Arnav Khushi's kids

7. Arnav's kids

Q/N - Timeframe of this chapter is 2033-34, chiku is 17-18 and Aru-Pari are 13-14.

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Arnav had insecurities when it came to love, no lies there. The kind of deep-rooted insecurities that had transformed a once jubilant, mischievous, and playful 14-year-old boy into a bitter, disdainful teen overnight. After that, he had resigned himself to that personality for over 12 years. Until Khushi came into his life. Her boundless and selfless love, despite his million reasons to make her run away, had restored his faith in love once again. But it was a slow process. There were still lapses, and there were still moments of self-doubt about whether he was capable of receiving and returning the love he was feeling inside.

And then he became a dad and the doubts intensified.

After the loss of their first pregnancy, when Khushi got pregnant again, he made sure to tell her and their baby growing inside her, every single day how much he loved them. He had been with her every single moment of those 9-months journey and he was the one who held their baby first when he was born. Arnav did everything he knew of (and some he researched about) to be a good father.

Perhaps that was why their eldest child, Kavish, hero worshipped him.

Something similar had been the case with his daughters too. Although, for a very short time, he had been against having them but he had made up for that all through the moment they both stepped a foot in this world!

Despite all this, the crux of the matter was that even though, over the past 20-25 years, Arnav had consciously and unconsciously loved his children, he still carried remnants of self-doubt. The ghosts of his past stayed back, and he was always afraid of giving his kids a moment to hate him, like he had hated his father. Although he would never be that man, he would never be "Arvind Malik", but he also didn't want to ever give them a reason to think less of him.

Then there was also the "peer pressure" of being able to talk to them easily, the way Khushi did. In those moments, he couldn't help but envy her. How effortlessly she showered them with love, how she could make them confide in her, and importantly how she could even argue with them, discipline them, deny them things without the fear of receiving their hatred... while he still found himself walking on eggshells around his now-teenaged kids. He wished he could talk like Khushi did...

And that was why Arnav halted in his steps outside Kavish's room, where the 17-year-old and his best friend Ojas were talking while playing a video game.

"Dude, can I ask you something?" Arnav heard Ojas ask.

"Sure." Kavish replied, tilting his gaming remote to score.

"What do you talk to your dad about?"

"What do you mean?" Kavish asked, and Arnav could imagine the frown forming on his son's face.

"I mean, don't you ever feel ki are yar, ye fir aa gaye baat karne ki koshish karne, ab inn se kya baat karni (oh no, he came again trying to talk, now what to talk to him about)? I sometimes want to tell my dad to just back off."

Kavish chuckled. "OJ, you're just too much sometimes. Yar, Papa hai tere (he's your dad). He must be wanting to be friendly."

"But he can't be. I'm not in school anymore, that I'll tell him ki aaj din mein kya kya hua (what all happened during the day). And I definitely can't tell him where I am partying tonight!" Ojas said with a wink, "Moreover, he always goes on talking about how he was a high achiever in his school days and tries shedding me. He just keeps giving me BT over BT yar!"