In His Custody ✎ | (MaNan)

✰ 55 - confrontations

Am I quick, or am I quick?? :P 

I just had too much in my mind for the previous chapter, and I let it pour out on this one. Please share your thoughts, and have a wonderful read! <3

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I spun in my spot to check the time on our house clock. Rishu's medicines would wear off soon, and he would shortly be awake to join everyone gathered.

"Did we decide on white sauce or tomato sauce pasta?" my brother asked, standing on his tiptoes while scouring the opposite cabinet for a pot deep enough to cook the spirals.

Moving away from me with a small beam still blessing Manik's features, he handed one of the filled glasses for my brother.

What in the world had happened while he was on his phone, that left him so happy and smiling? Strange.

"We can make both," He appeased light-heartedly, scanning the number of heads in the room. There was a point in what he was saying. We had enough people to justify making both the dishes, and multiple food options would be handy for the sheer number of bellies to feed, in that case.

"That's twice the number of dishes to wash!" Mukti jumped, suggesting it was unnecessary to make both and burden ourselves with more chores. "Let's actually give the hosts the choice."

"Sure," Manik replied, spinning on his heel to face me and showing his back to Mukti and Abhi. "So what pasta do you like, Nandini?" He asked innocently. It was perhaps a genuine question that emerged from his curiosity, to learn more about my preferences. Then why were his eyes sparkling at the tender question, like he had posed it in front of everyone just to see my rattled state?

I froze under the weight of Mukti's downright stare, her confused expression showcasing that she was missing something crucial in her understanding of our equation. According to what she had last known, we had been fighting and had supposedly broken up.

If Manik kept up with his playful antics, it was only a fraction of seconds until Abhimanyu too figured what was going on between us. And that meant trouble. For me, especially.

I shook my head at Manik in a tiny, pleading motion, the small constriction in my wide eyeballs almost imperceptible to anyone else. But Manik's growing smirk signified that he caught on, and the situation was indeed as entertaining to him as he had intended. One of his brows arched teasingly, somewhat challenging me to talk.

Wary of meeting Manik's amusement head on, I looked over his shoulder at my brother who was paying little heed to my response, and locked on him as my target.

"Red sauce," I blurted out, flustered and panicked, with my voice straining to sound nonchalant.

Manik's lips curved into a satisfied smile in my peripheral vision, but by the time he turned back to his friends, that smirk was gone and was replaced with an expression of harmless curiosity.

"And you like white sauce," he added, earning a furrow from my brows. Since when did he know my brother's preferences better than I did? "So I guess both it is..." He murmured, impressing both his sister and my brother.

If he was indeed always so attentive of others' wishes, why hadn't he picked up on my annoyance earlier when he was so preoccupied with his phone?

Alia came into the kitchen, having witnessed everything from a distance. Her stiffly crossed arms and the lack of a smile on her face struck me as oddly rude. Manik gently asked her for her dinner preferences as well, which seemed to ease her tensions a little. From their conversation came a suggestion to add some delicious starters to the menu.