A reason to live.

Chapter 23

We both were led to the car, it was beautifully decorated with roses, and we sat together and drove off in silence. We reached his aunt’s home; it was decorated with lights, balloons, and festoons. His aunts did an aarti for me and I stepped in with my right foot.

The house had a big living room where many of the guests were seated and talking. Rohan took me to the bedroom and we were greeted with hugs and wishes from his cousins, niece and nephews. All of them were super enthusiastic; we both sat on the bed and leaned to the backrest, it felt so relaxing. One of his cousin brought the gifts and kept them in the room, “open it, now, now” all his cousins cheered, I looked at him in a ‘not now… please’ way, “we’ll do it later” Rohan said but no one was ready to let go, hesitantly he went to pick a gift when his brother, Jason came and told me that the elders were looking for me. 

Jason was a year younger to me, he was Rohan’s cousin, but both behaved like own brothers, Jun had told me that he was his closest brother, and I had spoken to him a couple of times about the preparations for marriage and his studies, he was a cheerful guy and did almost all the work for the wedding.

I went out and was called to the kitchen, athai being the darling that she is told me to just add sugar to the tea and claim that I had prepared and serve it. (This was done for fun and everyone knew that I hadn’t prepared but didn’t mind it). After serving tea for the guests I went to the room and served all of them soft drink, but wait, where is Jun? I asked one of our niece, Elsie, she became so attached to me since the moment I came, she came to me asked me about the jewels, the mehandi and everything , the moment I spoke to someone else, she came to me kept her hands in mine, and was very sweet, I also replied to every question she asked me. I asked her where her uncle was, she pointed to the bathroom, slowly I walked to the bathroom and found that it was open, I peeped in and saw that he was keeping his toothbrush in a pouch, “ what are you doing?” I questioned “uh...mm... Jason told me to get a few clothes packed …” he said and walked past me and zipped a bag.

Soon after, we left, and reached my aunt’s home where we were staying, they let us in after a couple of rituals, of bribing the groom. My aunts told us to stay in the bedroom with my cousins, so we went in, Ria came to me and hugged me tight, and made us sit, only the older cousins, my friends and Sonia were in the room and they started to tease us about the first night, while we both tried to play along and tease them back. Sonia left the room with the keys to the car. She came back, handed the keys to Jun sat down and whispered in Krys’ ear while she blushed, and I was curious, I looked at her and she gave me a blank expression.

“Listen, I’ll talk to thata and come okay?” Jun said as his breathe tickled my ear, I replied by blinking my eye, as soon as he left the room, everyone asked what is it? , I smiled “nothing” and they all hooted softly. “So soon you are stopping to share, huh?” Krys pouted and chuckled.

We chatted for a while, it was past 11pm, my aunt called me and gave me a glass warm milk, oh god!! What am I going to do now? I thought as I walked to the room, as I twisted the door knob and opened the door I saw Jun seated on a chair and he got up, while all my friends barged in and started to giggle and talk randomly, while I stood trying to not show my nervousness and confusion. Soon they were asked to leave, by one of my athai.

I locked the door and sat on the bed, and Jun came and took the glass from me “drink it” I said and he drank it up, he looked up and I started to giggle so much, “what’s so funny?” he asked “you have a milk mustache” I replied, while holding my stomach, he narrowed his eyes and pouted, it made me giggle more, when he burped, this time he also giggled.

After a while, when our stomachs were hurting we stopped and looked at each other and as an awkward moment of silence took over. “Uh… mm... I want to ask you something” we both said and chuckled, “if you don’t mind can it wait, I want to change first” I said and he nodded understandingly. I stood and went to the dressing table to take off my jewelry and remove the pins from my sari, uh... why is this pin in a place I can’t reach?  I thought as I struggled to take it out “please help me” I said absent mindedly, Jun came over and as he tried to remove the pin his fingers touched my skin near my blouse and I felt shivers throughout, thank God he removed it. “Thank you” I said and turned around and we locked our eyes and I smiled gratefully, and moved away.

“Krys told me that our night clothes are in the bathroom and our clothes for tomorrow are in the bag there” I said as I went to the bathroom and Jun followed, to take his clothes.

Jun took his t-shirt and shorts and went back to the room, I closed the door and took the black lacy night dress and opened the fold, and my eyes widened in shock, I put it back immediately and opened the door a little too quickly to meet a shocked Jun’s face which became red with embarrassment as he was topless, my mouth fell open when I saw his bare chest, I put my fingers over my eyes and had a crooked smile. “Is everything okay?” he asked as he came forward, I saw him, and he had put on his shirt, “ m… my… dress” I said as I went inside he came and saw the dress “wow” he said as he eyed the dress, and turned to me “this is yours ?’’ “I…. I guess, but… I’ve never worn such a lacy night dress” I said and looked down, “but there is no other dress….a…and am sure you will not be comfortable with your sari, don’t mind….but its…only us…trust me…” he said and gave me the dress and I looked up to see if he truly meant it, he smiled assuringly and left.

I changed and looked at the dress, it came a little over my knee, it was so soft and I loved the way the dress gelled with the layer of my skin. I stepped out, a little shy, and nervous as I bit my lower lip. Jun was sitting on the bed, and smiled to me, I went over and sat on the bed and pulled the blanket to cover my legs.

“So yeah… I noticed today, since, after the wedding …you started to call me Jun?” he said confusion laced in his tone, I told him about it and started to blush when I finished telling him “oh… that's interesting” he said and pinched my cheeks and I stopped smiling and froze, he withdrew his hand immediately, “so what did you want to ask?” he said. 

“Oh yeah…why …..did...you k…kiss...me?” I stammered a bit, and looked everywhere but his eyes, he chuckled

 “because you wanted it” he said casually “huh?’’ I looked at him surprised.

“Remember when I came to pick you and Krys, and you’ll were talking…..well… I came a few minutes before and I heard you telling her that you wanted your husband to kiss you on your wedding day, in front of everybody, and you also told her that it might not happen as...You know… we don’t love each other.... in that way, so I decided to make your wish come true, because that moment will never come again” he said. I looked at him and trrring…trinng… we came out of our trance and checked if it was our phones that was ringing, but no…

Then I realized it was the work of my cousins…we did things like this …to most of our cousins, we spent 20mins, searching the phones and clocks...there were about six alarms set for us at an interval of 2mins. We switched off all of that and decided to sleep, we had a big day, and tomorrow also, we will have a few functions, we got into the bed, we maintained some distance and I went into deep sleep.

Hey wattpadies,

Jun is Rohan and it will be used interchangeably.

Please vote and comment, this chapter was so difficult to write, I thought of different things and finally decided on this, I don’t know if all this makes sense to you’ll…. But please encourage me…

Love you all