Flouting Our Destiny

Chapter 33

A shaky frame compelled his attention towards itself from the monotonous road, Arjun's foot forcefully pushed the tight breaks of his car, his eyes rolled over to the side of a woman who was waving her hands categorically to divert any passerby towards her.

"As you can see, my car broke down," said the lady, after opening the passenger side door of Arjun's car.
Without any confirmation or any polite entreaty, the woman jumped on to the passenger seat.

"Ma'am," Arjun's bubbling vexation succumbed to his gallantry, "I am sorry but I don't want to provide services like hitchhike"

"What?" She felt dispirited, "aren't you going to the airport?"

A random fear ran down the man's spine, thousands of questions popped up inside his brain,
"How the hell do you know?" He blurted, appalled.

"Ehehehe...I want a lift to the airport, so I presumed" her voice squelched, "please, please.. my husband's waiting there for me"

"Never mind" Arjun released a sudden secretion of closeness filtering through a sieve of sagacity, he stealthily jotted down her lively physical traits but none matched to any person from the past.
His brain initiated an intense quarrel over the woman's identity, it was absurd for him to find her familiar but was not able to decode who she was.

"Ruhani, here" she declared, "don't call me Ru or Ruhi cause that's only allowed to my husband"

Arjun passed a slow smile to her,
"wouldn't you introduce yourself?" She responded to his meek actions.

"Arjun...Arjun Kuruvanshi"

"Wow, what a pleasant surprise, I mean, my husband keeps talking about how you have achieved so much fame in such a tender age" Ruhani blabbered, eyeing the man who was carefully driving.

"Your husband, I am sorry I couldn't get his name earlier..." Arjun's interest in the woman and her partner unfolded ten times more.

"Oh, you won't be knowing him, moreover we live in Dwarika!" Her words made the man falter, his ears blocked any other vibration to enter, all his concentration summoned to the word, 'Dwarika'.

"By any chance, is your husband's name, Madhav?" He foolishly kept forth his inner thoughts and after hearing them, the woman chortled shamelessly.

"Not at all! wait a minute, are you dreaming about the drowned city? The one which was inhabited by 'too real to exist' gods? If yes, then please get your facts checked, there's a coastal town, named Dwarika!" Sternness diffused in her polite voice.

"By the way, why are you heading to the airport? It doesn't seem that you have a flight to catch" She regained her talkative self, distinctly observing his facial expressions change from confusion to stress.

"I..my wife, I mean my wife only" he stumbled upon his wordings, Arjun bit his tongue, which wife was he talking about? The one who was running away from him?

"A wild guess" Ruhani scampered her fingers over her forehead, "your 'less than a wife, more than a girlfriend'?"

"My wife" Arjun frowned over her deductions.

"So, is she leaving you or something?" The playful tone of Ruhani uninvitedly invaded his wounded heart, her enunciation stabbed another dagger on his pained heart.

"No, she's not" He pretended.

The quick-witted lover of Krishna, the goddess of wealth, soughed at his stoicism, his eyes were screaming tales of melancholy but the man preferred to not give up on his strength.

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"Your title must be Yadav, right?" Draupadi weighed upon her shrewd ideologies which convinced her to believe that Krishna and Krish are the same soul.

"Vasudev" The protector of the whole universe corrected, altering his giggles into unexpected coughing.

"Predictable!" She vehemently uttered, "now if you may stop with all this circus and admit that you are Krishna or whichever name you would like to be called by from the list of thousands of your names!" Her arms caressing her chest, and her one brow up was thoroughly enjoyed by the man.

"What on earth are you talking about? Miss, we haven't even met since a whole day and you are accusing me of being some Krishna who has more than a thousand names" He defended his actions.

After throwing scowling looks at the man, Draupadi changed her position and turned to sit at a respectable distance from him.
Her mind butchered every reminisce of her previous life, but failed to come up with any physical similarity between her previous life's guide and this man.

"You forgot your ring" Krish cunningly grinned while sitting adjacent to her, again.

Draupadi immediately snatched away the beautifully carved rose quartz ring which Arjun had given to her on their very first and apparently the last date,
she hurriedly kept it back in her bag where she used to keep it, though she had misplaced it when she was emotionally playing with it before Krish's arrival.

The two now keenly heard the announcements made in context to the schedules of various flights,
"My call" Krish lightly said, winding up his things,

"Can I gift you something?" He questioned the lady, unabashed.
"Me? What?" She was timidly curious.

Krish pulled out a tiny black box from his coat's lower pocket, "I saved it for something else but looks like you'll need it" he said, passing it to her.

She hesitated to open the box, a lustrous solitaire man's ring. "I can't, I can't accept this", she humbly smiled.

"Keep it, as a mark of our friendship or a remembrance that some guy with a thousand names eased you to give a second chance to the love of your life, as it is, your lover must be coming to take you with him and that time you can make him wear this token of bliss",
the two chuckled.

"Drau!" Arjun's mystical tone felt peaceful lyrics to her ears, he rashly embraced her, not acknowledging the surroundings, he took deep exhales of relief after quickly summarising how he bribed the airport security and began his search for his lady love.

"Arjun, this is Krish" Draupadi's ear to ear smile was unnoticed by her husband as he was busy admiring the divine appearance of the other man.

"Ru, I told you not to follow me, I'll be back in a few days, and then we'll both go back to our city" Krish signalled Ruhani to play along.

"Oh, isn't this Arjun Kuruvanshi?" He faked ignorance and showed his casual unawareness about Arjun's arrival along with his Ru.

"Hi!" The stupefied man muttered, shaking hands with the other person.

"Is he the same Arjun? Draupadi?" He exaggerated his lack of realisation. Krish's new acquaintance forcefully nodded her head, she now observed the aesthetically pleasing lady beside her new friend.

"Looks like we got to go" Ruhani mouthed her husband's words, she side hugged Arjun and whispered about the small gift she gave to him in the car, a matching solitaire woman's ring, which she wanted him to give to his lady.

"Can I get your phone number?" Draupadi asked, not wishing to part away from the two.

"Phone numbers make it easy for people to connect, what is the fun in that?" Krish tricked the couple into a weird web of words.

"Goodbye and best of luck for the future, Paarth!" The older man kept his hand on the other's shoulder.

"Are you? Are you..?" Arjun felt short of breath hearing the vocalisation,
"You don't play the game with the one who creates it!" The mysterious one simpered, "and thus, I have to go, but I might come to visit you sooner or later!"
Without giving time to the couple to register and process everything, the pair who possessed a heavenly aura disappeared amongst the jostling crowd.