Two Souls ✔ [Completed]

Two Souls : Chapter 05

He woke up early the next day. The fact that he actually managed to sleep through a night was pretty sensational, but he wasn't in the mood for a celebration. The light of the morning let the room look less like a comfortable shelter than during the night before. The cruel reality caught already up with him, no matter that Riddhima was sleeping peacefully in the crook of his arm. Her lips were slightly open, reminded him of kissing her countless times during the night. Now it seemed that he lost the ability to be as daring. Instead he only gently brushed her hair from her face and placed a chaste kiss on her forehead.

He was thirsty and got up to have a glass of water, but first he collected his clothes from the floor. Not only was he shivering, he also wasn't sure how Riddhima would react if she'd find him walking around naked in her apartment. But then again, he wasn't sure either about her reaction to the events of last night.

Himself, Vansh felt strangely numb. He sat down on a chair in the bedroom and waited patiently until Riddhima awoke. Briefly he acknowledged that he never expected a morning after sleeping with her to be so trivial. Did he do everything wrong? Was simply something wrong with him? He didn't really want to know.

Riddhima looked beautiful when he watched her getting dressed. Tousled and a little embarrassed, maybe, but her languorous, mystical radiance brightened the cloudy morning.

"I'm starving." She yawned, and suddenly Vansh felt uneasy for reasons unclear even to himself.

The apartment, the situation, became too claustrophobic to stay any longer. Superficially seen, Riddhima appeared unimpressed when he told her that he had to run some errands before work. The brief, alarmed flutter of her eyelids when he declined her offer to drive him told him another story though.

"Okay, see you at work." Her tone was cheerful, but he sensed that something had come between them, something strange and dangerous.

At the door he embraced her tightly. Despite the fact that he was the one longing to go away, he had now trouble letting go.

Somewhere halfway between her apartment and his own, his feet already hurting from walking too long in uncomfortable shoes, he realized that sleeping with Riddhima had been a huge mistake. No matter how alive, happy even, being with her had made him feel, it still didn't make it right. Right now, he needed her as a friend and as an ally.

He should have just waited.

Until they solved this latest case and he sorted out his past.

Until they at least talked about those new things she learned about him.

Until he was ready for a relationship.

Instead he wasn't even able to sleep and eat regularly and that he had to be removed from a crime scene in the middle of the night clearly didn't speak in his favour.

He felt tired - an usual condition for him, even though surprising after getting a good night's sleep - but he still went on. The wind sprinkled his face with raindrops. He rejected the absurd idea that Riddhima might understand that last night happened too early. With growing consternation he imagined how different his and Riddhima's relationship would be from now on. No dinners at her place anymore. No teasing. No car pooling. Never again he would be able to regard her simply as his friend. This certain, happy-go-lucky acquaintance, that he fought for so long, carelessly thrown away in one moment of weakness.

In front of the train station he took a cab to bring him home, but once he arrived there, he changed his mind. Time was precious and hiding from the world wouldn't change a thing. He still had a murderer to catch, a task that he recently neglected. From now on, seeing that he already had lost everything else, it would become his main focus just like in the old days before Vihaan D'Silva intruded.