After The Rain

Chapter Twenty - Falling, Fallen

One day you will meet someone
who will see the universe
that was knitted into your bones,
and the embers of galaxies glow to life in your eyes.
And you will finally know
what love is supposed to feel like.

- Nikita Gill (What Does Love Feel Like)

~

There was a curious sensation in Arnav’s chest as he returned to his room, after having watched Khushi fumbled out of Shantivan. She left in such a hurry that if she were a cartoon, she would have left her skin behind.

The sensation grew, but unlike so many of the recent emotions he was feeling, it didn’t prickle. Instead, it nestled comfortably, growing and purring. A strange humming sounded in his mind as he reached for his water cans and began tending to his plants. The flowers suddenly seemed brighter, more colorful and for the first time, Arnav reveled in seeing how they gently danced to the tune of the wind.

It was beautiful.

Oh pull it together Raizada, said a voice deep in his mind but he couldn’t help it. The grin that had grazed his face at Khushi’s flustered movements— one that was born from the pleasure of being able to render Khushi Kumari Gupta speechless and breathless with a mere stare—refused to leave. And Arnav didn’t fight it.

The feeling was warm. It was almost healing as it passed over the agonising thoughts he had been having, blanketing them with its form.

Happy. Arnav realised he was happy.
The elation felt as much strange as it was welcomed.

Arnav Singh Raizada was not a stranger to joy, but it was a rare sight. Complete, undulated happiness was something of the past, something bygone that he never expected to encounter again.

But joy had seemed to want to make a return for a long time now. It had nestled in him the day before when he had kissed her. The feel of her skin against his lips had been fleeting but incredibly intoxicating. A velvety collision that he had spent the whole night thinking about, still not believing that it had actually happened.

It now felt easier to admit that all of his shameful dreams, those deepest desires that manifested in his mind whenever he lowered his guard - images that made it harder to hear Khushi’s name or see her face without a distinct ruffled feeling - paled before the simplest and briefest touch of her. His kiss to her and today, her kiss to him.

Arnav shook his head, attempting to rid himself of the ridiculous smile but it only grew. He revisited the moment she had gripped him—he had been standing transfixed by her bubbliness, by the way she bounced up and down excitedly. A strange anticipation had shot through him when she reached Mami and his breath had hitched the second she flashed before him. Her hands on his arm, tugging him slightly down as she bestowed a kiss over him.

Arnav knew she had been carried away by the momentum and had kissed him without knowing what she was doing. But he welcomed it all the same, for the look he saw in her eyes when he had cornered her afterwards told him plainly that she had been as unnerved by their second kiss as him. Her eyes, so wide with shock had held the remnants of the drunkenness that overwhelmed him every time they touched.

She was not unaffected by him—she shared what he felt every time they were together. It was a feeling that he found unfamiliar yet one that he had come close to understanding many days ago, almost an eternity ago. An understanding that was growing poignant day by day, with every sight of her face, every mention of her name, every thought of her, with every breath of his.

Arnav’s hands stilled, his breathing ragged. He felt the same rush he had the day he first contemplated his complex emotions about Khushi Kumari Gupta. Then, he had been horrified, now he felt a thrill.