The Arranged Marriage

Epilogue Part 1

6 YEARS LATER...

Neel's POV

Married. I'm getting married. I'm totally not freaking out about it. Not at all. Nope. Not me.

All lies. I'm definitely losing my mind.

I had never thought about marriage until six years ago when I'd found out that Kiran was being married off. It seemed like a distant thing to me. Something that would never happen. I thought it would never work out for me since there were no good experiences I knew of where a human fell in love with a rakkhosh and stayed. Forget humans, I didn't think it was possible for anyone to like me. And since no one could understand anything about the way I act, I thought it would be impossible for me to like anyone.

But we live in a universe with tons of different dimensions. I can't really believe that anything is impossible.

I stepped into the room full of excited people. There were a lot. I tried not to show how nervous I was as I walked to the front of the room. Behind me were my mother, father, Kiran's parents, and my groomsmen. When we made it to the front of the room, I sat in one of the two identically decorated thrones. My parents sat in the two chairs beside me, and Kiran's parents sat in the three chairs on the side of the other throne.

"You look lovely," my father said to my mother.

Ma glared at him. "Compliment me one more time and I'll make sure this is a day to remember. But not in a good way."

"If you ruin today, I'll kill you," I mumbled. "If Kiran doesn't do it first."

My parents turned away from each other, trying to act like nothing happened.

The groomsmen were whispering about something, and I heard music begin to play. I did my best not to frown. This was the part where they were supposed to dance. And, knowing all of them, they probably wouldn't do anything normally if they were whispering right before the dance.

They gathered around my throne and circled it, stepping to the beat. I caught my brother's eye and glared. "What are you up to?"

He grinned. "Nothing. We're doing this to check up on you."

I raised an eyebrow. "What?"

They all struck an odd pose, and I had to stop myself from laughing.

They rounded my chair several times, doing silly dance moves that got laughs from the audience. Lal and I spoke the whole time.

"Are you nervous?" he asked.

"Is it that obvious? I thought I did a good job of hiding it," I answered.

Lal laughed. "No one's judging you. You're getting married! How could you not be nervous?"

Buddhu cut in. "Yeah! You're spending the rest of your life with the princess! Imagine all of the nagging and the arguments, and regretting the one day that you didn't use protection when your children act like brats, and being so sour that you won't even appreciate my jokes anymore!" He shuddered. "Listen, brother, it's not too late to back out."

"Uh... I think I'm good," I responded. I blinked, trying to forget what he'd said. Lal smirked at me.

"Wanna make a bet?" he asked.

"You better agree! You won't be allowed to make any bets once you're married," Buddhu said.

"Sure." I smiled at the moves that Buddhu was attempting to do. He was trying to be like the dudes from the movies, the ones that randomly burst into dance the moment that the main character locks eyes with the love interest. He was failing terribly. Bhootoom shook his head, burying his face in his wing so he wouldn't have to see what the monkey was doing.