Disguised Darling|✓

Episode 12

“Let’s go, guys! Raghav, you've got the keys?” Mihir asks, rubbing his hands excitedly.

The man in question nods, spinning the key on his index finger, while Ranveer scoffs at his brother's wasteful skill.

“Let it be, Bhai, two more seconds and those keys would be down on the floor.” And as luck would have it, as soon as Ranveer says that the keys, indeed, fall onto the floor, having Tara guffawing and the little brother pressing his laugh in his sister's shoulder.

“Whatever!” Raghav huffs, albeit good-naturedly and with that, all five of them get on with their mall trip, their first one without their little Mishti and the last one in this city, with the two kids a.k.a. Ranveer and Tara calling shotgun.

Yeah, this is going to be a memorable trip.

The siblings: Ruhi, Ranveer and Raghav were the ones who had initially planned the trip to take away the gloominess that had settled in their house after Mihir had apologised to Tara and the girl had unintentionally been forced to relive some of the worst memories of her life. Both had been uncharacteristically sad, something that made the trio think that maybe their fighting and bickering was much better after all, but they also knew that without solving the problem, their harmless squabble would one day turn into vicious jabs. And so, they thought that what happened was for good and now they only needed a small break from their monotonous life spinning on the agency's fingertips and the things that they find no will to do.

Only they didn't know that the two people with their newly found friendship had been planning to bring the group to the mall and chill out for a day as well, albeit with a secret rolling all along. And when the two plans clashed, it only added to the happiness that is permeating the atmosphere with all the adults stuffed inside the car like little children with grins pasted on their faces, knowing that they all care for each other equally.

The group reaches the mall in exactly fifteen minutes and because they've never done a task in this part of the area, no one knows them here, hence the absence of any kind of guise on them.

The thing, however, that occupies Mihir's mind is the girl standing beside him, Ruhi, wearing a full-sleeved sundress, something that Mihir hasn't seen her wearing in forever, not counting the time when she was ten and the dress was accompanied by two pigtails on her head. He internally coos at the cute memory. The air surrounding her smells like strawberry, it always has, while the smallest hint of a smile on her face as she observes the décor of the mall makes him smile as well.

He needs to take her out of here, not to mention how his sister will be disappointed when he'll tell him that he still hasn't been able to do anything about the crush he has had on the girl for years now.

He’ll do something about it today.

In fact, he's already planned something about it. Secretly. With Tara.

“Psst!” he whispers to the girl walking in front of him, the sibling trio still very engaged in observing their surroundings.

“Tara!” the girl in question quickly turns around as she hears her name, eyes widening when she looks at her caller.

“What? Ready?” she mouths to which Mihir nods, unable to stop the grin forming upon his lips while the girl mimics the action.

To be honest, since the day he has spoken to her, cleared out all the bad blood between them, he has got to know her in a new light, a perspective that had always been hidden by his prejudice but he's glad that it's not like that anymore and that he can finally call the girl his friend.

Tara clears her throat gaining the attention of all her groupmates.

“Guys, so now that we're here, do you have any ideas what we're supposed to do?” she asks, a well-practised clueless look adorning her face. And before anyone could answer, she pulls out three tickets from her pocket, showing them to the members.

“On a second thought, I have these tickets for the movie premiering in the theatre. It's right above this floor, want to go watch it?” Tara asks and as expected, Ranveer is the first one to agree on the idea, immediately going to pluck a ticket from her hand.

“No way, I've been waiting for this movie to come out for so long! How did you manage to grab the tickets on the first day!” he exclaims, grinning, intensely examining the ticket as if the whole movie would play out on that small slip of paper. “Not to forget those cheddar cheese popcorns that they serve here are the best!”

“Well, I have my ways. Though the thing is that because it was a first-day show, I could only bag three tickets. So only three of us could go there.” She feigns a pout and Mihir shakes out the smirk from his face in favour of feigning nonchalance.

“Well, I never liked watching movies so I'm out of this.” He states, his gaze immediately landing on Ruhi who has her mouth opened as if to protest his decision, but when she sees that everybody is observing the scene, she immediately mums her mouth.

This time it’s Raghav who speaks. "Well, that's not a problem. You, Ranvi and Ruhi can go and watch the movie while Mihir and I could spend some time roaming around. This is our day to relax anyway. No need to stress about a movie."

“What? No!” both Mihir and Tara exclaim at the same time, an affronted look marring both their faces. Mihir does it because he doesn't want to go on a probable date with his dear friend Raghav while Tara does. After all, she's offended after knowing that Raghav could so easily pass upon the opportunity to talk with her some more. However, it's safe to say that for the guy in question the outburst comes as a shock, his hand immediately raising in surrender.

“Um...calm down, guys. Did I say anything wrong?” Raghav asks, his gaze flitting between the newly formed friends. It's Tara who answers him.

“Raghav! How can you do this? This is your favourite movie genre as well, and more importantly, I want to watch this with you, so you'll have to come!”

It's probably a bad habit, Tara knows her utter inability to beat around the bush but sometimes it does work as it is doing right now, all with Raghav's ears reddening more and more with every passing second, his eyes not meeting hers.

“Uh.... Oh, that's – I too .... But Ruhi –” Blushing, Raghav stumbles through his words and as soon as his sister hears her name being taken, she decides to take part in the chaotic conversation, unintentionally making the plan a lot easier.

"Don't worry about me, bhaiya. I'll find something to do." Ruhi states, her gaze briefly landing up at Mihir before she averts her attention to her brother, a smile on her face. "You go and have fun!"

“Yeah, don't worry, I'll be with her.” Mihir chirps in, a proud smile gracing his face which gets perturbed when Ranveer decides to pipe in unhelpfully.

“He’s worrying because he knows you'll be with Ruhi.” He says, stifling a chuckle as Tara nudges his shoulder to shush him, albeit being unable to control her own snicker.

All, Ruhi, Mihir’s and Raghav’s eyes widen at the insinuation though none of them do anything to refute it, merely avoiding eye contact with each other, suddenly finding the flooring of the mall to be more mesmerising than ever.

“Well, ok. Now that this has been decided, come on. We’re going to get late for the movie.” Tara announces, breaking into the weird silence, throwing a subtle wink towards Mihir who nods at her, grinning, leaving the brother-sister duo to blush respectively when Tara drags Raghav to the theatre by holding his hand, while Mihir walks beside Ruhi with their fingers brushing up against each other with every step they take.