The Other Half

Chapter 13

(Nutan Street: Practice makes a twin perfect)

Advay and Arnav sat on opposite ends of the bed in Arnav's room. It turned out that Arnav had OCD, and Advay had a lack of it. So, practicing in Advay's room was out of question.

"Take a deep breath." Payal instructed. "Now exhale."

Arnav opened his eyes. "We've been doing this for the past 10 minutes, Ms Gupta. How can this help?"

Payal chewed her lip. Unlike Advay, Arnav was an impatient man. "The first time Khushi fainted post the curse, it was in a school assembly."

Advay gasped and opened his eyes. "You lost control?"

"Completely. I had no idea back then. Towards the end of the assembly, she fainted, as people started dispersing, with no idea that my sister needed help. We were in different sections, so by the time I reached her and found nobody was even looking at her, she was in my head already. And then I lost it. I screamed hail mary."

"How did you realize?"

"I didn't."

"I did." Khushi entered the room. "Was it ten minutes?"

"Seemed like an era." Payal shook her head.

"So how did the teachers react? You definitely caught attention, I assume." Advay spoke.

"She did. For a while, I was highly confused. To me it seemed I was dizzy, I fell, and then I was standing behind my sister's friend. I had no control, no idea that I could speak. I was tongue tied by feeling emotions of two souls at the same time. When she yelled, I thought I was in a nightmare. Then the teachers came..." Khushi looked at her sister.

"I still remember Pradhan sir holding me down. He was scared of me till 12th."

Khushi chuckled. "I hit him bad."

"You hit a teacher?" Arnav asked.

"I didn't know I was controlling her. One moment I was pinned down, the next I reacted." Khushi smiled.

"Ouch." Arnav grinned.

"Touche, Mr Raizada. Still, it took that moment for me to realize that I had the control. And then I started calming down. But she wasn't."

"Then what happened?" The Raizada twins asked.

"I had calmed down, finally I was back where I belonged. One of teacher's noticed me then. They thought that's why my sister went hysterical."

"When I saw her stirring, I finally started breathing normally. I was sure that I never ever wanted her to faint again. And now it's become a habit." Payal completed. "And that is why Mr Raizada, these breathing exercises are important.

"Khushi and I have had the practice to know what the other needs because it's been a decade of incidents that taught us about this connection. But you both are new to this. If anything happens, you need to know about each other's presence. To read the other's auras. And to do that you always have to be in a focused state of mind."

"You're full of advice today, Payal." Advay complimented her.

"You might want to listen to me. It's been only four hours and yours and NK's room is a bird's nest!"

Khushi chuckled. "That bad?"

"I learnt today that Poo never exaggerated."

"Arnav, why don't you practice while I go and kill our cousin." Advay got up. Pooja was being absolutely ridiculous, sharing about his habits to Payal.