A long chapter for your kindness and patience!

𓆩𓆪

Incredibly profound thoughts crossed Manik's mind at the tender gesture that spoke volumes about her nature beyond anything else – her ability to overpour love even when she was terribly hurting. And it spontaneously clicked to him how in that one aspect, in putting others before themselves, their natural inclinations paralleled each other.

She studied his wonderment, analysing his reasons for derailing from the present moment and whether or not she was boring him with her mindless stories that held little to no significance in the grand scheme of things. Ten years down the line, would it matter to Manik whether Anandi's family and her family disliked each other?

Perhaps, by then, he too would be a part of her family.

As if a miracle had taken place, Nandini's cheeks were dry, she noted and blushed. Had Nandini not been carried away by her glamorous dreams for their future, she might have picked up on the strain in his features as he longingly stared at her.

It made perfect sense why in a vulnerable situation, after having committed an impulsive crime under the blanket of crew loyalty, he had naturally connected his amazing luck of finding the culprit to Nandini's timely chat that forced him to the bedroom chamber.

She was the one because of whom he had been able to protect his clan.

The reason his clan foresaw a threat and jumped ship, saving themselves as quickly as they possibly could. It was only fair that he postponed the dreaded confrontation – and the complete truth, as a favour in return – to a time when she was a lot less vulnerable, or when she was hurting less.

"Waise why did you ask about my name?"

Clearing his throat, he pulled his hands to himself, rubbing them absently. "My niece... she was asking me."

"You told your niece about me?"

Manik almost laughed at Nandini's eyes that grew into the size of black eight-balls. "Kind of. She's in-fact a lot like you." He gazed into them, and those beautiful big bright eyes reflected a pain-free life devoid of several deep bruises that had tattooed itself on Manik's existence.

They were not alike, it was a miracle they even breathed the same air or lived on the same plane.

He continued nonchalantly although his voice was dipped with lingering amusement, "You know, constantly asks questions... once she starts, it's incredibly hard to get her to stop talking..." Abruptly, a hand came over to clip some of his flesh. "Ah, ow! Hey, I wasn't complaining!" He said in a pacifying tone while rubbing the sore spot she pinched. Nandini reluctantly observed his reactions, hoping she did not hurt him too much. He blinked, and confessed from the depths of his heart, "I love hearing your voice."

"Be mindful of what you say, Manik... we've only ticked off my birthplace from the bucket list! There's still a long way to go..."

"Now that your tears have parked themselves, I think we can continue?" She rolled her eyes but settled in place, suggesting where to turn left and right respectively while a phone silently buzzed inside the car somewhere.

𓆩𓆪

The car found a park at the school gates and hand in hand, Nandini led him to the girls' school she basically grew up in. At the reception, a board hung with all the school toppers painted with white by their pass-out year. Nandini's name was mapped against 2019, Manik recalled with a smug grin, that faded as he straightened his shoulders as another stark realisation emerged – how utterly unworthy he was of her.

What sense did it make to spend more time with her if nothing was to come out of it?

There was some skepticism from the receptionist about letting a man wander the premises, and Nandini could thoroughly understand the lady's predicament. Nandini Murthy from three weeks ago would have reacted the same way, and would have abided by the rules no matter what; but then a man had walked into her life, and suddenly, the thought of spending an extra moment by his side that became infinitely more precious than the morals that shaped her for over two decades of her life.

The headmaster who had, by chance, headed off on her tea break noticed her. "Nandini Murthy! What a pleasant surprise!" The stout woman embraced Nandini warmly, and the girl seemed beyond delighted to be remembered and received so gracefully by the school that shaped the girl she was that day.

Her bond with the headmaster worked wonders in giving Manik a free pass to roam the school with Nandini: it was the sweet spot between following stringent rules and pleasing an authoritative figure that Nandini loved most about such favours.

It took a little over an hour for Nandini to finally show Manik where her final year classroom was, all thanks to the multiple staff members, tea vendors, peons, and even juniors who wholeheartedly chatted with the woman and tried to milk four years' worth of information and updates within a span of a couple of moments. Invariably, some conversations shifted towards the man holding her hand tenderly as he patiently stood beside her while she talked to her heart's content... rarely stopping to catch a breath.

She finally directed him to her class which was currently empty from the class being at PT, a period that was allocated at the predictable window for over a decade. She set up the backstory for what another staff member had rambled on with her. "That red-haired teacher I was talking to earlier was Miss. Khurana, our class teacher. Do you know, when she..."

Manik was barely listening to her but took a seat beside her, admiring the way her naturally pink lips tinted with balm moved, and how her eyelashes fluttered while she talked of a topic close to her heart – how could he ever think of leaving and forbidding himself from being enchanted by them for the rest of his life?

"...and those girls did not like me because I was the teacher's pet. I was constantly swinging between choosing those troublemakers who hardly batted an eye towards me, and the teachers who cared for us but could easily misuse my trust and position of power."

As if interrupting her flow of thoughts, he asked, "And whose side did you take?"

"My classmates only, because end of the day our teacher's intentions may be good but their actions... actions always speak louder, Manik,"

He nodded, deeply thinking. "Tumhe bhook nahi lagi hai?"

"Tumhe kaise pata chala?" Nandini beamed in excitement.

"You've been blabbering on and on for..." Manik brought his wrist to his eye level, feeling a vibration on it. A text message had swooshed in. "Nearly two hours now! You must be expending a lot of energy. If you ask me..." Nandini brought her elbows to the desk as he paced towards the board with a smirk, his long strides adding to his confident composed appeal.

Manik searched for a piece of chalk and began marking some lines and curves, before writing the famous mass-energy equivalence equation. Nandini pressed her smile behind a palm and fingers that cupped her chin while he used the moment to trigger the phone into 'silent' mode and slipped it into his pocket again. "I could easily derive the exact number of calories you must need to replenish your reserves."

"Accha?"

The way she was playing along had been out of pocket, and Manik was noticing sweat beads form along the edges of his forehead. In all honesty, he had not a clue how to substitute or what to substitute those values for, and as he put his street-smart mind to work, something better clicked. He kept the chalk safely on the table, dusted his palms, and leaned on the desk with them.

"Haan... but why bother losing more time on solving equations? Let's go get some dosa from that stall you were talking about last time!"

His smile was more than enough for Nandini Murthy to completely forget where she had been; as the period bell rang, she rose to her feet, closed the gap between them and on her tiptoes, she managed to reach his cheek and left a soft kiss on it.

𓆩𓆪

Guitar tunes flooded the otherwise ambient atmosphere, cocooning Manik's voice beautifully in its soul-soothing melody. Nandini thoughtlessly clapped while perched next to him with her legs bent to a side, overly joyed by bonding with him through music. "That was beautiful, Manik!"

Dosas were their mid-evening snack, and after gobbling down a variety of ghee-doused spirals from a ninety-nine variety stall, Manik decided they could visit a park and jog off the calories. Nandini too joked that she had sufficiently stuffed herself and possibly doubled her energy reserves with how much she consumed. Two rounds of jogging later, they both plopped themselves under a shady spot in the park and delved into each other's favourite pass-times.

At a distance from where the couple was seated on a damp grassy hill in the park, children were joyously playing on colourful slides, hassling each other for who was to push their friends on the merry-go-round, and enjoying their carefree spirits: their screeches being politely drowned by his relaxing vocal variations.

It was an incredibly intimate gesture on his part, never had he ever played the instrument for anyone else, in front of anyone else. The guitar had been alongside him in the most difficult of times, and to date Manik regarded it as a mark of his resilience... for staying determined in his overarching ambition to serve his clan, to serve his people.

Nandini had indeed been the mark of many of his firsts; so much that over the course of the eight odd hours he had spent with her, the goal he had sought to accomplish – to tell her the truth and exit her life forever, no strings attached – had warped into something he not even remotely desired.

Growing attached had to be a naive way to put how he felt because no rational explanation could justify why he found himself wanting more... more of her company, her warmth, and beyond all: herself.

He lowered the instrument from his lap. "Thanks! My skills have been a bit rusty."

"You have a real talent in it. Besides, is it not way more creative and exciting than driving celebrities around?"

"Hmm... it is, but you see... making a creative venture a career takes a lot of commitment and patience... one must be in it for the long run." Naturally, that was something Manik could not promise, not even to himself when weapons and drugs were at arm's reach during unpredictable times.

"What makes you think you won't be, especially when it brings you joy?"

Her seemingly innocent question drew him into the guilt trip well, where he resented himself for selfishly stringing her along the whole day while reality had to be completely different. "Things that bring us joy don't necessarily mean good things for us,"

Nandini chuckled, oblivious to the undercurrent of an ounce of truth that, perhaps for the first time that day, left his lips. That evening in particular had been unfiltered from Manik's side.

"That's deep. Are you sure you're not keen on a therapy session? Main free trial bhi de sakti hoon," she grinned but his face remained as rigid as a statue. He twitched his lips as if stating a mere fact that had no important emotions associated with it.

"I don't play the guitar anymore... Today was just a special occurrence, today I played for you."

"What's so special about me?" She blushed. What wasn't?

𓆩𓆪

Can anyone guess what the purpose of this update was (apart from the much-loved MaNan sequences of course :"))?

Would Manik become part of Nandini's world or will Nandini step foot into Manik's?