ARRANGED BY DESTINY [CHOI SEUNGCHEOL]

CH: 37

Nishita

I woke up suddenly and my alarm didn’t even ring yet. I tapped my phone to check the time and it was 5:35 am. I turned to look at my other side and saw Seungcheol was sleeping and then I started wondering about all the things that happened yesterday. Starting from the hook incident and then him bringing me to our room in his arms. I was probably overthinking by now.

I sighed and got up, then quickly turned off my alarm so that my alarm wouldn’t disturb his sleep. I am not sure when he slept yesterday although I slept the moment I said ‘goodnight’, I was too tired yesterday considering I slept in the car as well. I don’t even remember when was the last time I fell asleep in a car.

I got up and saw Seungcheol holding one pillow tightly and a small smile broke out on my face, I hadn’t seen anyone hold their pillow like this while sleeping. I went to the closet to take out a yellow saree, it’s Saraswati Puja after all. I wore yellow every year, I mostly wore sarees today every year. I went inside the bathroom to freshen up and take a shower.

I didn’t know how much time I took but when I came out of the bathroom, I saw Seungcheol sitting on his bed, he was holding his phone looking sleepy, and then turned to look at me. He probably heard my payal and got to know it was me.

“Good… morning” I smiled at his words, he was looking sleepy which made me wonder when he slept yesterday night. “Good morning” I went to the dressing table to get ready, “when did you wake up Nishi?” I closed my eyes and applied my toner, “around 5:35 am, I don’t know how I woke up but I was awake and couldn’t sleep anymore”

“You slept well? Or you had trouble sleeping?” I turned to look at him, “I slept fine.” He nodded and got up from the bed. I turned back to look in the mirror, I sometimes wondered, is he like this with everyone? Once I was done, I saw him almost getting ready, then I looked at the time, it was 6:18 am

I didn’t know what to do till we went downstairs together and I didn’t know what they do today. I knew everything at home but I didn’t know anything here. “What do you usually do at home?” I was still sitting on the vanity chair and turned to look at him, “We wore yellow, and the priest used to come and we did the puja, our cousins come two days before Saraswati Puja and we keep all the books near the goddess, or atleast when we were kid, we used to do since we believe if we kept then we would do better in those subjects.” All my childhood memories flashed back and then it reminded me of how Heesung used to come at times but Seungcheol, wasn’t there maybe once or twice he came during the puja. And when I was in my university, we all used to dress up in saree and he- and my brain stopped. I stopped everything I was thinking before all the memories flooded in. I didn’t want to remember that one person anymore, who wasn’t even worth it.

“That’s it, sometimes me and Noor would go around the city in sarees.” He smiled at me. “That sounds nice.” It was nice, everything was nice, I wanted to go out with Noor just like we did last year. He came near the dressing table and I got up from the vanity chair, so that he could do whatever he wanted freely. The moment he walked near me, then I noticed he was wearing a yellow kurta and I wanted to ask him, if they did the same.

“I wore yellow… it seemed like you associated yellow colour with Saraswati Puja” and he was correct, “And I didn’t want you to feel lonely.” I didn’t know how to respond to him, as if my breathing got stuck and another unwanted memory flooded in.

“Why do you even wear yellow every year, why can’t you wear something else? You know I get sick at times looking at you wearing just yellow every year on this occasion. It’s been five years already Nishita.”
“You can’t talk to me like that, Karan” I didn’t know why was he behaving like this ever since we started our post-grad.