Disguised Darling|✓

Episode 45

"Where are you going?" Samrat asks Mishti who is busy filling her suitcase with her clothes, missing the anxiety in his voice.

"Hmm?" she lets out absentmindedly, folding up her uniform neatly.

"I asked where are you going?" Samrat asks slightly louder this time to gain the girl's attention, which he does.

Mishti looks up surprised as if just realising who is talking to her. Her hands immediately freeze over her uniform. "I – I am going... along with bhai and everyone else." She tells him quietly, not because she is intimidated by the man standing in front of her, oh she could never be, not with the way his face dulls listening to those words, the imaginary puppy ears drooping. But, because she is realising it only now, the implication behind her words.

She is going.

Away from him. Again.

And this time too, like the first time, the decision isn't voluntary but obligatory. But at least she isn't being pushed away by him.

"When did you decide it?" Samrat asks, a certain hesitance in his voice.

Mishti is quick to reply. "I didn't. Bhai wanted me to come with him. I just didn't –"

"Protest," Samrat says and she nods meekly.

Indeed, she hadn't protested when her brother had told her that they all will be leaving tomorrow for their new place, one that police wouldn't ever raid, one where they'll live together as a family, one where it will not be a safehouse but a home.

She hadn't thought that to do so she would have to leave this place.

"Ok...." Samrat says nodding. "You'll want to – of course you'll do, ok." He nods again, this time as if making himself understand something, resignation evident on his face. "Ok. Just – Just be safe. Wherever you go."

He says and leaves it at that, the succeeding silence unnerving Mishti to no end, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth and a heaviness in her heart. She doesn't know if it is because the realization that she is going or because she had thought that Samrat was here to stop her from leaving, had expected that he would.

It is the latter.

Seeing him saying a mandatory 'Be safe' disappoints her to no end. But she is not someone to swallow down her feelings, this time too, she doesn't when her words make Samrat halt in his steps from where he is going outside the door.

"You don't have anything else to say to me? "Go safely..." she imitates in a deep voice, crossing her arms across her chest. "I'm pretty sure the airport staff greets someone more warmly than this."

Mishti huffs, turning her face away when Samrat turns around, the sullen look gracing his features getting replaced with an amused one.

"Is that so?" He murmurs mirthfully before walking towards Mishti who doesn't bother replying, suddenly not feeling as confident as she was moments ago.

Samrat stands at an arm's distance from her, his demeanour changing with Mishti's. "Tell me then, what do you want me to say to you." He cocks his head to the side, giving Mishti a glimpse of the Samrat she had got to know while working for him: confident, sarcastic, inciting.

"Should I say that I'll miss you and you shouldn't go? Will you stay then?" he asks, bringing his head beside her, and Mishti struggles for an answer, the scent tickling her nose.

"That – That depends ...."

"On what? The degree of my persuasion?" he gives her an amused smile which only grows when she nods.