Hello butter cups! Here is an early update as promised! Happy reading!

When Mridula felt a hand on her shoulder, she turned around to find Sharan's grandmother with a worrisome look.

"What has happened to you? Why are you crying like a devil in the midnight?",she asked to be more precise taunted.

"Ammamma.. You.. I.. I'm sorry",she said as she tried to get up but failed and sat back again.

"Sit, sit",she said and walked slowly towards Mridula and sat beside her.

"Why were you crying?",she asked sternly as Mridula hiccuped.

"No.. Nothing. I was just",she broke down into more tears as she put her head in Sharan's grandmother's lap.

She was taken aback, at her actions. Mridula held her knees close to her chest and broke down furthermore. She hesitated to touch her head and calm her down.

"You.. What are you doing, Mridula?",she asked.

"Please.. Please let me be for sometime ammamma. I won't tell.. about this to anyone",Mridula said as she placed Sharan's grandmother's hand on her head.

After a bit of hesitation, she slowly pat her head as Mridula let all her pain out. Everything that she was holding inside, she let it out.

"Enough kanna, calm down. You are already sick",Sharan's grandmother spoke as she wiped Mridula's tears.

Mridula got up from her lap and wiped her tears avoiding eye contact with her.

"I am sorry, I disturbed your sleep ammamma garu. It's just I couldn't hold back myself anymore",Mridula said as her eyes stuck to the ground.

"Look at me kanna, I may not like you, I may throw harsh words at you but I understand you are a human too and such burst outs happen to everyone of us. What happened? Why were you crying? Did you fight with Sharan or your family?",Sharan's grandmother asked.

"No ammamma garu, just something that I don't want to talk about. I am really sorry for troubling you, I will make sure this won't happen again and thank you for not pushing me away and comforting me",Mridula thanked her.

"Take care, and don't think that I like you or something and that is why I didn't push you away. It's just humanity and go back to sleep now",Sharan's grandmother said and slowly got up from her place and walked back to her room not before patting her shoulder gently.

"She is not as bad as she portrays herself to be, thank you ammamma",Mridula whispers to herself as she laid down on the couch itself to sleep.

She closed her eyes as though a deep slumber was awaiting her, she fell into deep sleep as soon as she closed her eyes.

On the other hand, Sharan was working on some politics related mission. He was busy doing ground work the whole night gathering information related to the mission. He didn't really have time to check on anyone.

It was early hours of the morning, he decided to drive back home so that he can get some sleep before he moves to his office. After around one and half hour he reached home completely worn out. He was going to press the door bell but heard Teja's voice from outside.

"Yeah, yeah! No love, I will take care of.. Anna, you here already?",he asked cutting the call.

"Who were you talking to?",Sharan asked.

"Who would I talk to? I was talking to my..",he struggled to cover up.

"Your what?",Sharan asked narrowing his eyes at him.

"My mother. I mean my best friend's mother! Yeah",he said and gave his brother a wide smile.

"I don't trust you",Sharan said looking at him suspiciously.

"Brother, you can trust me or not doesn't really matter. Please let's go in, I want to sleep and you should sleep too or else nanamma will definitely give us some work",Teja said and rang the door bell.

"Didn't you take the keys before you went out?",Sharan asked him.

"Well, well what about you brotheh?",he asked in a British slang to which Sharan rolled his eyes at him.

Mridula whose sleep was disturbed by the door bell got up from the couch slowly. Since there was no house help, at that early in the morning she slowly walked towards the door with the help of things around.

She opened the door and held it as a support.

"Vadina, why did you come? Oh my god! How did you even manage to come till here?",Teja said as soon as he saw her at the door.

In the meanwhile, Sharan forwarded his hand to her as Teja continued to speak things. Mridula looked at his face and Sharan glanced at his hand and at her assuring her to hold her.

She gave her hand and held his hand for support and both of them took slow steps with their hands intertwined.

Teja quietly slipped off from living room to his room. While the two of them walked to their room.

"Why does your face look so different?",Sharan asked.

"So different? Good different or bad different?",Mridula asked.

"It is glowing",he said to which she chuckled.

"Post crying session glow is so different and so good is what I heard never knew it really helped my skin care routine",she said to which he furrowed his eyebrows.

"What do you mean by that? Why did you cry?Is it paining anywhere? Were you sleeping on the couch? Why would you do that to yourself, Mridula? You are sick! God!",he asked concerned.

"No, it's not paining. I just had some bad dream and woke up crying nothing else. Did you check your phone by the way?",she asked to which he nodded his head in no.

Both of them entered the room to see Aaradhana sleeping on her stomach and her whole body was wrapped in the blanket like she was a spring roll. Sharan giggled at her figure which was soon joined by Mridula as well.

"You sleep here, I'll join Teja!",he said.

"I need to talk to you, Sharan",Mridula said as she looked at him.

"Here?",he asked.

He really wanted to catch some sleep before he got back to work again. But he felt there was some serious thing, if Mridula wanted to talk.

"I don't know. In the balcony maybe? We can close the door",Mridula suggested and she removed her hand from his hold and took support of other things and walked to the balcony as he followed her removing his blazer and keeping it on the couch.

She sat on the chair and he settled down on another chair opposite hers.

"What is it, Mridula? Is everything okay?",he asked.

"Someone called me last night threatening that they would destroy me and everything around me. I think it was some idiots drunk calling me",Mridula explained.

"Oh, so they reached till the threat call stage. Interesting! What happened after that? Any other calls till now?",he asked and she nodded her head as no.

"Aaru informed Krishna and he asked me to send the number to track it. I sent him",she said.

"I called him in the evening yesterday, he said he would send the area constable in the morning. It's better we file the FIR as soon as possible",Sharan said.

"Sharan, do you sympathize me?",Mridula asked.

"Why do you ask though?",he asked as he furrowed his eye brows.

"No, just asking.. ",she said as her eyes roamed on the floor.

"Why would I sympathize you? What's going on in your brain, Mridula?",he asked.

"I just felt so.. Thank you for being concerned about me",she said with a small smile on her face to which he just gave a nod.

"I'll go and catch some sleep. You should catch some sleep too",he said and got up from his chair.

"You can go, Sharan! I will sit here for sometime, I can't really go back to sleep now once I wake up",she said.

"I'll stay here then, what will you do alone?",he said and sat back on his chair again

"You can sleep on the couch, maybe! I'll be fine here alone don't worry",she said and he contemplated whether to go to sleep or not.

"Okay, just give me a call if you need anything. Where is your phone?",he asked and she pointed towards the table near the bed. He took long strides and got back her phone in less than a minute.

"I'm just here, in Teja's room if you need, just give me a call",he said and she nodded.

He left the room and reached Teja's room to see it was locked. Sighing, he walked to the couch not having enough energy to survive without his sleep anymore. Meanwhile, Mridula continued to sit there thinking about everything that came to her mind.

Not very surprisingly her phone rang again and this time it was again an unknown number. She left out a frustrated sigh.

"Today, let me start their day with beautiful words coming out of my mouth",she said to herself and answered the call.

"Hello, Mridu?",she heard from the other side. The voice seemed quite familiar.

"Mridu, it's me! Jhansi your colleague",and Mridula finally identified her voice.

"Oh, hi Jhansi! What happened? Why are you calling me at such time? Is everything okay?",Mridula asked.

"No, Mridula! I.. ",as she was going to speak further the phone's line went dead.

Mridula tried calling her again but the phone was already switched off making her more suspicious.

It was four in the morning already and an hour passed already. Her feet felt like it was becoming numb and heavy. She got up from her place trying to move around to make sure blood flows through the leg properly.

Aaradhana woke up by herself at the same time.

"Akka, when did you wake up? Why are you walking around by yourself? Wait, I am coming",she said and got down the bed as she rubbed her eyes.

She held her by her shoulder and helped her walk around.

"Why were you sitting outside? It's soo cool! You should take care of yourself akka",Aaradhana said and helped Mridula sit on the couch. She noticed, Sharan's blazer on the couch.

"Bava came here?",she asked and Mridula nodded.

She went to Mridula's wardrobe and got a shawl out for her. Carefully she wrapped it around her and sat beside her.

"Do you want to drink chai?",Aaradhana asked.

"Not made by you, I don't want to start my day with a bland chai please",Mridula said and Aaradhana pouted sadly.

"Drama! acha Aaru, did Krishna revert anything regarding the call?",she asked.

"Not yet akka, we'll know when he is back in his office again maybe after 9",Aaradhana said and since she was playing with her bracelet it fell from her hand.

She bent to take her bracelet and Mridula looked at something which widened her eyes.

"What the hell is this, Aaradhana?",Mridula asked.

To be continued..

Hello! Hello! Y'all did it, you reached 10 votes goal by this morning and here I am with an update by the evening.

Yet another cliffhanger, one twist coming up in next chapter. All my curious readers, click the vote button and comment your views if you want an early update.

If this update gets 12 votes by tonight, I'll update the next chapter by tonight.

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Sakshi Devi