Bade Sapne

◇ Part 1 ◇

Shubman’s POV

Ring ring. Vira's phone rang, and with it, a multitude of notifications too. I watched as she held the phone up to her ear. I heard Priya's voice, almost shouting through the phone, as Vira took a few steps forward to stop me from hearing their conversation. Well, that's nice.

After a minute or two, she cut the call, and looked at me.

"Thanks for the chai."

I beamed at her. "I promise to not be a dickhead again."

She scoffed, a look of strong disbelief on her face. "Yeah, sure."

I simply smiled at her, knowing that I probably deserved that. We both came to Priya and Vira's apartment in silence, finding Abhi and Priya deeply engaged in a heated conversation, with both of them whisper-shouting to each other. As we came in, Priya shot a murderous look at me, while Abhi had a look of pure disappointment.

"Chalo." Abhi said.

"Kahan?"

"I think it's time we left."

I felt a pang of guilt upon hearing that sentence, realising how much I'd hurt Vira. She didn't deserve this. I'm such a dick. And so we left, chup chap, no arguments, nothing. We just left. We went home, as I looked around for Ishan, who evidently hadn't come home yet. Abhishek had been sitting quietly on the couch, waiting for me to say something. The silence in the room was unbearable. I needed to get out of here.

I nodded toward the door. "Abhi, balcony. I need to talk."

He gave me a skeptical glance, but followed me out anyway. The cool night air hit my face as we stepped outside, and I leaned against the railing, taking a deep breath. The street below was quiet, the city sounds muted by the late hour.

Abhishek stood next to me, arms crossed, clearly waiting for me to spill whatever had been weighing me down all night. He wasn’t pushy, though, just patient.

“You know you royally fucked up in there, right?” he said after a moment, cutting straight to the point.

I snorted. “Yeah, thanks for the reminder.”

He shook his head, but didn’t say anything more, letting the silence stretch between us. Normally, I would’ve brushed off something like this, cracked a joke, or found some way to deflect. But right now, I couldn’t. The words I said to Vira echoed in my head, and the guilt was gnawing at me, more than it ever had before.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, man,” I muttered, staring at the ground. “I keep saying the wrong things. It’s like I don’t know how to be around her without messing up.”

Abhishek’s brow furrowed. “Shub, this is more than just saying the wrong things. It seems like you’re going after Ishan’s girl. You do get that, right?”

I winced. "I know."

Abhishek was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was lower. “So why are you doing this? What's really going on?”

I hesitated, trying to find the right words, but they didn’t come easily. I didn’t want to admit it, not out loud, but I was tired of lying, tired of pretending. My shoulders slumped, the weight of the truth pressing down on me.

“I think... I think I’m in love with her.”

The confession felt like a punch to the gut, as if saying it out loud made it all the more real. Abhishek blinked, clearly not expecting that. His eyes widened slightly, the usual calmness in his demeanor slipping for a brief second.

“You what?” he whispered, like he didn’t want anyone else in the universe to hear.

“I’m in love with her,” I repeated, my voice quieter now. “I don’t know when it happened, but it did. And now I can’t stop it.”

Abhishek let out a low whistle, rubbing a hand over his face. “Shub... you can’t be serious. This is Vira we’re talking about. Ishan’s Vira.”

The way he said it made my chest ache. I knew that. I knew she wasn’t mine. She wasn’t supposed to be. But that didn’t change how I felt.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” I mumbled, my voice strained. “It just did.”

Abhishek looked at me with a mix of disbelief and sympathy, clearly trying to make sense of what I’d just said. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, his phone rang.

Priya's name lit up Abhi's phone, and she asked whether he'd reached home.

"Haan, hum ponche hai."

"Teach your friend some manners. Dusre ke ghar mein jaake unko hi insult karne ka..."

"Yaar-"

She cut the call.

Abhi turned his attention back to me, eager to get this matter under control.

“Shub, you can’t just drop a bomb like that and expect things to be normal.”

“I know,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair. “I know I can’t.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “So what’s the plan? You gonna tell her?”

“No,” I said quickly, almost too quickly. “She can’t know. Not now. Not ever.”

Abhishek stared at me for a long moment, like he was weighing his options. “You’re really in deep, aren’t you?”

I didn’t respond. The truth was already out there, hanging in the air between us. There was no going back from this, and we both knew it. Whatever came next, I couldn’t control. All I could do was try to hold onto what little was left.

“I just need to figure it out,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t lose Ishan. I can’t lose her.”

Abhishek exhaled sharply. “Man, you’re asking for the impossible.”

Maybe I was. Maybe I’d already lost them both.

But that didn’t stop me from trying to hold onto something I didn’t deserve.