Ek Duje Ke Vaaste

13

He was beyond shock upon learning what conversation Sumo and his father had the other day.
Now everything was making sense: why Ramnath was so adamant about Sumo, why Sumo had ignored him since that day, why, at the night of the party, she left without saying anything upon learning that his father called him, why suddenly everything turned 'irrelevant'.

He didn't know how to react after that. Tears were flowing from his eyes. He had played that footage 2-3 times. He didn't know whether to be angry with his father or try to understand his feelings that were hurt because of Nirmala Ahuja. But he was definitely feeling betrayed by his own father. His father kept him away from the only person who was everything to him, his friend, his love, his home.

He chose to sit there for another hour to calm himself down. He had called Pushkar and told him he would return in the morning as he was going out for a work after leaving the office.
He drove to Tiwari Killa. It was dinner time + it was 'shaadi ka ghar', he couldn't get inside to privately meet Sumo. He parked his car near her house in a shade and sleep engulfed him.

It was midnight when he woke up suddenly. He found himself in the car and realized why he had come here. He got out and quickly went inside Sumo's room through the window.

It was just another tiring day for Sumo. She had slept early like other members of the family.

He found her sleeping, covered in a duvet, looking beautiful again.

'Koi aisa waqt nahi jab tum khoobsurat nahi dikhti'
He thought and lay down near her without waking her up. As he was watching her, he remembered a similar incident that happened when they were younger.

•
Flashback ~

Sumo, after school, was taking a nap in the afternoon as the Fest day had torn her apart as she was the head of the cultural fest committee and also the manager for food and other servings.

Shravan, who wasn't allowed by Sumo to have any contact with her at school, was missing her too much because it had been days since he hung out with her with her being busy.
Today was an end to all her responsibilities at school, so he came to her home to meet and listen to all that she must have to say.

He went into her room through the window as the door was closed and found her sleeping. Peacefully. He felt peace mixed with happiness seeing her like many other times. He knew it was more than just friendship, at least from his end.

He was waiting for her to wake up, sitting on the other corner of the bed, but sleep took over him too, and he adjusted himself a little more comfortably on the bed and got lost in dreams.

Sumo, who woke up after hours of sleep, found him sleeping next to her and screamed his name waking him up. He woke up startled and realized the stunned expressions. Before he could provide her a good answer, she threw her hands over him and engaged in silly fights. He finally could tell her the reason when she had gotten calm, but she didn't let him off the hook without punishing him with 100 sit-ups. He knew something like this was coming, so he readily agreed, making her chuckle and stopping him in the middle but about after 50 sit-ups.

Flashback ended.
•

Shravan smiled, thinking nothing had changed much between them; it was just they were pretending to be mature, but little did they both know they missed their younger self. What did change was that he was now sure of what he wanted and had the strength to work for it.

He still wasn't able to wrap his mind around what he saw earlier. What should he do now? He was not in the mood to confront Ramnath, he was devastated to even face him. Moreover, it would impact the wedding, so he chose to leave it at that. He couldn't think of anything so he came to meet Sumo to talk about that. But seeing her sleep, he didn't disturb and sleep again engulfed him.