This is meant to be an OS but I split it in two because it's just getting long and I'm getting impatient :s After I finish posting this I'm going to keep writing the second half and want to get it posted as soon as possible because really, this is an idea that's been badgering me and interfering with everything else I've tried to write, so I'm just getting it out of my system. I really hope you guys like it!
I wrote this from one of the prompts I received over the past couple weeks, which was the word 'Temptation' - and that triggered the quote you'll find below. I remember reading the play and stumbling across that line and instantly picturing Arnav saying it and well- there you go :)
*EDIT* Totally forgot to mention - this TS overlooks what was shown for Payal and Akash's wedding day. Let's pretend Anjali never had the accident, never gave Arnav some much needed advice, Arnav never saw Shyam and Khushi together on the terrace...in fact, let's pretend that Shyam fell down the stairs, broke both his legs, got a concussion and is now living in a pineapple farm. Ok? Ok.
And taking a leaf out of a fellow writer's book - please don't Res?
TwoShot: On Resisting Temptation
I
" I couldn't help it. I can resist everything except temptation." - Act 1 of the play "Lady Windermere's Fan", by poet and playwright Oscar Wilde.
***
Burnt-almond eyes narrowed as another pair of glimmering coffee-brown drifted towards his, stilling for a fraction of a second before darting quickly away.
Khushi Kumari Gupta was avoiding him.
Had been avoiding him for nearly a month.
And this fact did not please him one bit.
Smothering a disgruntled snarl, Arnav swiped his tongue over his teeth with calculating deliberation, lounging back into the settee he was currently seated at as he stared with overt, obvious interest at the mattress that had been dragged downstairs and spread across a patch cleared of furniture on the living-room floor. All the ladies of his family, even the every-fussy Mami, were sitting with their legs folded on the pristine white sheet, large coloured bits of paper, glittery decorative strands and an assortment of hand-held, painted spindles littering the spaces between them.
But even within the whirlwind of activity unfurling before him, Arnav had eyes for only one person.
Only for her.
His half-mast, intent stare did not waver for even a second, soaking her in, absorbing her into himself with his gaze, as though he half-expected to be asked to sculpt her from memory later. It was a compulsion that he was not altogether conscious of - not something born out of voluntary thought, but then again not something he was oblivious to either.
He just didn't care enough to snap out of it.
And besides, he had not had this chance - the chance to look at her properly, and drink her in to his heart's content, for far too long.
It also did not help that she had chosen today to look hands-down gorgeous.
Somewhere along the line of their acquaintance, Arnav had grown to always associate Khushi with bright, loud colours, shades that were vibrant and vivid, hues that were like splashes of life in the midst of monotony. There was a flair to her flamboyance, from her multicoloured dupattas to the glittery borders often sewn onto her clothes, or the coloured balls of fuzz hanging off her like the miniature baubles of a Christmas tree. It was incongruous, it was eccentric, it was quirky - and it was quintessentially Khushi.
So it was difficult to determine what had floored him more and knocked the air clean out of his lungs when he had seen her float through his front-doors today - the fact that she was clad in creamy-ivory and silver-gold, or the fact that she looked downright divine in it.
At precisely that moment, NK sauntered over to the ladies before plopping inelegantly down beside Di, uttering something with his usual impish grin and dramatic gesticulations. Whatever it was, it caused Khushi, who was sitting nearby, to burst into a peal of giggles, the metallic, silver bands of her bangles clinking together as she raised both her hands to cover her mouth.
Arnav was not even sure how he could distinguish that sound, in the midst of the ruckus of conversation buzzing on all sides, but he did, and for a moment his eyes almost flickered shut. He hadn't really realised just how fond he was of the sound of her laugh - free, honest, and uninhibited - nor known how much he had missed it, until he heard it again.
It swept over him like the shimmery caress of rain, washing off the grit and grime gathering on leaves and trees, rinsing them.
Rejuvenating them.
She was quirking her eyebrow playfully at her Jiji now, scrunching her nose at her as she tossed a few strands of her hair over her shoulder - hair that, to his utmost delight, she had let down today. It fell about her face in delicate wavelets of deep-bronze, the bangs that would normally fall over her forehead clipped back in a twist of some kind that disappeared behind her ear. His appraising eyes wandered down, to the slender curve of her neck, left bared on one side by the voluptuous tresses brushed to one side. Stare growing heated, the inexorable burn rekindling in his chest, he admired the creamy sway of her throat melting into her nape and shoulder, his view hindered by the light-gold of her blouse's sleeve, of the same colour and embroidery as the patterns sewn into the gauzy, ivory-white of her saree.
She looked so elegant, so divine, so perfectly flawless -
-but it was not her choice of garb that had stolen his breath, plundered his heart and ignited his yearning until it was almost too painful to bear.
It was her face.
She was glowing. Radiant. Iridescent.
Everything else seemed to dim and dull next to her brilliance, to that wide, warm smile like a crescent moon adorning her features, the berry-blush pooling into her cheeks as she laughed and teased her sister, evidently ribbing her about the honeymoon Payal and Akash had just returned from yesterday, her eyes alive and dancing with glee, her skin glowing, exuding moonlight.
She was so beautiful it hurt.
She was temptation - and he could not resist.
And she was avoiding him.
Had been avoiding him for a month.
A month too long.
Once again his irritation and impatience hissed to life within him, with the sharp sizzle of spices being tossed into hot oil. It was vehement enough to drown out, for the time being, that peculiar hollow twinge in his chest, some emotion he could neither place nor recognise.
He did not know what she was playing at, but he was having none of it.
The farther she ran, the harder he'd give chase.
***
A rhapsody of tinkling music followed in Khushi's wake as she hurried into the kitchen, her bangles and anklets jostled into motion as she found the person she was looking for and smiled warmly at him.
'Hari Prakashji - woh, Naniji aapko dhoondh rahi hai.'
'Ji, Khushiji. Hum abhi jaate hai.'
Khushi stepped aside to let him pass, and was about to follow him out when she clapped eyes on the massive wicker-basket at the foot of the counter, spying through the left-open lid the stacks of plastic boxes neatly arranged within. It brought her swift movements to a halt, the pleats of her saree swishing slightly at the sudden brake in momentum.
Oops.
In the giddy onslaught of excitement she had been swept into as she had come bulleting towards her sister, beside herself with delight at finally seeing her after so many weeks apart, at the quiet, becoming happiness glowing on Jiji's face, bursting from the plethora of questions she was dying to ask, Khushi had not remembered the load she had dumped at the front doors of Shantivan until she had chanced upon it again in the kitchen.
Tapping her forehead lightly in self-admonishment, Khushi changed tracks, advancing towards the wicker-basket. Hari Prakash would come back any minute - she would explain to him what was meant to go where when he did. Until then, it wouldn't hurt to help him out a little.
And that was how Arnav found her, amusing herself constructing a pyramid out of cubes of confectionary, humming absently to herself as she did.
Bizarrely enough, in some subliminal corner of her mind, she could sense him approaching long before his leisurely footfalls invaded into her haze of preoccupation - could sense the air thickening with a volatile expectancy.
But even then, when finally his footsteps registered, Khushi found her heart tripping and stumbling over its own beats, her blood rushing out of her fingers, leaving them numb and icy-cold, as it surged up to her head and flooded into her skull, the furore washing away thoughts before they could form.
She did not even know how she could be so certain it was him, but she did not pause to question it.
All she did know was that each clack of shoe-sole against marble resounded like thunderclaps against her ears, and she had to keep reminding herself to breathe.
And then a low rumbling drawl rippled across to her, and she would swear she could feel its vibrations in the air, raising gooseflesh up her back, butterflies spilling into her stomach in ways they had not had occasion to for almost four weeks.
'Wow...did you make all these?'
Not trusting herself to speak, Khushi nodded once tersely, reaching for another flat silver dish, pulling another plastic box towards her to inspect its contents.
She would not look at him. She couldn't fall weak now. Not after she had expended so much effort into avoiding him for so long -
'Impressive.'
Astounded, heedless eyes snapped up towards him before her fumbling brain could catch up to what was happening.
'They look good.'
The moist, smooth sphere of laddoo she had been holding slipped out of her nerveless fingers, plopping on to the counter.
She hardly noticed.
A compliment?
He just paid me a compliment?
A direct compliment?
And because she had a sadist for a mind and a masochist for a heart, her subconscious extracted from the banished archives of her memory a certain vivid recollection-
Waise...yeh rang tumpe uthna bhi bura nahi lagta...
Air sliced through her somewhat open mouth, slitting the back of her suddenly-raw throat.
'Aap Di ko dhoondh rahe hai?' she gargled out quickly, words running into each other in their panic. She could not afford to let her thoughts turn that way again, could not afford to undo the clasps she had locked with such difficulty over her own unruly feelings...
'No.'
He was strolling into the kitchen now. Her heart sprang up and hid itself in her throat.
'Nani?'
'No.'
Adrenaline - heady, intoxicating adrenaline, the kind that jets through one's body when one is as thrilled as one is terrified, exhilarated by blinding speed as much as one is frightened of crashing - rinsed through her.
She wanted to run, but she did not want to push him away.
'Hari Prakashji?' she croaked.
'No.'
He was standing opposite her now. Only the girth of the marble-topped counter, about a metre wide, separated them.
Somehow, the obstruction of this solid object did nothing to soothe Khushi's frazzled, knotted nerves.
She had to run, but she couldn't push him away.
***
'Toh phir aap kisse-' and Arnav almost leaned forward in his eagerness, mentally willing her to finish uttering that question. The answer was poised, ready and honest, on the tip of his tongue, just waiting for its cue.
But Khushi appeared to sense the expectancy suffusing into the air and tingling between them, for at that moment her eyes widened slightly in alarm and she averted gazes from him at one, her cheeks flaming as she back-pedalled shamelessly.
'Aap ko yaha koi kaam tha?'
Ire gargled into his mouth and steadily chipped at his flimsy patience, teeth clicking shut to stall whatever thoughtless, disparaging sneer he was about to spit out before he could damage the situation further. Instead, gathering the shreds of his fragile composure, he trampled down on his anger, forcing himself to assess Khushi's irksome behaviour with the cool-headed perception he was infamous for.
She was nervous, that much was obvious. It was there in the hunch of her shoulders, her stiff movements as she resumed her previous chore with the sweets. There was none of that effortless, delicate grace that defined her, that reminded him of a swan as he had watched her from afar, spying her through the open kitchen doors when he had followed in pursuit.
But then, she had always been nervous around him - that is to say, she had always been nervous ever since they had both become conscious of, and recognised, the palpable shift in the till-then predictable dynamics of their relationship. They had still fought but - all the hostility, all that combustive animosity was gone. They could still not see eye to eye, their ideologies and principles clashing like the poorly-contrived tune of a song without harmony - but they had given up emptying all their firepower against one another, no longer launching to an offensive with their most lethal weapons in hand, aiming for the kill.
They had kept on fighting though, almost as though it were a formality between them now, a tradition. Perhaps the only familiar way they knew to interact.
And while she had been as brash and outspoken as ever in their interminable arguments, there were those times when they -
-weren't fighting.
Like the time he had danced with her at Akash's sangeet.
Like the time he had found her blabbering complaints about him, assuming he was her sister.
Like the time he had stalked towards her, the destructive magnetism of a black hole pulling him, and unclipped her bounty of beautiful hair.
Like the time he had spied the first letter of his name tattooed on her hand in mehendi.
Like the time he had yanked her towards him and pressed his lips firmly on her cheek.
Like the time he had felt the soft, impossibly silken touch of hers on his cheek.
That Khushi had been so frantic and so meek, so overwrought and so endearingly confused...just remembering those precious, treasured, cherished moments made his heart palpitate like that of a teenager brushing past his first crush.
He had seen it in her eyes then, seen the same confusion and the same bewilderment, the exhilaration and the trepidation, the hesitance and the eagerness - the very same emotions that followed him like shadows and tinged every one of his clinical thoughts. And he had known that his feelings were not unrequited, knew that they were not one-sided.
So what had happened? Why was she shrinking away from him now?
Because Arnav could tell - and he was not altogether sure how - that she was not only nervous.
She was apprehensive.
She was scared.
Well, he'd just have to remedy that, didn't he?
Giving neither Khushi nor himself any time to think, Arnav's hand darted forward, snatching up the discarded sweet that had fallen from her fingers, forgotten on the counter.
And just as he had hoped, his actions had recaptured the attention that belonged rightly to him.
'Aap kya kar rahe hai?' she asked cautiously, a small frown rumpling the smooth expanse of her forehead as her gaze flickered between the laddoo and somewhere in the vicinity of his collar.
Instead of answering though, he raised the slightly sticky dessert to his mouth.
'Stop!'
And with speed that was awe-inspiring, a blur of white and gold had torn about the counter in accompaniment to frantic chimes of anklets, and within his next blink Khushi was standing half a foot away from him, filching the sweet straight out of his hand, glaring up at him as though she suspected his sanity.
'What's wrong with you?' she hissed up at him, evidently having forgotten her policy of dismissing his presence as she practically rose up on the balls of her feet to stare him down, 'This thing has sugar in it - which, in case you've forgotten, you're not supposed to have!'
And in a fit of plain adorable pique, she made to spin about on her heels, undoubtedly to march back to her post, when he captured her wrist in his grip. As he tugged her back to face him, her fiery eyes flashed at him in defiance - and his heart sang its triumph.
Now THERE's the Khushi I know and lo-
Ahem.
Thankfully, Khushi chose an opportune moment to relieve him of his distracting thought-streams.
'Kya hai?' she snapped at him, the familiar, feisty bite he was so fond of back in her tone.
A smirk dimpled the crook of his mouth, his grip loosening just enough to let Khushi's arm slip a little, his fingers jingling her silver bangles before cuffing once more around her bare wrist. Almost automatically, his thumb feathered a path across the velvet-softness over her pulse.
Memorising her touch again, committing it to remembrance.
A sharp intake of breath drew his attention away from his ministrations, rapidly smouldering eyes sweeping up to Khushi's rose-pink flushed face.
'Chhodiye.'
Meek, bewildered, and so hesitant...
'Can't,' his murmur was low, a husky timbre. He could feel a shiver run down the arm he held prisoner, relishing the ecstatic thumps of his heart in response. Bending his head lower, he held absolutely still until those luminous wide eyes rose timorously to meet his again. Holding her gaze, he dropped his voice further, quoting softly, suggestively, 'I can resist everything except temptation.'
And just as Khushi's breath hitched audibly, he bent his head, a puff of his breath stroking over the slim hand still holding the sweet, as he opened his mouth and -
'Wait, wait!'
Still stooping slightly, bent over her hand, he peered heatedly up at her through his half-lowered lashes. Khushi gasped, and sucked in her lower lip, forcing him to swallow around a groan. Beneath his thumb her pulse throbbed frantically, and tempestuous heat uncoiled within him, threatening to swamp him in its drugging hold as he waited for Khushi's ragged breathing to slow.
'There are - there are -,' Khushi's lids closed for a brief moment before she budged her stare obstinately to something near their feet, the set of her jaw stern, '-sugar-free sweets over there, if you want them.'
For exactly three and a half seconds, neither spoke - and in Khushi's case didn't even breathe.
And then Arnav found himself straightening without remembering when he had decided to do so, peering down at Khushi - still stubbornly staring at the floor as though it had mortally offended her.
When he spoke, he himself was startled by the vulnerable softness suffusing into his words.
'You made sugar-free sweets for me?'
She squirmed under the brunt of his gaze, even as tender warmth gushed into his chest and lit him up from the inside, an unfamiliar cosiness, disagreeably agreeable, pervading through his body and salving every scar, leaving what he thought was called - but could not be sure - contentment.
And his heart was palpitating again, just like a teenager mooning over his first crush.
His first love.
Khushi, head hanging like a sullen little child, was mumbling disconsolately, 'Well, Buaji isn't allowed much sugar either and neither is Nani, and Mamiji is also on a sugar-free diet and-'
'That's too bad though,' Arnav cut in, fighting and failing to keep his grin from breaking out into his voice, the warmth in his chest burgeoning and swelling in leaps and bounds. Educing yet another breathless gasp from Khushi, his tipped her chin up with his forefinger, meeting her liquid-chocolate eyes with his own, whispering lightly, 'I don't like sharing.'
And before a visibly dazed Khushi could recompose her wits, he dipped low over her hand again, murmuring, 'Though now and again, one is entitled to indulge -' and swallowed up the laddoo Khushi had confiscated from him - and nipped at her fingers for good measure.
Khushi yelped and yanked her wrist out of his grasp, gripping it with her other hand to her chest, her stare mortified and twin blazes of scarlet burning against her cheeks, as Arnav regained his height, deliberately flicking his tongue out to sweep at leftover crumbs, before declaring-
'Delicious.'
And then, with a wicked grin and heart-stopping wink-
'And so was the laddoo.'
Please, please let me know what you think of this and whether you guys think I should continue. And if anyone wants notification of the next update, lemme know, yeah?
Also, a question - should I update MDJND or Resolutions first? I'll focus on either one or the other, coz writing both at once is headache-inducing :P
Comments and likes would make my day!!
I reserve all rights over this work of fiction and request that readers do not copy/modify/reproduce elsewhere and or claim credit. Thank you.
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