Discordance

Chapter Sixteen

Her monster was suddenly the sweetest person in her life and Akshara was hesitantly pleased. He would do small things for her and each time Akshara melted a little bit and bought into this new founded friendship. Things were finally settled and dare she say, she was happier than ever before. Every day that she went out for work he would text her between his cases to check up on her location and make sure she was ok. Not even her brothers did that for her!

Akshara packed up her things in her office, hurrying out to get home before her usual time because for once Manjari had asked something from her and how could she say no? Manjari had called her in the morning to ask her to get home earlier than usual as they were supposed to have a family dinner. Her heart thudded at that because while she was comfortable enough to eat with Abhimanyu and Manjari, the rest of the family as nice as they may be, still overwhelmed her. She usually pushed food around her plate taking a small bite here and there to avoid suspicion, but everyone seemed to be catching on and she didn't have it in her to answer questions.

But Akshara didn't have to worry about that because the moment she stumbled into their room, her monster was already there pacing about, talking to someone on the phone.

When he saw her enter, he immediately cut the call making Akshara wonder who he was talking to. Maybe his girlfriend?

"Hey" he said smiling and coming closer and Akshara's thoughts about his girlfriend immediately vanished especially when he pulled a protein bar from his pocket and handed it to her, tearing the top away.

"Yuck" she stuck her tongue out and evaded his oncoming advances, but the monster stalked towards her, crowding her space.

"You will eat it before we go down, God knows when the last time was that you ate. Plus, family dinners like this one run for hours and hours and we won't be back upstairs until after midnight." His tone was stern and Akshara knew there was no escaping it. Mutinously pulling it from his hand, Akshara bit into it grimacing and pleading with her eyes to not make her eat it but he merely glared.

"Akshara" he warned as she tried to hand him the half-eaten bar back and she had to reluctantly finish it, all the while making terrible faces hoping he would find some sympathy somewhere in his deep dark heart.

"Monster" she groaned pushing him away before looking at herself in the room's mirror trying to see if she needed to change or she could pass of without showering.

"Do I need to change? Is this a fancy thing you guys do?" she asked as she smoothed her dress out and to her surprise Abhimanyu stepped into the frame behind her, his gaze running across her figure making her conscious.

"Uh no, you can come as is, you look beautiful" suddenly his eyes widened along with hers and he immediately began rambling "I meant, you look great. Great for the dinner." Rubbing the back of his neck he escaped the situation, running into the bathroom making Akshara giggle.

Beautiful, he had called her beautiful! She tried to objectively look in the mirror to see what he saw but all she could see were the slight smudges of darkness under her eye, her too thin arms and just overall tiredness. Whatever, what did she care if he thought she looked good or not?

When he came out of the bathroom refusing to meet her eyes, Akshara felt better, because his scrutiny always overwhelmed her and them being back to the friends but strangers dynamic was the one she was the most comfortable with. Wordlessly the two of them made their way downstairs only for Akshara to gape up at Abhimanyu in shock, the Birlas were all sprawled on various mattresses in their garden with pizza boxes and drinks strewn between them, some lights were strung on the surrounding trees and a big screen played some movie, but nobody seemed to be paying attention.