The air of exhaustion was exhausting to breathe. Krishant Sanghvi was usually a resilient individual, but all the glares, arguments, waiting, and irrelevant rage consumed most of his energy and rationality. But he was glad that all the tumult helped him make Priyanka stay. It left her curious.

Her curiosity could get her killed someday, he thought insinuately.

Further to his astonishment, Priyanka tarried extremely calmly while he handled the situation. She learned well ultimately that interfering in his affairs without his permission would lead her nowhere.

However, Priyanka could no longer feel remorse for hiring Faruqui or backstabbing Krishant by investigating his house in his absence, considering the situation moments ago. It compelled her to know everything about him now: not his present or future, but his past. Getting sick of his hiding games, she no longer desires to know anything about Monica, Kajal, or any other person from Krishant because he would only fib every truth. She will dig up the truth by herself only. She only needed the information about what he did with them.

"Kajal is Monica's older sister." Priyanka scoffed mentally at the palpable start of the conversation. So far, she was getting ahead with her calm exterior and letting him narrate with all the tolerance she could emit.

He becomes unsettled by her silence and piercing attentiveness. Her questioning dark-wide eyes unknowingly dared him to sham her further if he could. He hitched at his every breath, soon not wanting to look into her eyes directly.

"We dated for almost a year," he quietly confirms, "I couldn't recognize her toxicity at first, but then she started to act obsessively. And soon, she started acting crazy. And I misunderstood her obsession for love." He sighs, but something lingers in his eyes, blurring his ambiguous emotions to comprehend the reliable nature of his words.

"Did she knew about Ruby?" It was a question with an obvious answer. Priyanka had to make sure that she gathered every detail about his past, no matter how boring or obvious it would be.He nods, "It was actually a trigger for her. All her craziness started from there only." Priyanka lost her confidence in recognizing his truthfulness. She no longer craved to decipher his mysteries through him; she could do it all by herself. But she decided to be patient, anyway.

His eyes flicker as he relaxes onto his lounging chair near the fireplace. His gaze again, refused to meet Priyanka's eyes and grazed upon the abstract painting above the fireplace. Ignoring the details, he stared dreamily at the art. "She was becoming intolerable, insufferable, so I had to stop her." his tone gets darker.

Krishant must have realized his mistake as he straightened and cleared his throat. "I broke up with her." He declares feasibly, expecting Priyanka to approve of his honesty. But he was merely repeating the story again, perhaps in more details she didn't need. He had the audacity to hold back Priyanka to explain the self-explanatory part, but he was just getting started.

Priyanka noticed that beating around buses was his incorrigible habit as if he liked the thrill of making people anxious in their seats. He's doing it to her for weeks now, and eventually, she got sick of it. "Then?" She urges him to continue, growing impatient with his silence. "What happened to Monica?"

"Coming to that, after breaking up, I met you. And I was fascinated." He was asking for her patience which was wearing thin. The freckle in his eyes increased as if stars resided in his darkness. "You intrigued me." Priyanka harshly withdrew, tired of his ambiguity. "You helped me."

"I know that," Priyanka sternly interrupts, "Then what?" She only desired him not to make her sound so unfamiliar in his tale of their past.

"It was love at first sight. You--" Repeating, and again, the same narrated tale would definitely plaster itself into her subconscious, but it was unnecessary: it was hard for her to believe anything.

Anxious crept up her spine.

"That's it." She abruptly tried leaving, but Krishant was faster as he grabbed her wrist before crashing her right against his firm chest. He noticed the scowl on her face and tightened his grip against her waist, leaving no space between them. Paris didn't protest but didn't approve of his sudden bodily actions either.

Muskiness surrounded her and invaded her space as she panted but hated for being nervous. "You have to answer me this before I tell you anything." He slowly whispered. Priyanka remained unresponsive as her scowl deepened, "Do you really don't remember Monica or anything else from that night?"

"What night?"

"The night you almost died." she inaudibly winced.

"You mean the unfortunate night of my accident that I survived." She corrected. The tragedy was in her fate, but not the ultimate destiny. She would like to think of it optimistically as she's still alive.

With a sharp breath, "Yes." He agreed.

Priyanka paused with her gaze down; she concentrated on her erased memories but failed to reinstall them. "Other than Monica, I don't remember anything." She confirmed."How do you remember Monica? And since when?"

"Before you came to meet me," She confessed.

"And what about me? Do you remember me too, then?" He asked.

Priyanka could never forget his dark eyes: he was the first person from her erased world that gave her hope. They were so cold that no fire could ever melt them, so wicked that no virtue could ever win over them, and so mysterious that no key could ever solve them. He was everything that she ever saw in herself but never saw herself becoming.

She eventually nodded and slowly felt herself getting free again. "Why does it matter to you, Krish? You said the past doesn't matter anymore because I don't remember, and you'd remember forever." She heard him sigh before he hummed, but she couldn't understand his reaction.

The dim lights flickered, and the harsh pattering sound of the rain filled the curious-comfortable silence. The mansion seemed more lonesome to the moment, even when the owning creature was breathing within it. It appeared to have been mimicking its owner: dark and lonely.

Krishant backed away, feeling the peace rushing through his veins. He rated the possible choices he had to choose from to end the game he once started. The most pitiless end he had to choose.

"But you remembered me." He murmured, eyes staying unfocused on any particular thing. Priyanka observed from the distance as he approached the foggy window to watch the inevitable storm. "You know Priya, life has always been easy for me, especially after I grew up, right after I acknowledged that letting go is the best thing I could do for myself," he turns to look at her, "How much do you remember about me?"

"Nothing really. I just remembered your face."

"That's it?"

"Yeah." She replied.

"Why did you not tell me that from the beginning?" His dark eyes harden.

"I don't know. I was confused." She said, "But why does it matter? I am telling you now."

"It does matter." He suddenly yelled, "I told you that it didn't matter because I thought you really didn't remember anything." He huffed. His final decision overwhelmed him: the debate was over. The sudden twist of events bewildered him earlier and he could not think of ending consequences. He was preparing from the start for a moment like this, but his impatience crushed down along his hopes. He drifted off track after that. "Now things have changed." He announced calmly again.

"You are saying that again, but what things changed?" Krishant fell silent. The heaviness in his heart seemed to be inflaming. The situation has been hazardous since the morning after Priyanka declared she was leaving. Making her stay was immensely important but irrelevant to Priyanka. She suspected something to be erring by Krishant's desperate plea for her to stay. 

Keeping her near was most important for his plan to work, even if it meant that he needed to reveal the partial truth. And the truth did not belong to her.

"Priya, some things just can't be explained," he mumbled. His frown deepened as the sorrow loomed over his rueful expression, "Monica died five months ago," He quietly stated.The stability upon Priyanka's feet wavered as the realization set upon her understanding. "What day?" She inquired assiduously. The blood hastened through her head as the horrendous thoughts invaded her comfort-zone.

"The night you almost died." He repeated, but Priyanka was too scattered to correct him anymore. The land beneath her foundations slipped as she collapsed right back on the chair. With shallow breathing, the tears rolled down her cheeks as the guilt struck her. Why didn't she bother asking him earlier about Monica? The connection was undeniable between the two incidents; Priyanka Naik was blatantly tangled in the mystery.

Was her death an accident too? But her death could be a coincidence. Monica was implicitly connected to Paris even before she first saw her in her dream. Krishant was the apparent link between the two, but how did both of them end up in such a grave state: Priyanka almost died but recovered with amnesia, and Monica no longer exists anymore. Whereas, Krishant came out without any scratch. He lost the people he loved the most: his life relied on them.

What really happened that night? Priyanka never even asked about the beginning of the night of the incident. Was Krishant hiding this truth? Why?

"How?" She asked. The faces of the sisters, Kajal and Monica, flashed before her eyes, the first one's mournful eyes and sorrowful scream, and the tears of the latter sister.

"She committed suicide," He uprightly confirmed. Her death affected him: he was lonely again. But it didn't scatter him as Priyanka expected because he had already moved on from Monica with her. Monica was a chapter of his past, but a part of her was still alive within him. "I loved her, Priya. But she didn't deserve it." He genuinely confessed.

"Why?"

"Huh?"

"Why did she kill herself?" Priyanka asked, ignoring his vulnerability, "Was it just a coincidence that she died the same day as my accident?" She was no longer stable enough to think for herself.

"Why would you think it was a coincidence?" Krishant narrowed his gaze momentarily intently as he frowned later. Priyanka froze, taken aback by his question. Why would she think that she wasn't maliciously involved in her death?

"You're the mere reason she committed suicide." Her vision blurred as the hot tears slipped from her gruesome eyes. The truth she ran away from was always hunting her. She knew it was inevitable, and Krishant wouldn't hide it forever: she was preparing for it. But as it is revealed to her now, the world seems to have darkened around her.

"What is that supposed to mean?" It wasn't the end of her misery, as She hoped for after knowing the truth, but it was only the beginning.

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