SERENDIPITOUS|✓

Chapter 34

"How is she, Krishn? How is my daughter?" Krishn heard his uncle's desperate and concern laced voice and smiled to himself, his eyes automatically finding Radha, sittings outside in his balcony, working on her laptop.

She had come inside his room this morning with a shy smile on her face and a request on her lips. Her laptop, fortunately, had stopped working and she, having slight to no idea about how to fix the thing, made her way into his room. He had happily fixed her laptop, albeit with the help of the internet; taking apart the laptop base, fixing and tightening a few screws here and there and whatever the internet instructed, giving it back to her after an hour, all the while Radha not going back to her room and just sitting on his bed, watching him.

Maybe it was written all over on his face or maybe it was her wish, but even when he gave the laptop back to her, she chose to sit on his balcony with just a glass door separating them, reasoning, 'what if the laptop stopped working again?'

Krishn had just smiled at her, soft and fond.

"Good, she is good, uncle, absolutely fine."

"Does she miss me?" Mr Rathore asked him next and Krishn internally cooed.

"She talks about you all the time, uncle; of course she misses you. Yesterday itself, she was discussing how she wanted to visit you and I said I'll take her to you, not to interrupt in your family time or anything, but just to drop her myself, for my satisfaction." Krishn clarified quickly and heard Mr Rathore laugh on the other side of the phone.

"No, no, Krishn. Why wouldn't you join us? You're no less than a son to me, also once you'll both get married, you'll officially become my son-in-law, won't you?"

His phone and his jaw, both dropped simultaneously at those words, his heart dropping to his stomach as well.

Not in a bad way.

Not at all.

He quickly shook himself out of the sweet shock and picked up the phone from the ground.

"Son? Why aren't you responding? Are you ok? Is this - is this about what I said? You don't want to marry my daughter?" his uncle asked him with his panicked voice and he shook his head to himself.

"You want to marry her, right?"
Mr Rathore asked slowly this time, getting his words out, loud and clear.

Krishn's gaze once again landed on Radha, who was now looking back at him with a soft smile adorning her lips. He smiled back at her.

"More than anything," he whispered through the phone not letting his gaze waver from the beautiful sight, from her beautiful sight, "I hope she does too."

*

Radha stretched and let out a yawn before closing her laptop; having made a good amount of French notes for her classes, and getting up from the bean bag she was sitting on from past three hours.

She walked into Krishn's room just to find no one there. She went downstairs and searched for him all over the house but caught his silhouette sitting in the backyard.

Quickly preparing two cups of coffee, she too went out to the backyard and sat on the patio beside him, who was busy gazing at the garden blankly, his words silenced but his actions not.

His legs were dangling from where he was sitting, he had a smile etched on his face and was singing melodies so sweet - humming into his mouth.

He was happy.

Anyone could tell.

Not that she wasn't.

Yesterday's events had effectively turned her brain into a pile of mush and her tummy into a swarm of butterflies. The giddiness bubbling up inside her chest was at another level.