, she yells at CJ to start the process. She pulls up her shirt just until the base of her bra strap is visible and turns to face Kunj, so that CJ has better access to her skin.

He locks his gaze with hers, he owes her that much, because he knows how she hated needles and yet here she is, going through all the pain-tumhare liye'. He doesn't know what the tattoo is, how big it is, nor what color it was going to be. All he can see is her face, that knots up in a grimace every once in a while and how white her lips have gone under the dents of her teeth. It moves him to tears because he knows how much it was hurting her and yet-and yet she bore it all with a smile. In fact she was comforting him when it was supposed to be the other way around. He supposed to be the one, who cradles her head and mutters silent words of encouragement but it was her, with her hand placed across his jaw bone. Her mouth whispering Bas aur thodi der, we are almost done.'

He cries a lot on the way back.

A week later and it's his birthday. The only reason he remembers it is because today he was going to get to see the result of the pain that Twinkle went through. He had endlessly fussed over the past week, up until the point where she threatened never to show him the tattoo ever if he asked if she was okay one more time.

It was a constant string of Twinkle, yeh Dettol laga le, tattoo par, kahi infection na ho jaye.' Twinkle, tu ne dressing toh change Karli hai na?' Twinkle, please ek baar mujhe dekhne de na, please! Phir birthday ke din bhi bata dena.'

But the day was finally here. Today he gets to see the tattoo.

"Twinkle!" he gently shakes the sleeping form of his wife. "Twinkle!" he tries again, when she doesn't stir. He attempts the same a couple more times before his patience wears thin and he gives her a mighty shove and yells out her name pretty darn close to her ear.

"KUNJ!" she yells in utter fury and annoyance. "THIS.BETTER.BE.GOOD." she laces each word with heavy venom in her voice. And he pulls the one excuse anyone can only pull on their birthday. "It's my birthday!' Oh that one excuse, one gets to use once every year to get away with anything and everything. Twinkle, has to take a deep breath to calm down and not yell at her hubby on his god damn birthday! "Okay, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" she cheers, wishing him all the best in life and pulls him in a tight, quick hug. "Hogaya? Ab hum sojaye?"

"Twinkle!" he stresses her name because she is missing his point, it was his birthday. "Aaj mera birthday hai"

"Haan, Kunj. I know aaj tumhara birthday hai. Maine tumhe wish bhi kiya na. Or waise bhi party toh sham ko hai. Ab please so jao aur mujhe bhi so ne do."

God heavens, help him! His wife was absolutely clueless. He gives it one more try. "Twinkle aaj mera birthday hai" and then he gives up. He gives up, okay. Because she clearly wasn't getting what he was hinting at. Maybe it was the fact that it was 12 in the night, or the fact that he was bad at giving hints, either way he couldn't wait any longer. "Twinkle, tu aaj mujhe tera tattoo dekhne de ne wali hai."

She hums a yes, rubbing the sleep crusties from the corner of her eyes. "Haan, tih bataungi na. Shaam ko. Ab so jao Kunj."

Well what she suggested was pretty much impossible and completely unacceptable to him. So he does says the one thing that he knows she is bound to respond to. "Main tujhe tab tak sone nahi dunga, jab tak tu mujhe humara tattoo nahi dekhati."

The affect was instantaneous and her eyes pop wide open at that. She agrees quickly. She pulls the hem of her kurta until just about mid-way of her abdomen and stops. "I hope tumhe yeh pasand aaye. Maine iske baare mein bahut soocha tha." She prays before lifting her kurta all the way up until her tattoo.

The simplicity and the implication of the tattoo moved him. It was a small black affair. An anchor placed just under her left breast, right under her heart. His name was shaped marvelously as the base of the anchor.

He opens and closes his mouth endlessly, but the words don't come out and Twinkle takes his momentary shock as her opportunity to speak. "Kyuki you are the anchor that keeps my gravity centered." It's when she says this, that his eyes finally leave the tattoo and meet her gaze. The moisture in his eyes, scare her for a moment. "Kya hua, Kunj? Tattoo pasand nahi aaya, kya?" she asks biting the corner of her lower lip, hoping against hope that he liked it.

He knows his words are going to fail him, so he falls back on the saying Actions speak louder than words' and bends his head down to kiss the ink. Twinkle sucks in a breath at the completely unexpected action but understands what he meant, if the kiss and the subtle tear are anything to go by. Her face breaks out in a wide smile, she lifts his head up, so that their eyes are locked onto each other. He doesn't say anything and she doesn't need to. Words were always redundant between them anyway.

They don't know when they fall back asleep.

The story didn't end their though. In fact Kunj was the butt of unbearable teasing, because his face was glowing like a blushing bride who just made love with her husband. And when he refused to answer their queries, all just assumed Kunj got laid the previous night. Oh well, he didn't mind their teasing's because he was willing to bear all those baby talks to keep the tattoo a secret between him and Twinkle.

18^th September came by sooner than expected and Kunj gifted his wife, her name permanently etched on his skin. The placement of the tattoo was the same as hers, right under the heart. The only difference was that hers was his name on an anchor that keeps her grounded and centered while his was her name scribbled in the form of a bird that gave him the wings to sore the sky.

And now they were the sky, the sea and truly everything in between. Two halves of a perfect whole.

THE END.

Well, Thank you all so much for taking the time to read, like and comment on this OS. I hope you liked it. Please drop down your comments and let me know. Thanks again. Love you guys.

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