"Morning" a rasp voice enters my ears and I groan in my sleep.

"Get up." The voice repeats, and I try to move my head, when it blasts with a pain so sharp it feels like it's been attacked by laser guns.

"What is this, why my head is dancing in tempo beat." I croak pushing my eyes open against the lights of the sun rays. Then suddenly it becomes easy as a shadow falls on my eyes.

"It's because you drank in tempo beats." My eyes slightly open and I smile when I see it's Kiyansh's shadow falling on my face. He looks like he is between sun and all the sun rays are emanating from him.

Then one by one all the memories of yesterday flashes in my head. My eyes feel like it will fall out of my pockets when I realise what I have done. I have kissed him. Oh my god. And he kissed me back. And he came to Mumbai for my premier. And Kritika jumped on my sofa and cried that she hadn't gotten her Hogwarts Letter and I and Prisha and Rohit cried with her too. And Kiyansh and Ayan had literally stuffed us into cars when we were screaming like kids who didn't want to go to school.

And I kissed him. I kissed him. I kissed him. I kissed him.

And he kissed me back.

Suddenly, the way he is seeing me becomes all different or maybe I am imagining it. But it feels like his eyes are on my lips. Or maybe my eyes are on him too much, like always.

I push him back with my arms and get up instantly. I groan when I see I am wearing his shorts and t-shirt, the same one when I stayed in his house for the night. Oh wow, so now he must be sure that I am pathetically obsessed with him. I run to the bathroom before he can say anything, the last thing I see before I close the bathroom door is his confused face.

I dare to glance at myself in the mirror and find my condition to be beyond words. It's the face of a zombie craving blood. My blue eyes have become violet due to the amount of red in my eyes. "You jumped on him!!!!" I scream whisper to myself in the mirror.

Well he jumped back. "Shut up." I knock the mirror.

"Shanvi are you okay?" Kiyansh calls me out from outside the bathroom.

"Yeah." I yell. Then put my face close to the mirror. "Okay listen we can handle this, we will change out of his clothes and not look him in the eyes." I say to myself like a diligent kindergartener. What a plan, I think with a grimace.

First step shower. I set the shower to cold and squirm when it hits my head. But after two minutes I feel the pain somewhat abating. Then I brush my teeth and open the bathroom door slightly. "Hey go to the living room. I need to change." I yell like in a voice that suspiciously sounded like Argus Filch.

A laugh comes out from the living room. "I am in the living room. Go ahead."

I peek my head out and find that he has also closed the bedroom door. Bless him, I think running to my armoire and opening it. Sprightly taking a towel out I cover myself, and change into my sundress which is blue, and covered with white tulips. Okay, now you mostly look like a human.

I smell chocolates and pancakes. What? And then without thinking I run in the living room to find Kiyansh flipping pancakes in the small joint kitchen.
I look at him and grin. "Pancakes. "

"And Coffee" he adds smiling. He is wearing a tawny coloured t-shirt with black tracks. The t-shirt obviously accentuates his eyes like he is on some Broadway stage for a play.

When he comes to the living room with coffee and pancakes and gives me a smile that reminds me of the breakfast we had the next morning after we found Charlie, I know why I couldn't stop myself from kissing him.

"Someone was famished." He says smiling and taking a sip of his coffee as I put my clean plate of pancakes down on the table which I gobbled down my throat in five minutes.

"It was." I point at my stomach and grin at him. "But I hope it knows that it has to try on dresses."

"Tell it that it can be as large and hungry as it wants. It doesn't have to care about dresses."

I flush as I realise that he really means it. Kiyansh knows that I hate dresses. He knows that I hate changing and shopping. "Coming from someone who has those fucking abs, I think I would like to-" The phone in my bedroom rings. "Shit.Work." I say and run to my bedroom.

But the instant I see the caller ID all my good mood evaporates. Why is she calling me at 9 in the morning?

With a dreadful feeling I feel in my gut, I pick up her call. "How dare you. You were the one to propel him to break up with me weren't you? And now you are fucking marrying him bitch? I swear I am going to-"

I cut her off, "Where were you when you kissed someone else?"

"I love him." She screamed on the phone.

"Do you?"

"Who are you taking to?" Kiyansh enters the bedroom.

I put my hand on the phone and mouth Sahana and his face hardens and he steps close to me to take the phone from me. But I beckon his hand away. Let me handle it, I mouth.

The tremendous amount of effect it takes for him to step back is so funny, that it makes me want to laugh. I remove my hand away and go back to Sahana's scandalizing shouts.

I listen for a while and make faces while doing so, faces that brings up a smile on Kiyansh's otherwise tensed face. And then in a very cheerful and clear voice I say in the phone while she's ranting away. "The number you are trying to reach is currently very busy, please try and never reach again forever." And I put the phone on speaker to make Kiyansh listen to the rant that turns into a confused silence, and then the confused Hello. And then I say, "Busy wheezy," and I cut the phone call.

Kiyansh's anxious face turns a little more anxious as I turn to him.

"Hey why are you so upset."

"You didn't have to pick up her phone calls." He says quietly. It's the voice that reminds me of him scared to go inside the swimming pool.

"I know." I whisper. "But I handled it pretty well didn't I?"

He opens his mouth. "I just don't-"

And then it's so sudden, I don't even have a moment to prepare myself for the wave of self doubt that hits me. Images of Kiyansh and Sahana invade my mind like a ship in a distant land. Full of swords and clangs and blood. Full of ache that reminds me of a time not long ago when I saw him from a distant land and thought that he was never going to reach me.

He sees the expression on my face. And his anxiousness slips away to give space to mine. "Hey! Come here." Kiyansh's soft voice brings me back to earth, I blink at him. "Come here" he says again. Then with a soft curse, he comes forward and hugs me tightly.

"Are you okay?" He asks as I push my face in his chest and smell him.

"Yeah." I whisper. His arms tighten around me. "Just images of you and her playing inside my head." I say before I can stop myself.

He sighs and then holds me at arm's length. An inch of hesitation comes on his face.

My stomach turns. Maybe he regrets this. Maybe he misses her.

But then he whispers, "She doesn't matter." His forehead meets mine and he repeats. "She doesn't matter. Nobody does, not like you."

I close my eyes and hear the synchrony of our breathing. And then, it just comes out of my mouth. "Do you remember last night?"

I hear the hitch in his breath and instantly regret it bringing up. "Umm I am sorry, I shouldn't have."

"Shanvi." His voice sounds pained.

"I... I mean it's okay if you don't want to-"

"Shanvi, open your eyes."

I do and it's so close to his gold brown ones that I can't breathe for a second.

His face becomes a little red and such a beautiful smile comes on his lips that I lose all the breath. "How can I forget about yesterday. I thought you did and I didn't want to make you uncomfortable so I-"

I blush. "I remembered I just-"

"Do you regret it?"

"No." I say instantly.

"Can I kiss you again?"

"Do you want to?" I ask with sudden courage.

He smiles, "You have no idea." 

And before I can ask him what does he mean by that. His lips fall upon mine, and I move forward and put my hands in his soft hair, pushing his face down. And this time the kiss is soft. It's a new territory I realise. He keeps his hand steady on my waist. It doesn't move an inch down, it doesn't move an inch up.

But his lips on mine. His lips on mine are the only thing I want to remember of this day. His lips, and the way he smiled at me when he brought the pancakes and coffee for me, and the way he said, it doesn't have to care about dresses.

I kiss him back. With the thought of waiting for so years. For his eyes. For his smile. Even though I was not breathing, I felt like I had breathed for the first time.

Him and I, us.