"Doc di, will you come for my school's annual function?" Vrishti asked, resting her head against the avocado-shaped pillow. Leher looked up instinctively at Aarish, who stood at the kitchen counter, chopping coriander for the final garnish. Not a single muscle on his face had reacted to the question his daughter just asked. "I will check my schedule and let you know, okay?" Leher smiled softly, brushing her thumb across Vrishti's forehead. "Now sleep. You have had a long day." Obeying almost immediately, Vrishti closed her eyes, snuggling closer to her pillow. "I think you should come...if you can." Aarish finally spoke, untying his apron as he walked towards the table. Leher glanced at him. "This is unhealthy, Mr. Gupta." "What is?" "The fact that my patient's daughter asked me if I am coming to her school function." Aarish's expressions softened at that. "And what about the fact that you want to say yes?" Leher looked away because he had seen right through her. The one who always managed to look right through others had found someone for herself. The silence stretched. That had become their thing somehow. No unnecessary chatters, no direct confessions, no flirtation, just pauses that lasted a little longer than they should. "Vrishti loves you." Aarish said quietly. "Yeah," Leher whispered. "She does." Then after a moment, she spoke, "But you still love Gargi." She said it softly, almost like she was reminding herself of the boundary before it disappeared completely. Aarish nodded without hesitation. "I always will." Leher swallowed. "Then what am I doing here?" Aarish opened his mouth to speak but then closed it again. For the first time since Gargi's death, Aarish Gupta had no answer for the woman sitting across him. Because somewhere between sessions, grief had started sounding dangerously close to love.

"Guys, my parents are stressing me out with the marriage rant. Please save me." Meera sat on the table they were sitting on while having their dinner in absolute silence. "Why don't you get married then? It would put an end to all the discussions at once." Angad glanced at her, pouring water into his and his wife's glass. "It's so hard to find someone in this generation, and I don't believe in arranged marriages." Meera almost retaliated. "Not everyone is as lucky as you two." The couple locked their eyes at the additional comment. "Arranged marriages are not that bad," Aarzoo said, placing all her olives on his plate. "Right! But then, what if I have someone settling for me because they didn't get what they want? I can't be someone's compromise." Meera shook her head at the thought. "If they didn't get what they wanted then it was never meant for them. Destiny, you know? And if you look at it this way, there are no compromises in marriage, just adjustments." Angad shrugged his shoulders as he popped one of the olives in his mouth while looking at Aarzoo. "And adjustments are not that bad if they are done for your favourite person." Aarzoo pitched in with a small smile, not without sparing her husband a glance. "And what about love? Did you guys find love?" Meera asked so casually, careless of how the other two almost skipped a beat at the same time. It's the question they have been dreading to even think about, even after three years of marriage. How would they answer her? They simply focused on the task at hand, him eating all the olives while she drank the water to gulp down the hard truth.

Featured by @Romance .·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·. "Why do you make these paper flowers?" He asked, looking at her through the mirror. "They don't wither like the real ones." She replied, aligning the entire bunch of paper flowers. "But they don't have the fragrance." He politely challenged her. He was a soldier. Chivalrous was his middle name. "These paper flowers, they stay with you for as long as you want. You don't really have to throw them away like people discard the real ones. They pluck them for the fragrance and colors. But once that fades, they throw it away." She said, finally looking up at him. "Not everyone!" He added almost immediately, taking one more step forward. It could be his height or his longer stride, or maybe the room was too small as it only took him two steps to reach her. "Yeah! Of course! Exceptions are there, like poets and people in love." She walked in a different direction, putting those flowers on the table. He rolled his eyes with a defeated sigh. She was a teacher. Arguing with her was as futile as making a sand castle on a seashore. "You know, gone is the era when people used to preserve the flowers of their loved ones. We don't have people like that anymore!" She said as she faced him. "We don't have that kind of love anymore." He said looking straight into her eyes. She held his gaze through the mirror for a while, trying to read through him. "I agree." Murmuring under her breath, she turned around. Taking a deep breath, watching her retreating figure, he brought out his favorite poetry book from the shelf. After he was sure she was not looking, he ruffled through the pages till he found a dried Hibiscus. The very same one which had fallen from her bag when he first saw her. With a small smile, he cautiously caressed the petals. He closed the book with a fond sigh and found her looking at him. She couldn't hold his gaze for long and looked down, crimson covering her cheeks. He shook his head with a chuckle.

Featured by @AmbassadorsIN | @Romance .·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·. "I don't think we will meet, ever! You are just messing around." He texted, frustration evident from his text. "I swear on my camera. This assignment came up last minute! I am so desperate to see you! SERIOUSYL!." Proofreading wasn't her thing. "You mean 'seriously' ?" He added the 'eye roll' emoji. "See! You get me! Now, do you believe me? I ain't fooling around!" She smirked while adding the same emoji. "But I wanna fool around!" He inserted three wink emojis, making his intentions clear. She rolled her eyes, but a pink hue on her cheeks said a different story altogether. "I think we should do this..." She typed as she lay on the couch. "Shoot!" "Whenever we meet, we meet for the full day. From morning to evening, sunrise to moon-set, we can do whatever we feel like doing! We either stay in or go out, whatever our hearts say. But that'd be our first and last meeting!" She hesitated before hitting the send button. "And then we never meet again?" "Nope." "You're suggesting what exactly all guys want from their 'first' dates!" He grinned. "Some girls like that too ;)" She shook her head and backspaced. "I don't know about all boys." "Are" "You" "In?" He could feel her smirk across the screen. Without meeting her or watching her face, he knew her well enough to understand her emotions. "I'm so in! 24 hours and then never again. Sounds so perfect!" "Final then! We only meet once and then never see each other ever again!" She blushed another pink while typing. He smiled reading that.

Featured by @AmbassadorsIN .·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·. "Ours is the only story that would echo through these very mountains," Vedant whispered, caressing Rumaisha's hair who was peacefully lying in his lap for the last couple of minutes. Yes, he counted. He counted every minute he spent with her because of the limited time they shared. "Is that enough?" She inquired, entwining her fingers with his. "Do we have another option?" He sighed. "Think of it this way. All the other stories are remembered by people but our special one would be engraved within these mountains, trees, this pretty lake." She spoke dreamily. He chuckled at her response, wondering how she always managed to observe the glass half full. "You're my Rumi for a reason." He leaned closer to her face and pecked her forehead.

Featured by @AmbassadorIN .·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·. Investigation Room 1 : "I was angry at him and I had had enough of him that night. He himself invited his death." He scoffed, muttering incoherent stuff under his breath Investigation Room 2 : "A man like him deserved to die. Evils like him deserve incidents worse than death." He shrugged without any trace of guilt. Investigation Room 3 : "I didn't really want to do it. It just kinda happened." She whispered, her eyes busy boring holes in the floor "I killed him!" All of them, amusingly, muttered the same thing, sitting rooms apart from each other. One murder, three suspects, three confessions with three versions of the truth. But the question is, who's really speaking the truth?