Making Her Mine- An IPKKND story.

Chapter 80 - Haldi

There had been nothing on the news about the wedding, which was incredible. Aman was doing great at keeping it out of the media. Although, maybe no one cared, it was in essence just a series of parties, unless anyone wanted to pry too hard, and the only person prying too hard had signed an NDA.

Arnav smirked in satisfaction at his reflection in the mirror. The white kurta they had done for the Haldi ceremony wasn't so bad. It looked better than he thought it would.

The annoying thing about the wedding was that the family had insisted on separating him and Khushi – she had moved to a spare room, ostensibly to give them both the extra space brides and grooms needed, but really because everyone was stuck with the traditional notion of keeping brides and grooms apart at weddings. It was unnecessarily cruel. He hardly got to see Khushi these days as it was.

When he went downstairs, the family reacted like it was some sort of miracle that he was wearing a kurta. He rolled his eyes as everyone stood around and gaped.

"Where's Khushi?"

She emerged looking shy and demure and ethereal, in a white saree with delicate yellow embroidery that matched the one on his kurta, wearing flowers instead of jewelry.

Arnav decided he didn't mind weddings after all.

She raised her eyes shyly to look at him, and then her expression changed to one of shock, as she stared at him. She hadn't ever seen him wearing a kurta, either, he realized.

"What?" he muttered. "It's not so bad."

She insisted on staring, mouth open. He looked around at his family. Was something wrong? But they just giggled.

They sat side by side on little stools as their family took turns to smear the haldi paste on their faces and bodies. His family was clearly taking advantage of his vulnerability, smearing way more paste than they needed to.

He flicked his eyes every once in a while to look at Khushi, who still looked stunning under all that yellow paste. She kept looking at him too, he realized after a few sneaky glances at her.

Once everyone had put the haldi on them both, the ceremony descended into chaos, with their families energetically smearing haldi on each other, as if this was a yellow version of Holi.

Arnav reached over to grab Khushi's hand, and led her out to the poolside without anyone seeing them.

"Arnav ji!" she gasped when they were outside. "What are you—"

"Wait, let me look at you properly," he said, holding her at arms length.

"Why? Is something wrong?"

"There's too much haldi on you, Khushi."

She rolled her eyes and smiled. "You look very handsome, by the way."

He raised his eyebrow. "Is that why you've been staring at me all morning?"

She was probably blushing under all the yellow. He couldn't tell. "You look –" he shook his head at her. "I have no words, actually. You look like you walked straight out of a dream."

She smiled. "Tell you what," he said, glancing inside. "They're all going off to wash. We can do it together." She smacked his chest. "What? It's a win-win Khushi. I just heard someone say I look handsome. You can look at me all you want too, I don't mind!"

"I have to go wash and change for the Puja," she said, making to leave.

"Wait, wait. It's unfair, you're my wife and they're keeping you away from me," he caught her by the elbow. "Give me a kiss, then."

"Someone's going to see!" She said, extracting herself from him. Seeing his pout, she gave him a quick kiss on his jaw, and hurried away.

He was still smiling absently when he heard another voice.

"ASR!"

Lavanya, also streaked in yellow, was striding to him, looking unmistakably angry.

"Hey, Lavanya, you okay?"

"How could you hire your ex-girlfriend as your wedding planner?"

"Huh?"

She stood facing him, hands on hips, glaring.

"What the – ask Khushi, she's the one who –"

"Well you should have told her no!"

"Wait a minute. What happened?"

"That Sheetal!" Lavanya fumed. "She's a b –"

"Lavanya, did something happen?"

"Yes! Sheetal told me yesterday," she was flaring her nose now, practically breathing out flames. "She cannot understand why you would choose to be with Chamkili! She said she would understand if it was me, but she can't figure out what you see in her!"

"What? Are you sure? She said this to you?"

"Of course I'm sure! And she's been making all these snide comments, to make Chamkili feel bad. She keeps talking about what you were like when she dated you in college, and acts all surprised that Chamkili doesn't know random stupid things about you. She makes it a point to mention things that Chamkili wouldn't know about, just to show her up!"

Arnav was increasingly getting incensed the longer Lavanya spoke. "Khushi said — I told her to keep it professional with Sheetal, what the hell?"

"She keeps bringing you up, Chamkili doesn't ask her! And she acts so sweet and innocent, as if she's saying all this just by the way. She's a mean manipulative bitch, ASR!"

"But, Khushi didn't tell me–"

"Chamkili doesn't even realize what she's is doing! How could you hire her? I told her to shut it, yesterday, and she acted like it was just a harmless comment. But it's not! You know girls like that are not harmless at all."

"I fucking told Khushi, I don't want her!" Arnav fumed. "I knew it was a bad idea."

Lavanya seemed to calm down somewhat. "Well, you better do something about it," she said.

"Believe me, I will," he muttered. "Thanks for telling me, by the way. You know how Khushi is, she's –"

Lavanya rolled her eyes. He looked inside, scanning the dispersing family for a sign of Khushi, as Lavanya tossed her hair and flounced away.

Sheetal!