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Nandini was feverishly folding clothes and lining them up in her suitcase when her phone flashed. She staggered at the call and answered on the first ring, bringing it to her ear with a face filled with marvelled excitement. As her grin widened at his "Hello," three of her fingers playfully slapped her forehead. It was one thing that she had been longingly staring at it all afternoon hoping for a call or a text message from him, but to express it in such an obvious manner was almost embarrassing.

What would he interpret of such desperation?

Nandini's soft giggle which had emanated out of silliness over her actions echoed through the instrument, twisting Manik's eyebrows. He had thought he could not go another day without seeing her, but merely hearing a beautiful sound she made affirmed it was impossible for him to waste even a second longer in solitude.

"I want to meet you now," he said in a single breath.

Beyond surprised that Manik had returned to Mangalore within three days, Nandini hopped around in her room in a merry little dance. She was about to say yes, ready to do anything he asked if it meant spending time with him when her eyes fell on an opened black diary on the bed.

She was leaving for Ahmedabad in four days and only that morning she had scheduled an extremely busy day to stop herself from an alternative routine that spiralled around wondering about him and praying for his ailing mother; both those activities were sirens of his acute absence. She recollected that Chacha and Chachi had gone to the nearby mill to purchase some packaged food mixes to combine with plain rice and eat for when she missed home. 

"Manik, but I–"

At the first sign of a dismissal, Manik was enraged. Meeting her was essential for whatever remained of his sanity and if she denied him of that simple request... there was no guarantee on what would happen next.

"I'm coming to your usual pickup spot. If you're not there in the next thirty minutes, I'll hunt your house down and meet you. Waise bhi bas chaar ya paanch galiyon ki baat hai, kar lunga main."

"No no no, I'll –" Nandini rubbed her forehead lost for words. It was not a nice thing to do, frolicking around outside of her home in her final days there while her family meticulously followed a plan to get everything ticked off before the big day. Then again, how could she ever meet him once she left for Ahmedabad? "– okay, I'll come. Bye." She said chirpily as he tapped his phone, terminating the call.

Nandini pulled the phone away, sulking. "Aiyappa! Bina bye bole phone kaat diya? Very bad, very bad." Repeating their trademark dialogue, she clutched it to her chest and let a shy smile light up her features. "Pareshaan lag raha tha na?" She asked herself, and then eyed the ceiling, her hands mechanically joining. "I hope sab theek ho!"

Changing into a comfortable black kurti with pink and blue crosses that resembled stars, Nandini hastily spun her hair into a side braid. She locked her house, sending her family group a message about saying last goodbyes to some of her college friends, and got thumbs-up emojis from both of them along with some customary warnings to stay safe and return home at a reasonable time.

It was a harmless well-intentioned lie to hide her nearly three-week old relationship from her second parents, but why did Nandini feel a sting at the act?

Galloping into the wind to release those nerves, Nandini approached the banyan tree near a corner shop where she usually asked Manik to drop her off at. A black Honda City was parked a few metres behind it, and a tall young man had one ankle crossed over the other as he leaned on his car and periodically glanced at his wrist. The span of a three-day separation somehow had a blissful effect in enriching his majestic aura, and Nandini found herself bewitched.

And as if out of impulse, he had looked in her direction and the concept of time came to a standstill. The girl, dressed in the most simplistic Indian attire, did not cease to amaze him. It appeared as though all the stars in the universe had chosen a single target to descend on and magnify her beauty in the most eye-catching magical manner.

"I'm so happy to see you!" She beamed joyfully at an arm's distance from him, resembling nothing less than a source of eternal sunshine.

Beyond certain that what he felt for her was pure infatuation and that was what made her different from the rest, he was oblivious to the fact that she was the first woman who liked the company of a version of him the rest of the world did not see. Truth be told... she knew nothing about him.

Nothing.

Manik cleared his throat, drawing back to his senses as he zoned out without a sign, and at his small smile, a coy Nandini diverted the topic, "How's your mother now?" Mother, Manik almost scoffed at the white lie.

Dutta's death on the cruise two nights prior had reached Shrikanth a few hours later through an active phone call that revealed Nawab to be the murderer. Instead of taking the opportunity to serve revenge on a platter, the Malhotra clan had been discreet and had kept the matter under the covers; not without due reason, Nawab suspected. While none of the Professor's clanmates knew who was involved, an enemy sidekick being swatted to dust in a supremely protected private cruise sure raised some alarms amidst the other clans.

Each one discharged specific protocols to provide protection to their crew. The Professor had accounted for the team's well-being and had booked the first flight back to Mumbai this morning, changing the venue of the Kochi transaction to Mumbai; travelling via air would ensure no weapons would be on-board, a no-brainer for safety. While at the check-in counter as the others had handed their passports in, Nawab had faked a medical emergency and after reluctant pitiful goodbyes and elaborate reassurances that he would keep them updated on his health, he had bought himself some time away from the crew that needed to be in Mumbai that same day.

Once his clan had passed the check-in counters and on the way to security clearance, Manik had sneakily bought a ticket to Mangalore, to finish off what he had started once and for all and put an end to blood-sucking lies and soul-snatching guilt. He had been so sure that he could face her and confess to her when he saw her, but with her before his eyes, those thoughts took a different turn altogether as the scales tipped dangerously close to a desire that had remained dormant until then... a desire to never let go.

"Hmm, she's recovering. I couldn't watch her suffer so I came back sooner than expected." Nandini picked up on an unfamiliar dullness in his response; something had changed since she saw him last. Studying those features further, she saw hints of an inevitable sadness that then mirrored hers, typical after a jarring encounter with a bedridden parent.

But she could not succumb to his pain, she had to be strong... to uplift his spirits. Taking a determined stance, she held his hands in hers and urged him to imbibe her sincerity. "Accha, bolo kahan jaana hai?"

Manik's heart wrenched. "Kahi bhi leke jao." 

"Kahi bhi? Would you like to see where I grew up?" He nodded with a small smile and opened the car door for her.

The first stop on their wonderful journey together was the hospital where she was born. Nandini unleashed a highly detailed mindmap of all the visitors and well-wishers who had played an integral role in reeling her heavily pregnant wailing mother through the emergency ward. Nandini's enthusiasm had been a background score to a dismal fragment of a memory when in another part of the West coast, Manik's mother was rushed into a bright-white chamber with IV plastered to one arm and a bunch of keys stuffed into the other. The last memory Manik got to capture of his beloved parent, the only one he had.  

"Andhar jaana hai?" He shook his head in a trance, and Nandini stupidly realised that would have been the last place he would have wanted to visit in his current mind-frame. She mentally slapped herself and revisited the jubilation she had parked just a while back while she branched into a story. "I – I started with the least interesting story about me... I'm just getting you warmed up for what's coming..." The newfound enthusiasm indeed lifted Manik's spirits by a notch.

"What does your name mean?"

It was an unanticipated question that seemed to have no direct connection to anything she was talking about. Her first thought was to question his reasoning, but her curiosity had been a well-known recipe for disaster in the past. Gulping the instinct down, she asked with a smile, "Do you want to know in the religious context or the linguistic one?"

"Wow, you just used a bunch of words I can barely pronounce," His tease caught her off-guard and she burst into an uncontrollable chuckle while Manik gazed at the creator of the wonderful sound as it filled the car. The radio that she had turned down as she sat in the car, stating that she preferred even the silence as long as it was with him, did not deserve to share space with her drowning laughter; Manik abruptly shut the system without her knowledge.

"It's the name of an auspicious cow in our mythology, but I think it also means 'woman who brings happiness'. I'm not sure, I have to ask my Chachi to confirm." As she said it while picking her nails, she turned to him and felt self-conscious. Quickly, she eyed the treading road through the windscreen. "Actually do you want to know a fun fact?"

"Always..."

She blushed as she narrated again, "When my parents were choosing girl names, they picked Anandi for me. But my Ammamma, my mother's mother, spread the information to my uncles and their wives out of excitement, and my maami who delivered three months before I was born stole the name for her daughter." Nandini's resentment for Anandi was crystal clear, but Manik mused at the emphasis on a particular word that was spat with disgust and decided that he too hated this lady, whoever Nandini's maami was.  

"Amma was apparently angry at her for years; I think the last I saw Anandi was when she came to our house after passing her tenth boards and Aiyappaaaaa! How much did her family show off her 80% results!" He too gaped in incredulous disbelief at the high percentage Anandi scored. Oh wait, he was supposed to dislike her.

"They came home with three varieties of the most expensive sweets and so many snacks, not to mention their mighty praises of how their daughter was academically gifted and such a brilliant child and whatnot! It was so satisfying to shut her mother's mouth up when I revealed I scored 95% marks." She crossed her arms and proudly stated.

Tenth boards for Manik had been an incredibly dark phase of life for a teenager to be shovelled through. The year his mother had passed away without warning, at least no warnings he was aware of. Studying had not been a priority, finding a job to sustain himself took its spot. The first place he went in search of a job was his mother's manager's house – Raghav Mehra, a businessman by day, mob boss by night. The rest was history because despite failing in the first of many examinations in the trials of formal education, Manik found both a mentor and a lifestyle that could rake him more cash in a month than a professional job from years of education could earn him in a year.  

"Wow, really?! That's amazing! Nandini, I'm so proud of you." The words rolled off his tongue so effortlessly but Nandini's naive heart skipped a beat. Proud. Did he say he was proud of her? Unceremonious tears clouded her eyes.

It was the same year she had lost her parents to a horrifying accident and had obsessively channeled all her living breathing moments into focusing on her studies as an escape from processing and talking about the colossal loss of two integral pillars of her identity.

"Hey..." The car quickly came to a stop on the side of the road and Manik cupped a cheek, softly brushing a rolling tear. "I wasn't insulting you when I said that –"

She giggled amidst the sniffles, kissing the centre of a palm that held her face tenderly and placing it back on her cheek while relishing his gentle warmth.

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Shrikanth's men know Nawab did it but have not retaliated, I wonder why... ;)

*inserts a corny 'like-share-subscribe karlo frens' catch-phrase!* :P