I missed you my lovelies so much (ik it's just 10 days still)

If you feel I'm getting off track with the emotions then spare me plz

It's just the perspective which makes difference between the ugly and the beautiful, the absurd and the meaningful, the upsetting and the soothing. How someone fears the quilt of darkness that will readily astray their souls whereas someone seeks peace with the same darkness, ready to drape their senses, their soul into it.

And Aarav Oberoi strongly credences on the latter. The sudden intrusion of light on his senses makes his skin crawl that he instantly slither back between the drapes of the darkness, soliciting comfort there.

His skilled callous fingers swirl the glass between their grasp, making the golden liquor into it stir. Meanwhile those dark charcoal orbs of his look past it, silently conversing with the dark sheet of the night.

A mocking smirk stretches on the seam of his lips, the realisation that the night, even if it had stars to twinkle on it, was as much sunk into loneliness as he was. He has been holding onto this feeling like the pride to hold a beautiful rose in his captive. Somewhere inside, aware of the thorns pricking through the skin, yet not ready to let go of it, eluding, that in the way it will crush the rose and leave him annihilated too.

"Aren't you behaving like an abandoned lovesick puppy ? Stop sulking and enough of making my balcony a mourning centre." He heard her retort clearly yet remained immobile staring at the sky. "Weren't you the desperate one wanting to keep yourself breathing in her life, even if meant through every moment she spends of resentment, grief and loathing."

He did. He did want that. With so much desperation, so much fervency that the madness almost chafed the sanity of the sensible part of his mind. Then why now her confrontation, that storm in her always so calm honey eyes, the exhaustion and rigidness in her always tender demeanour is wrecking his insides, creating havoc and messing his mind ? Just why ?

Back then it didn't feel so rooted, so stormy that it could leave his senses into shambles, then why now it feels like it has clogged his windpipe, making it hard for him to breathe with passing moments.

It was all black and white and grey until he collided with the beautiful shades of hope, of liveliness and of true living through the shades of her brown that sometimes are so subtle or sometimes so vibrant. Nonetheless it was him on the path to satiate his demons and ruined the innocence of the angel.

"Aarav," grimacing at his state, Rhea called out again.

His fingers loosen up from the clenched fist as he ripped his gaze away from the dark night sky, his demeanour turned ever so normal since he skilfully incarcerated the havoc within himself. "You and that girl were so loud."

Venting out an audible mocking guffaw, she crouched herself on the plush sofa at the other end of her lavish balcony. Him masking his inner turmoil into nothingness might manipulate others but she knew to read past his facade. "Every time she goes through a bad phase, it automatically weighs in her mind that she has gone through the worst because of you. Thank me Bhai, I planted you permanently in her senses."

"Don't" His laid back composure crumbled that he again had to clench his loose fingers. "Nothing changes the fact that I haven't forgotten anything or forgiven you for dragging her into this. No matter how fascinating the idea of being rooted in her senses is, in a way so irreversible and so Irreparable."

There was a warning in his tone that cued you to crawl away however Rhea royally ignored it. "I dragged her into this ?" Her laughter filled through the silent night as she fixed her gaze on her cousin. "She was dragged into this the moment you learned she is his best friend and thought toying with her emotions will hurt him to soothe your years long jealousy."

Glaring into space, he chugged the whole liquid down his throat but that didn't stop Rhea from continuing. "Just because I played it dirtier than you, doesn't make us any uneven. Even you know it's easy to mould something which is soaked into their own grief, something that is already so broken. And rather than going for the bad ways like you, I chose for the worst but fastest path."

He was no saint and he accepts that and embraces it with so much pride. Maybe he wouldn't have been as appalled as he got if it was anyone else in the video. But it was her, the person he wanted to keep all for himself and seeing her so exposed and vulnerable for the world, made his demons feel suffocated in its own inferno.

Once she broke their friendship, he, though, was desperate to get over the surging obsession in anyway. Although that doesn't mean he never tried to protect her through the shadows.

"Fuck! Didn't I tell you to keep her out of this ?" He snarled, his voice raising.

"Why are you scratching back on the past now ? Don't fucking tell me you are living in a delusion of a happy life with her." She chastises, her sweet voice getting suppressed under the malice her words carried. "If you think someday she will move on then you sure are living in a delusion. People lie when they claim to be moved on. Past is the ruler of every story and there's no going back from it. You might claim to be moved on from it but your past trails along, moving forward with you."

"But I didn't do it. Fuck! I'll pluck every eyeball out and burn them into ashes if they would lift up to her."

"Tell that to her and wonder if she will be relieved or more scared of you." She laughed but there was nothing soothing about it. "If not Mausa ji sending you to London then I would have lost count of the limbs you broke or the number of guys hospitalised because of your brutal beating. You almost got your ass expelled."

(Maternal uncle)

He instantly looks away. The way she quoted it made him sound like someone sick in love. And for him people in love rather are utter fools. Like his father who loved his dead wife so much that he loathed himself for growing feelings for his second wife. Like his mother who tried to hold the shredded pieces of her relationship with her first husband who discarded her for infertility. Like his younger self who somewhere despised the loneliness he was basked in after the death of his birth mother, or for craving for a little ounce of his grieving father's attention.

Giving explanations has always been a pissing thing for him so he rather chucks it off. What people think of him or what they portray him as never actually mattered to him, neither it matters now. He rather takes pride in being that bad guy your mother warns you about. And it's the best way to keep annoying creatures disguised as humans to maintain distance from him.

"It doesn't matter, It wasn't me who did it. It has been years, she will get past it soon. She is now my wife and her whole life just can't be spent ignoring it." If not for his gruff voice, the futile attempt to veil the uncertainty in his tone would have appeared more evidently. "Just because you are my sister that got you spared. I've avoided all your advances but again a scratch on her and I'm done with you."

Leaning her back further leisurely, Rhea couldn't curb the mock filled chuckle to escape past her lips. Seeing the two men she was close to and wanting to be close with prioritise her above her cripples her insides. It provokes the diabolical points in her, camouflaging the sensibility.

"Does that make any difference ? Even if she forgets about the video and the humiliation, will she ever forget how she landed on deathbed just because of you ?"

Aarav's reaction came as fast as fast as the realisation of the blunder she did striked her. Pinned under his accusing and questioning gaze, she attempted to keep her stance unfazed.

"The fuck you said ?" She instantly averted her eyes off him as he roared in a thundering voice. "Rhea, what else you did dammit ?"

In two long strides he was in front of her, his fingers digging in her arms as he forced her to stand. "Spill the fucking beans out."

"It wasn't supposed to be like that. It just went off, I was just saving you from any more guilt." With every fumble of her words, the beast in him was unleashing out wrecking the chains of patience.

"Elaborate." His face creased with anger effortlessly shrouded the fear gripping him from inside.

"She was there at your farewell party. I_ I drugged her." She quickly bit her lips to stifle the hiss that threatened to vent out when his grip tightened around her. "Fuck don't get worked up. It wasn't supposed to go that way. I fucking don't even know how you two ended up together."

Her body staggered back as he jerked her off his hold and turned around clutching the railing in a bruising grip, his shoulders shaking vigorously. "Fucking don't lie. I saw the girl leaving in the morning."

"Because she left before and as I said I was saving you from the guilt."

Groaning out loud, he kicked the railing and gripped his hairs. It made sense why he found the mole on her hip so familiar. In order to keep his distance from her he used to pour himself into alcohol, trying to null the heaviness even for a small span. He even kissed a girl misinterpreting her as her when he was drunk. So it doesn't surprise him that he thought he was just imagining her while being with another girl for the whole night whereas in reality it was actually her.

"What else ? That fucking make no sense of the dea_deathbead." He hissed, his voice visibly quivering.

"You decided to cut off yourself completely from their life, I didn't. After she left the frat house the next morning things turned even more drastic than from the time her video spreaded." Hint of any ounce of remorse evaded through her voice under the monotonous tone. "It was until one night her parents admitted her in the hospital covered in her own blood. Her condition was critical because the anaemia was another shot in the blood loss and she was in the stage of early depression. She almost died that night. Her body couldn't hold it, it was a miscarriage."

He couldn't hear a word she said after that. He didn't even know if she even spoke something else after that. For certain moments he couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't breathe but his senses were slowly getting wrecked by the sudden invasion of the uncalled truth and everything crashed upon him all at once.

One second he was standing numb on his spot and next Rhea saw him storming out of her apartment. It happened in such a hast that she couldn't grip over his actions to restrain him.

There was no record in his mind for how long he has been driving aimlessly on roads his brain paid no heed to. He didn't even know what exactly he wanted to run off from ? From the reality or the burden of guilt ?

It was his habit which he has mastered in years, the skills to summon emotions in a far fetched abyss from where they couldn't chase him. But when it comes to her he has felt the forbidden emotions in depth.

He had assumed it to be a matter of time before he would get rid of those emotions which never happened and moreover he only found himself drowning deeper into it. As years passed his madness for her only magnified and so did the guilt and he bluntly denied to acknowledge either of them.

The authority guilt can hold on one's self is terrific for Aarav, he hates being vulnerable under its dominance because he is someone who loves dominating not to be dominated. So every time guilt slithered into his life ready to throttle him, he dug it six feet under the ground, not letting the powerful emotion control him or his actions.

He every time tries to elope away from its arms finding excuses, reasoning with his actions or the aftermath. The embrace of guilt isn't soothing like his mother's arms, in fact it makes him feel choked, making every breath he takes feel like a struggle.

He was mounted under the weight of guilt after his birth mother died and his father's crestfallen face reminded him of how he neglected the desperate dying woman from his share of affection. Later he sneaked away from under it's weight by reasoning with his father's lack of attention towards him because his sight reminded him of his wife's dejected state.

And now when reality attained without any warning and bit him on his ass, he couldn't come on a way to shove it off.

With a clenched jaw, he impatiently waited for the other person to pick the call as the ring kept on going and going. "Hello" The very familiar voice of Mishti rang within the eerie silence of the car.

Unlike her, he tossed away the pleasantries and slumped against the seat. "Damn take it away." He grunted through the phone and again silence wrapped the surroundings in it.

A few moments later, he heard Mishti audibly letting out a sigh. "I can't, Aarav. You'll have to embrace your emotions, you just can't keep running away from the guilt_."

Her voice faded away with thin air as he gruffly disconnected the call even before she could finish. He knew she would say something like that still every time in moments like this, he would unconsciously turn towards her with a desperation to get away from the bizarre feelings.

It was selfish of him to hang up on her every time like this because he knew she would come around, like always. He couldn't understand what good she even sees in his tainted soul to ignore his selfishness and blunt behaviour.

Only if he could swap Mishti's point of view towards him with Mishika's. But Mishti has no good reason to hate him but Mishika does.

Chapter Word- 2424

Pour down all you emotions and questions here╭⁠☞

My preboards are here so let's see when the next update will come.. in meantime please shower your love and support

Signing off
~T.R