Sweet 'n' Sour | ✔

forty-four

44. Kisi se bhi churaya ho tumhein, par ab tum meri ho. (I might have stolen you from someone, but now you're mine.)

•°•

Late on the Friday evening, we sat mulling about our own stuff. I was reading a book again, she was working at the desk.

"Priya,"

Peeling her eyes off the bright screen, she turned to me, glowing in the incandescent lights of the lamp, her silhouette accompanying her on the wall, just as graceful as her.

"Listen to this," I urged her softly. She nodded, clasping her hands between her knees as she gave me all of her attention. I looked back down at the book, reading through the paragraph that had me enraptured for a while. "There exist two kinds of love," I glanced up at her, and she smiled at me in encouragement. "The soulmate love, and the stolen love." I looked back at her.

"What's the soulmate love?"

I didn't have to look back down to read it. It was printed into my head with a stamp of forever. "It's the love that begins with the one you're meant for. There's gentleness in there, the magic of shy smiles and stolen glances. It starts slowly, develops gradually, for it's meant to be, so it never is bound to time. It stays with you even after forever, tying your soul to the one you love, where you know even if you transcend universes, you'll still end up meeting each other, belonging to each other."

She leaned in curiously.

"And then there's the stolen love," I whispered. "The kind where you fall in love with someone else's soulmate." Her brows pinched together melancholically. "You make them yours, deluding them to think you're their forever, even when you know all along, it's a lie. It's the love that's passionate, driven by impulse, fear, and obsession, carrying a depth that's enough to drown you. A death trap you let your soul willingly fall for. You know it has an end, a slave to the time, but it's maddening, consuming, you cannot get rid of it. So you live in constant fear. Is it the end? Will I be alone tomorrow? Will I be left with nothing? But you can't even complain," I smiled bitterly. "You know why?"

"Why?" She whispered.

"For you were the thief after all," I shrugged.

She let out a long sigh, resting back on the chair. "It's beautiful."

I nodded with a smile, tracing the edges of the cover. "Hauntingly beautiful," I added.

She turned back to the laptop, resuming her work. I couldn't go back to reading the book. So I stared at her long enough that she had to look back at me again. "What? You think you stole me from someone?" She sighed helplessly.

I nodded.

She chuckled, shaking her head before wheeling the chair closer to me. I placed the book beside me, shifting my position to sit facing her. "It's a book. Someone's imagination. Not even one percent of it can be related to reality." She placed her hand on my thigh.

"What if it's true though?"

"It's not truer than our marriage certificate." She deadpanned, knocking my forehead like always when she thinks I'm speaking bullshit. "Get your head out of that fictional world." She snorted, rolling her eyes.

"Do you know, according to the Chinese legend, there's a red string of fate that ties you to your soulmate?" I asked her. "And no, this is not fictional. It's an actual thing."

"Really?" She lifted both of her hands. "I don't see any string? Oh, maybe because I'm not Chinese they forgot about me?" She asked sarcastically.

"It's invisible!" I scoffed. "And one end of it is tied to your pinky finger, while the other end is tied around your soulmate's pinky finger," I explained.