Mananff - Iss Mohobbat Mein

chapter 35

In the midnight,

Nandini woke up randomly. Her eyes sticks disgustingly as she tries to open them and the surroundings are dark. She remembers she slept in the hospital room.

For a moment she fails to comprehend why she is here. And then she witnessed the pliant figure of her father sleeping on the bed, and herself on the couch. he had woken up last night. Her heart started to jump again. She cannot believe and kept gazing at his sleeping face under the darkness of the room. 

A silent thought circles around her mind. She had the exact experience sometime back but completely opposite. She was here before, being awaken randomly at the similar time, at the similar hospital, on the waiting room. But she hadn't felt relief back then. When was she here before?

Manik.

He had an accident here. He was admitted here. She had fallen asleep on the waiting room. He was a mess, completely broken. His face was different from her father's. His face was teared, his body was cracked, every inch of his existence oozed. she panics for a slight moment. That image terrifies her mind. She is biting her nails. 

And then the reality bolts upon her. Manik is fine. Manik is sleeping safely outside at the waiting room, his head hung low and mouth opened, eyes softly close. She could see him through the transparency of the Hospital room. Her breaths began to become even again watching him secured.

Nandini stood up slightly trembling, shoving away the unsettling feeling, her muscles stiffening and neck aching.

She walks to Rishi's bed sitting at the small stool beside him, stroking the tangling, soft brown curls of her father. She fears from his closed eyes, thinking what if they wouldn't open again. Thinking if he's just sleeping or had went somewhere deep again. She fears so much from now. Because now she have something. Nandini wanted to ensure that the brown in his eyes would be visible again if she just nudged him lightly, but she pulled her insecurities behind her walls and lets him sleep in peace.

Now she is silently walking outside the room towards Manik's seat, where he is sleeping obliviously, and she being the certified creeper sat at the  seat beside him, staring at him as if he's one of the most beautiful things created by the universe.

Nandini somehow realized at this sudden moment, that home is a person. And his safe heartbeats are salvation.

"Aren't you a masterpiece?" She whispers quietly, head weighing back just like him, staring right at his slumbering face when he is unknown to his surroundings.

"Aren't I fucking lucky?" She kept asking knowing that he won't be able to hear, but there's something so excrutiatingly annihilating about his obliviousness, he looks the most peaceful this way, far away from all the problems of the world, in his own melody. And Nandini feels so grateful to just watch him dreaming. Gone and unaware.

Suddenly his brows twitched, so slight but deep, as if it's not a dream but one of his nightmares hovering upon his peace and Nandini hates that twitch. She hates the anxiousness covering him up, washing away the beautiful peace under his eyes.