Delhi or Dilli-bustling streets, endless chai tapris, and a city where dreams are both made and broken. In this chaos, Anchal is focused on her career, dodging her parents' shaadi ki baatein, while Varshith, a perfectionist set to inherit his father...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
| a great day |
If soulmates exist, mine came in the form of an orphan who never learned when to shut up.
Because there were only two reasons I woke up at six in the morning; discipline and my best friends' incessant nagging. Today, it was mostly the latter.
The gym smelled of rubber flooring, iron plates, and something claustrophobic people won't appreciate. I adjusted the grip on the barbell and unracked it from the bench, lowering the weight steadily before pressing it back up. By the tenth rep, every muscle in my chest and shoulders had begun protesting, but stopping early had never been my thing. Sweat trickled down the side of my face and disappeared beneath the neckline of my fitted black compression tee, which had become a shade darker by the minute. The mirrors surrounding the weight section reflected more than my workout. Every now and then, I caught someone looking before they awkwardly pretended to be fascinated by a completely different machine.
A pair of hands suddenly appeared beneath the bar. "Need help, Your Majesty, or are you planning to die in the gym today?"
I shoved the weight back onto the rack before sitting up and glaring at my roommate. "If I die, don't touch my bike." This made him grin.
If there was one person who could successfully ruin the peace of a gym at seven in the morning, it was Akhil.
Not because he was loud, although he most certainly could be, but because he treated every place like his personal comedy club. The staff here knew him by name, half the members laughed at his jokes before he even finished a sentence, and despite looking like someone who could argue a domestic violence case with a straight face, he had the emotional maturity of a twelve-year-old whenever I was around.
I'd known him since we were kids.
He'd grown up in an orphanage where I frequented with my Dad ever since I was 10. That was when I had met him. I had shared my candy bar with him there and that was the beginning of a lifetime friendship. I had insisted Dad to get Akhil admitted in my school and my father had agreed without hesitation. I didn't realize when the boy who smiles at absolutely anything and everything became my family.
"You know," Akhil said, leaning against the squat rack while pretending to catch his breath, "one day you'll finally admit I'm stronger."
I finished re-racking the barbell before looking at him. "You needed a spotter for seventy kilos, Akhil."
"I was preserving my joints." He defended, uncapping his bottle.
"You screamed."
"I grunted." He pressed on, taking a huge gulp of water.
"You screamed." I insisted again.
"Bet you liked that." He smirked shamelessly. I looked around searching for something to throw at him and found nothing but my sweaty towel, which he effortlessly dodged with a laugh.
