It should have been you

5. Wedding (k)not

About this scene: Arnav and Khushi come home married amidst Payal-akash's post wedding rituals and everyone is already wondering about missing Arnav and Khushi. The families are shocked to see them with garlands and newly wedded looks. Arnav rigidly declares they are married. It is then shown in the flashback about why they had married and how. This chapter delves into the minds of Arnav and Khushi just moments before this biggest mishap in their lives...a mishap which crushed their hearts, their dreams that night for a long time and they assumed this was it for them. (Episode Season 6-Episode 7 on Hulu/Hotstar, Ep165 otherwise)

This is written more from Arnav's POV because we've had many versions of Khushi's pov on this night so far. Hope you all still like it.

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When she saw the message written on her mirror, to come and meet her on the terrace, her heart raced with an anticipation of the moment she had been dreaming about since past few days.

To be precise, since he cornered her around the kitchen wall and confronted about the 'A' on her mehendi or since the moment when he saved her from humiliation and helped her win the dance competition on the sangeet night or since the time when he challenged her with a kiss on her cheek and then she too did so-albeit inadvertently, or since the butterfly-inducing moment on the morning of haldi when he wiped the haldi on his cheek with her dupatta as if he owned it-as if he owned her- or from the jittery moment just this morning when he helped her serve the guests and behaved like a servant at her home. She had been anxiously waiting for him to finally confess what had been a worst kept secret between them already! Something that she had already read in his eyes and heard from his heartbeats...and finally, it looked like he had chosen today's day.

What will he say? What will she reply? Of course, she would reply yes, there was no question about it.

But after that she was going to ask him to behave nicely with her and mend his laad governor ways. She decided. He might have been the ASR until now, but after he confesses his feelings to her, she was going to ask him to behave little romantically. Maybe take a lesson or two from Salman Khanji!

Khushi's musings were something on those lines.

It is said that if you boast about your good fortune, it gets jinxed, nazar lag jaati hai, but her love, her Arnavji, she will happily boast about winning his heart! It was one such achievement to win over a man who self-proclaimed to be a non-believer in love (and God). She seemed to have already made him trust in love -her love- now she will make him trust in her Devi maiyya too.

And with those thoughts on her mind, with eager steps, she opened the door to the terrace, to finally meet the man who had her heart, her Arnavji.

.

.

He was climbing the steps impatiently. This was not just a step but a huge leap for him, a leap of faith! His long-held beliefs against this thing called heart and feeling called love, his notion against middle-class girls, everything was changed, every notion was broken by her, and he couldn't wait to tell her so. He was going to promise her that he would bring the entire world to her feet once she said yes.

But she would say yes, right? She must! He had felt her heart say so already and so far, Arnav Singh Raizada's instincts never lied! Not that he had much expertise in the field of love. His last so-called girlfriend was Lavanya (at least for the world), and he had never understood her heart rather, he never intended to.

Well, with Khushi he didn't need to try. His heart just heard her, listened to her, was attuned to her on its own. And now his feelings, his steps were like on autopilot!