Ashika's POV

It was a long day. I was kidding when I told Appu I wanted to get roses today but deep down it was the opposite. I wanted all this to end and I wanted to go back to how things were before roses and before Kishan came into my life. It was just a few weeks ago I met him but he has had a huge impact on me. The way he sees me, his appearance, his care. We had spoken only a few times but he always managed to take my breath away.

'Do not think about Kishan' I reminded myself. I was here to achieve my goals. I'm the sole breadwinner of our family. 'I cannot get distracted' I told myself. 

I sat beside my room window and looking at the moon my mind went through a series of thoughts remembering those initial days I came to Bangalore.

Coming to Bangalore one and a half years back in 2018 was a big dream come true.

I never knew anything about this place and I was the first in my family to come and live in another city for work.

I had many bucket lists, I wanted to explore many places, I wanted to open my baking shop, and I wanted to excel in my work.

I never knew: how I would do it all alone, how my new home would treat me, but I knew one thing i.e. I will surely make it and I will achieve all my dreams no matter what.

At first, it was hard in all ways.

It was hard to find a house cause I was a single girl.

Hard to get adjusted without my family around.

I had no relatives here too. So I had to set up everything from scratch without anyone's help.

It was hard to set up everything not knowing anyone here.

After a lot of searching, I found a single-room house near my office. I did not want a PG as it was not my type.

The rent was expensive but I could afford it as it was easy to travel to the office and also I could get some free time to practice baking.

It was a decent residential area and I loved it.

It was also near to all the best places in Bangalore. Be it pubs or bars or malls or greenery etc.

After shifting I had gotten my parents to my house once. Seeing their Beti grow in front of them, they were proud of me and that made me feel on cloud nine.

 In between all of this, I got to meet Aparna and her family most unexpectedly.

This was life life-changing incident that I never saw coming.

I never expected to find anyone so homely and trustworthy. She soon became my everything and also I felt she was somewhat like me.

Even though she was among all kinds of people she was pure-hearted and simple.

I loved that about her.

All of a sudden I heard Appu call me from the hall. I pushed my thoughts aside and came back to reality. 

By the time I got up to go and ask her what it was Appu came inside my room. 

'What do you want me to prepare for dinner' Appu asked me.

'Your wish Appu. Something spicy so we can have it with beer' I replied with a sad smile.

Without uttering a word she came and hugged me and told 'Don't be sad Ashi, I cannot see you like this. I'll do something. Dont worry. I'll not allow anything to happen to you

I just hugged her back tightly and held back my tears.

'I'll go start prepping Ashi, come and join me if you can' Appu said.

' Sure Appu, let me freshen up and come' I said with a smile

After Appu left the room I took my phone to put it for charge when I noticed a notification pop up from Instagram.

When I opened it to see who it was, It was 'Him' as usual. My face lit up automatically. Without my knowledge, I smiled.

'Hope you ate dinner' the message read.

'I will have it now, What about you' I replied and logged off.

I held my phone close to my heart and started smiling thinking of 'Him'.

A few months back I had got an unknown request from a stranger.

'He' messaged me asking if I was Ashika from AIT technology to which I replied no.

It all started from there. 'His' account was a mystery. It was not a private account and 'He' did not have a real name mentioned in it too. The profile was a photography page. So I did not know how he looked or who it was. I had also not accepted his request as he was a stranger and so he had also not seen me, but we continued to message.

It started with 'hi', hello to tell almost everything about each other. I knew I could not trust strangers but I somehow felt safe with him and vice versa. I almost told him about everything and him me. It felt good knowing I had someone I could be transparent with but also scary as I did not know anything about him, after all, he could be a serial killer, but I had a gut feeling he was a good man. We both were perfect friends. The main thing I loved about him was he had never crossed his line or misbehaved or expected anything or spoke anything cheap. Very rare to find such guys. I did not know how he was in real life, but the person messaging was a gem and I wished I could meet more of such people in real too. I felt he genuinely cared for me and vice versa. I could not call him a best friend but someone special.

I had not told Appu about him as I thought this was nothing serious and he was just a friend, a virtual friend.  In the start I just thought it was time to pass, but as days passed by it slowly started becoming a routine and later it was an addiction. We both messaged each other regularly and only on Instagram. Maybe in the future, I will have to tell Appu as this was kind of becoming a habit. I did feel guilty about keeping this from her, she is too protective about me hence I had kept it from her. Now that we have this rose case, I'll wait for the right time and then tell her.

I kept my phone for charge and went to get freshened up.

After I changed into my pajamas, and went to the kitchen to help Appu.

At the back of my mind I still was thinking about the roses and who had sent me. 

While cooking Appu sensed I was still thinking about roses and tried to cheer me up.

As usual, I ended up laughing.

'This is my Ashi'  Appu said smiling.

'What would I do without you Appu' I said looking at her with tears in my eyes.

We had a long chat about random things while having beer and listening Kishore Kumar's songs in the background.

As we had had a long day we decided not to talk about the rose and to save it for later.

After about 2 hours of chatting and having beer, I wanted to sleep and Ashi told me she had to complete some office work.

I told her I wanted to sleep and wished her 'good night' and came to my room to sleep.

As usual before sleeping I made sure to chat with 'Him' for some time and then sleep.

We usually matched our sleeping time and our wake-up time. So the first one to message me and the last one would be 'Him'.

It almost meant my day was incomplete without messaging him.

I knew I was getting way too attached to him and I had to put a break to all this my mind told me but my heart refused.

After messaging 'Him' for sometime I wished 'Him' 'good night' and I put my phone aside and fell asleep.

                                                x-----x-----x-----x------x-----x-----x------x-----x-----x

It was my loud alarm again and I put a pillow on my ears and slept back, I guess Appu turned it off as usual and started with her morning routine.

I slept for some more time until I heard a ping sound on my phone.

This woke me up. I opened my eyes to 'His' morning message.

With a smile, I replied 'Good morning' and got up and went to the washroom to freshen up. 

I had a slight hangover from last night.

By the time I came to the dining room, Appu had prepared coffee.

She gave me coffee and told me she had to go home for some time to check on her dad. I agreed and asked her if I had to go with her.

' Yes Ashi, please come to have lunch at my house today else my mom will kill me' Appu said in a sarcastic voice.

' Hehehe, Sure Appu. We can come here after finishing lunch and discuss about yesterday' I said half smiling

' Oh ya, sure Ashi. We can do that' Appu said and started packing.

She gave me a quick hug and left.

I started cleaning the house and saw the note I got yesterday. It gave me goosebumps. So I kept it back and went to prepare breakfast.

It was around 11 am and I was too involved in my work after having my breakfast, when I got a ping from 'Him'

I quickly opened it to see what he had sent.

 'I would love to hear your voice, can we please talk on the phone?' 'He' had messaged

I was shocked.Out of no where and after three long months 'He' had indirectly asked my number. The world stopped around me. I just stared at my phone for a long time.

How did things end up here. A stranger guy asking me my number. This is not me and I have to end this, but can I?

I did not know what to reply. At that moment I felt things were getting out of hand.

On one hand, I wanted to trust him and on the other, I did not want to.

I was blank and left the message on read.

After 30 minutes I got a ping again

This time 'He' had messaged ' I'm sorry if I had asked for too much. I will never do this again. Please forgive me. We can chat'

I was blank again and was debating hard on what to reply.

I thought for a long time before replying. I listed all the pros and cons.

After considering everything I finally decided to give him a spare SIM card number.

My heartbeat was high while replying. I was taking this to the next level and Appu did not know about this. Should I wait until I tell Appu? or Should I wait until I'm all free? Once I gave the number there was no coming back.  After debating once again I finally decided to give the number. With my hand trembling I typed my number hit the send button and logged off from Instagram.