"Wait, Darshan," Shubman asked him to stop.

"What?"

"I have a task for you" Shubman said with a glint of excitement in his eyes.

Darshan sighed and approached Shubman, knowing very well that whatever Shubman was going to ask would create at least some trouble if not a lot. Because he knows him very well, he knows how unhinged he can get at times.

But did Darshan have any choice? Definitely not!

Shubman handed him a photograph. "I want you to find out about him," Darshan took the photo from his hand. In the picture, someone is sitting on the couch, probably drunk, eyes barely open. It was a photograph of Ishan.

"Why do you want to find out about him?" Darshan asked, scanning the photograph closely with a perplexed expression.

"Also, why does this person look kind of familiar?" Darshan felt that he had seen this person but didn't know where.

Shubman raised his eyebrows at Darshan's words. "You know him?"

"I don't know! Maybe! Also, you didn't answer me. Why are we suddenly interested in this person?"

"He is someone I want to know about," Shubman said nonchalantly.

"Yeah, that's my question. Why?"

Darshan was one of the few people who could cross-question Shubman or talk to him in that manner.

He is Shubman's right-hand man. Darshan's father works for Shubman's father, and now Darshan is working for Shubman.

"Do we have some kind of rivalry with him?" Darshan asked again when Shubman did not reply to his previous question.

"No, I am just interested in him."

"Oh, so you haven't even met him and you're interested in him?"

"I have met him."

"Where?"

"In the bar."

"Okay, so you went up to him and were like," Darshan changed his voice to mimic Shubman, " 'Hello, I am Shubman Gill and I am interested in you. I know coming to you like this is kinda creepy, but who cares?' Right?" He mocked.

Darshan waited for a reply, but his expression changed when a realization dawned upon him. "And wait a fucking minute, you were out for the whole evening, and at the same time, some of our men were also not there... Tell me truthfully. What did you actually do?" Darshan's mind was bound to work like this; if he didn't see Shubman after every other hour, he knew that the 6-foot-tall man was up to something.

So Darshan's question makes much more sense here.

Shubman tried ignoring his question but then decided to tell the truth, "I wanted to meet him," he said, pointing toward the photo. "So I asked our men to fake an attack on the bar, and then the lights were also cut off." Shubman paused for a moment to gauge any reaction from the person in front of him, but none came, so he continued, "and I did talk to him a little, and he wasn't able to see my face."

With his jaw hitting the floor, Darshan just stared at him in utter disbelief. Saying that he was shocked was an understatement.

When Darshan regained his composure, he spoke, "I'm more surprised that you are still able to do something that has the tendency to 'shock' me... when I have seen you do pretty unhinged stuff in the past."

Shubman rolled his eyes at Darshan's dramatic response and busied himself with his phone.

"So you did all this to have a two-minute chat with this person?"

"He didn't say anything; he was quite drunk," Shubman replied, keeping his eyes on the phone screen.

"Oh, so all this stunt to give him a little monologue of yours when he will probably forget everything," saying this, he left the room before he could lose his last working brain cell.

____

The next morning, Ishan woke up with a headache, but it was bearable. Of course, it was; he was habitual to having such hangovers almost every day for four months. But what wasn't bearable was the brightness of the lights in the room.

When did the lights in my room turn this bright? When he tried to open his eyes, he had to shut them immediately because the intensity that hit his eyes was unbearable for him.

It took him some time to finally be able to open his eyes properly, and when he looked around, 'Where am I? This isn't my room,'  he thought.

He tried to remember the events of last night. Maybe he crashed at someone else's place, but he didn't remember anything.

As he got up from the bed, trying to make sense of the situation, the doors flung open, revealing Darshan, Ishan's confused expression mirroring on Darshan's face.

"Who are you?"
"Who are you?"

Both of them spoke at the same time.

Darshan took a closer look at Ishan's face and pulled the photograph from his pants pocket. It didn't take him much time to realize it was the same person.

Before Darshan or Ishan could say anything else, Shubman entered the room in all his glory, wearing a satin off-white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and formal pants.

"Shubman, you didn't just bring him here."

With a smug look, Shubman replied, "I did."

Ishan was just standing there, trying to grasp the situation. Even though his hangover wasn't bad, his head still hurt.

Darshan's disbelief and annoyance were visible on his face. "What if he is dangerous? What if he is hired by one of our rivals?"

Shubman leaned and whispered in Darshan's ear, "Well, that's your job to find out. Now, go and get the information about him," and then he shifted his attention towards Ishan, gesturing for Darshan to leave the room.

Darshan lingered there a bit; he either wanted to bang his head on the wall or wanted to bang Shubman's head into the wall... maybe he wanted to do the latter.

He begrudgingly left the room.

"Who are you?" Ishan asked the same question to Shubman that he had asked Darshan a few minutes ago. "And how did I get here?"

Ignoring Ishan's first question, Shubman answered the second one, "You were heavily drunk last night and then passed out, so I brought you here."

"You didn't know me; why did you bring me to your house?" Ishan asked, becoming more confused.

Shubman smirked and said, "Well, we can fix the 'know you' part."

This man, who was taller than Ishan, was now getting on his nerves by not answering him clearly. "Who the fuck are you?" Ishan asked again, irritation clearly visible in his tone.

Shubman stepped closer to Ishan, and Ishan started taking steps back until his back hit the wall. Ishan's heartbeat rose to a dangerous level. During all this, Ishan held Shubman's intense gaze. Those eyes, those damn eyes...

'These eyes - how could I forget these eyes? I saw them in the restaurant the other day. The same eyes that made me paint  them,' Ishan's inner voice spoke.

Shubman put a hand on the wall and leaned a little, coming face to face with Ishan. "Don't use such words, darling. These words don't suit that pretty mouth of yours." Ishan tried to remain calm, but his insides were doing some weird things because of the physical closeness. "Your mouth can be used in different ways, like kis--" Before Shubman could finish his sentence, a sharp noise cut him short.

Both looked towards the source of the noise. There was a broken showpiece on the floor, and an orange cat was sitting over the cabinets, wagging its tail, being quite proud of its work.

"Damn, Spider, you ruined the moment."
Shubman said stepping back from Ishan and walking towards the cat.

Ishan noticed the change in his tone.
'Is he bipolar or something?'

~~~

Any suggestions or critisism?

____

(For- Beaut1io 🎀)