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Of Bad Days and Fireflies
She stumbles into the corridor after closing the door softly behind her. She was glad that Navya finally went to sleep.
The whole day, especially that event regarding Harshad had taken a toll on Navya. Nandini knew that Navya would not be able to attend lectures for that day, so she got her to the dorm. They had sat there, initially talking about everything and anything except Harshad, but they couldn't avoid the topic for too long. Navya had cried for a while about her dreams being shattered, but being the positive person she was, she composed herself and dozed off half an hour after they had sat to watch one of her favorite bollywood flicks.
She was not as attached to Harshad as Navya, but it still hurt her deeply to see him there in that room with Rose, she wasn't sure what his end of the whole story was, but she was too preoccupied to think about his angle.
And there was also her friendship with Dhruv, everything about it was new and she wasn't sure how she felt about him hiding the matter of Alya and the goons from her. Hell, if she had known earlier she would never had accused Manik. . .
"Manik . . ", her voice came out in a strangled whisper and her eyes widened.
She had been in SPACE for two months and had just started to make friends, and all the events affected her so much. . so she could only guess what they would do to Manik and how he would be feeling after realizing that the two people he loved the most had betrayed him. She quickly glances at the clock on the wall and saw it was nearing 10 in the night. And before she could talk herself out of it, she found herself hailing an auto rickshaw to Manik's place.
*****
She raps twice on the door, before a servant appears at the door."Is Manik home?", she asks.
"Yes, he's in his room. . but I don't think he's going to . .", he was saying before she cuts him off and sprints off in the side of Manik's room.
Thankfully the servant doesn't stop her and she comes to the landing where Manik's room is situated.
She tentatively pushes the door and is relieved to see that it wasn't locked. She figures that he must have just slammed it after entering and takes a cautious step inside.
The room is in darkness and there is continuous sound of a guitar being played. She almost falls forward when her foot catches something on the floor. She fishes out her cell phone for illuminating her surroundings, and because she's still not sure if Manik would appreciate it if she switched on the light yet. She glances down to see it was a trophy of some sort, that her foot hit earlier. She picks it up and places it on the bed and maneuvers her way to the sound of the guitar. His rooms looks more trashed than usual, and she can only imagine the rage he would've been in when he got home. She finds herself wondering why none of his friends came here but she figures that maybe they were giving him some time to calm down. That thought makes her question if she should go ahead and meet him, but she still walks to the balcony from where she can hear the music.
As she steps into the balcony, she finds Manik strumming away violently at the guitar, it's to a point where the guitar strings all seem to be out of tune and from the place she stood, she could see shades of crimson marring his perfect fingers.
She lets out a gasp realizing that he has been playing for far too long.
Manik opens his eyes on hearing the sound.
And surely there he finds her, near the door, the light from the mobile phone illuminating her face and also creating a halo of light around him. For a second, his mind travels back to the store room and how she talked about fireflies. She surely looked like one right now. . .
He was too exhausted from the day's events to shout at her and berate her for being here. He just didn't have any energy left and so he sat there, his shoulder's slumped and waiting for her to explain her presence.
Sensing that he wasn't going to pounce on her, she walked towards him taking in the slight slump of his shoulders and the look of defeat on his face. These seemed to affect her more than they should have. She sat beside him on the ledge and muttered an awkward hey. Manik found himself smiling slightly, here she was after all the things he'd done to her and said to her.
And before he could give a sarcastic response, he felt her fingers touch his and pry open his hand. He looked down in slight amazed state at how her touch was creating slight tingles on his fingers and hand.
She took his large hand in her small ones and inspected the damage he had done. There wasn't much except for the bruising of his fingers and his knuckles, from having punched a wall or two earlier, she thought.
She handed him the mobile,silently asking him to hold it, so that she could clean up his slight wounds. She was met with an eye roll from his side, but he still reached out for it with his better hand. She washed his hand with the water from her bottle and wrapped her handkerchief around his hand and reached out for his other hand.
He pulled away and dropped her mobile on to her lap.
"I'm fine. ." he said in a gruff voice.
Just because he let her nurse his hand, it didn't mean he was an invalid and she could continue with this.
"And Monster Manik is back. .", he heard her mutter beside him.
He fixed her with a passive look. He took in her hopeful eyes and the slight smile adorning her lips and he felt his defensive mood being chipped away.
He looked away, and into the darkness.
She sighed and looked around.
"I thought you hated the darkness. .", she commented.
"Yeah, I was actually waiting for you to bring the light into my life.", he bit out sarcastically.
She pouted slightly.
"Sometimes, it's only in the darkness you see the actual light.", she remarked.
He looked at her from the corner of his eyes and saw her sitting there smiling at the stars. The slight breeze playing with her hair . .
And just like that all his hurt from the afternoon, his pain at his best friend's betrayal and his anger towards Alya, everything was tucked into the dark crevices of his being. He knew he had to face them much sooner than later, but this girl beside him, she had a way of calming his fears and his heart.
He marveled at the way she had come to him, to know his well being, without any hesitation after all he had done to her. There she sat beside him bringing a warm glow in the darkness and she even made this darkness enjoyable. His feelings for her overwhelmed him at times, and also there were Dhruv's feelings for her.
Dhruv. . he thought. . before he could think further.
"Isn't that the Orion?", he heard Nandini ask.
He squinted at the sky and looked at the pattern of stars she was pointing out to.
"I didn't get a 100 in science unlike some girls . . ", he said in a mocking tone.
She rolled her eyes, but her smile grew wider at the thought that he remembered and that he had actually paid attention to her.
"You remembered. . ", she said softly.
Manik just looked at her. . and didn't know what to reply.
She sensed his discomfort and changed the topic and started explaining to him about the various constellations and then shifted the topic to her favorite fireflies.
And Manik sat there listening to her. He responded to her now and then.
At that moment they were not Monster Manik and Nandini the commoner, but were just two people. A boy who surrounded himself with darkness and a girl who lightened up the surroundings where ever she went, like a firefly.
His Firefly, he thought. And that thought made him smile more than it should have.
Even though they both knew that they still had a lot of demons to fight and lot of other things to acknowledge and overcome the next moring, right then, right there, nothing else seemed to matter. . .
*****
A/n:
Hi y'all,
I'm Sharmi. . . This is just my take on what might happen after Alya's truth about the goons comes out. I haven't completely justified the wonderful characters of Manik and Nandini and there are probably a lot of errors . . but yeah this is just an attempt.
Cheers.
Hi y'all,
I'm Sharmi. . . This is just my take on what might happen after Alya's truth about the goons comes out. I haven't completely justified the wonderful characters of Manik and Nandini and there are probably a lot of errors . . but yeah this is just an attempt.
Cheers.
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