Disguised Darling|✓

Episode 26

“Open the door, Tara! It has been two days.” Raghav yells, knocking on the door, a perturbed frown on her face. 

The sibling trio has just come back from the orphanage, attending only the first day of Daya sir’s prayer meet, Raghav not wanting to leave Tara alone for too long and Ruhi and Ranveer wanting to stay at home if Mishti ever needs them and yet it is the latter two who are worrying the most for the girl.

“Tara, love, we are all worried for you, please open the door!” Ruhi says, shaking the doorknob from beside her brother, an equally concerned look gracing her features, her gaze inadvertently falling on the floor, seeing a photograph peeking from the small slit under the door. 

She picks it up.

“What if she has passed out? She hasn’t eaten any meal in the last forty-eight hours, and I doubt the snacks in her room would have sufficed. She has diabetes.” Ranveer reminds them, brows curling up in worry, while Raghav’s eyes widen in horror. 

“Yes! That must have been the case. We have a spare key, don’t we?” he asks his siblings and when they nod in unison, he heaves a breath of relief, immediately going in the direction where he thinks the keys are.

“Should I inform Mihir? He is at Daya sir’s prayer meet.” Ruhi asks putting the photo in her purse for the time being, but her twin seems to have conflicted feelings regarding the statement just like her, both the events being equally important.

“I guess…. don’t bother him right now, let us go inside first and see everything for ourselves. I – I should have followed her that day.” Ranveer says regretfully making Ruhi look at him with concerned eyes.

“Which day, Ranvi? Did you know that she was here?”

“I –”

“I have got the keys, guys. Hopefully, everything will be alright.”

*

Everything is not alright. For Mishti it isn’t.

Since morning she’s been feeling like this, low and dejected. Maybe it’s the stress from last week; how she had been caught by Vivek, or the excitement that finally Vivek and Aisha will be meeting each other tomorrow after literal years, both of them refusing to directly talk on the phone because they are just too shy. Or, maybe it is the task looming over her head that she has to carry out without hurting Samrat, something that is a task in itself. Or maybe it is just him.

Samrat.

He has always had the talent of occupying Mishti’s entire mind, because of course he can’t settle for anything less than that. 

She’s been thinking these days.... of a future, a future that probably won’t have Samrat in it. A time where she’ll be done with all the tasks and will have to leave this house; a future where she’ll not be able to witness his rare smiles turning frequent or the mischievous glint in his eyes that he carries around with him 24/7 these days, a future where she'll be bereft of feeling the glances behind her back that send butterflies flying around in her stomach, or the way his hands seem to linger over hers for over a few seconds when they reach out for the same cup.

She would miss all that.

“So, I have been noticing,” Samrat had said yesterday during the dinner, and Mishti had hummed while serving him a portion of spring rolls and some fried rice. 

“You’ve stopped addressing me as Sir.” Mishti’s hand had stopped midair listening to the statement, eyes growing wide.

What?

Sir?

Had she stopped doing that? 

“You talk to me quite casually these days, don’t you think?” Mishti could hear an underlying amusement in the statement, but she couldn’t conjure up a smile, neither could she conjure a recent memory where she had called him ‘sir’ or addressed him formally.