Essence Of Love - A MaNan FF [Completed]

Epilogue

5 years later.

'On a scale of 1-10 : You're a 9 and I'm the 1 you need, Mrs Malhotra'

I smiled goofily at the cheesy pink note my husband had stuck up on the fridge. Love had certainly changed us both. He always found ways to make my days brighter and always let me know how much he loved me and I responded with equal fervour.

We still fight sometimes, but our relationship has become unbreakable - infinite amount of trust and devotion keeps us bound together. We just know we can't live without each other.

After our beautiful reunion in Mangalore, I had returned with Manik to Mumbai, and started attending SPACE again. It was just then, that Nyonika, having found an uber-rich guy who had come to India on a trip from Mauritius who showed interest in her, ditched her job and life in Mumbai and moved to Mauritius with him, where life promised her more money and a better life-style. It definitely caused Manik some amount of pain then, but it was all good riddance at the end. Chachi and Chacha were more than happy to welcome me back and so were all others. Fab 5 had grown a lot in popularity since then and achieved quite a name for themselves in the world of music. Navya ended up being a much-loved Radio Jockey, and I became a classical music teacher at SPACE. I didn't gain much popularity like the others, but I was more than content with my job and the respect I got from the students, despite being a relatively young teacher there. And my wedding to Manik last year was the icing on the cake. Life felt complete.

I opened the freezer and as expected, it had been restocked with all the flavours of ice-cream I loved. Manik took unconditional care of me. I had finished the last tub of ice-cream yesterday, and today he had it filled up again because he knew how much I craved it on my PMS days. I smiled even bigger at the sight and shut the door of the freezer.

My phone suddenly pinged and I picked it up to check. It was a message from Alya on Whatsapp.
'Here are some of the pics from our wedding. Drop by on Saturday to see the whole album, you two love-birds :P'

I scrolled down to see the pictures and my instantly felt like hiding my face somewhere in embarassment. Love-birds. Each and every person there began calling us this word after witnessing our extremely romantic conduct live . It was Dhruv and Alya's wedding last month. Yes, despite them being the oldest couple, their on and off tiffs made them the last one to get hitched in our group. But, the pictures made it seem like it was me and Manik getting married all over again. Our entry into the wedding was captured and it was him carrying me in his arms. Whether in the group pictures or just the candid clicks, me and Manik couldn't get our eyes off each other. His hand was always wrapped around my waist like it was stuck by glue there and even through the pictures, I felt my stomach clenching in excitement at the intensity with which he stared at me. I recalled how he had managed to delay our entry in the wedding with his ever-increasing romantic antics and giggled sheepishly.

Flashback :

''Nandu, how much more time will you take? Buddy will be on the way to his honeymoon by the time you finish.'' Manik shouted from the living room.
I rolled my eyes at his silly sense of humour.

''That wasn't very funny, Mr Malhotra. You should know by now that girls do take time to get ready. How else do you think we manage to look so gorgeous?'' I joked as I lifted my intricately designed emerald green lehenga and watched my feet in my high heels, carefully moving towards the living room, where he was slouching and playing with his PS4 on the couch as he waited for me.

''Nandu, you don't need to 'get ready' to look beautiful. You always look...''
I entered just then and as soon as his eyes settled on me, he stopped, his mouth dropping open in awe.
''Gorgeous..'' The word escaped his mouth slowly and I turned crimson as if on cue. He dropped the console and walked upto me, grasping me slowly by my bare waist under the short embroidered choli. My breath hitched as his long fingers slid around my waist and I admired him closely, feeling equally captured by the sight infront of me. He was dressed in a navy blue sherwani, his sleeves rolled up and hair gelled to perfection. His eyes blazed up with passion and love and I felt like the most beautiful person in the world under that gaze. My insecurites had been long ago been vanquished because of him anyways.