Mishti gets stopped by Vivek on the way to her room.

It’s eleven at night, she has already completed her duties and is off to her bed when she sees him, Samrat’s ever-loving valet, standing in front of her room, hands folded across his chest and gaze stuck on his shoes. 

Mishti clears her throat to alert him of her presence, not sure how to address him when they haven’t had even one civil conversation to date.

The man in question looks up at her startled, then clearing his own throat he says, “H-Hello.”

It comes naturally to her, Mishti, the way she gapes, too speechless to reply.

Vivek rolls his eyes at that before dropping the nice demeanour that he couldn’t even keep up for even a second.

“I just want to talk to you, alright?”

Mishti narrows her eyes. “Well, too bad that I don’t want to talk to you.” She says haughtily, trying to go inside her room. 

The man groans. 

“Stop being difficult. I’ll not take much of your time. Please.” He says, his hand in the air, an inch away from her elbow. Mishti isn’t quite able to avoid that ‘please’.

“Fine. You have five minutes.” 

Vivek heaves out a relieved sigh, nodding, and takes a seat on the staircase leading up to Samrat’s room.

He clears his throat once again making Mishti narrow her eyes at him suspiciously.

“I – I heard you while you were talking to sir.” He says in a voice that doesn’t seem to belong to him. 

“Ok…” Mishti trails off, frowning, unsure what to reply.

“About – About your orphanage days,” Vivek states, hesitantly looking her in the eyes and heaves a relieved sigh when he sees Mishti only nodding. 

“I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t but when I heard the word orphanage, I couldn’t help myself.” He says, blowing out air through his mouth. 

“Ok, well I don’t mind if that’s what this is about. We all get curious at some point in time, so I understand, even if it’s you.” Mishti says sassily before turning to go to her room.

“I have spent years being associated with an orphanage,” Vivek says then and Mishti stops in her tracks.

“I didn’t grow up in it, my parents are still alive but – but I have someone to remember by from there.” He explains further making Mishti heave a sigh of relief for him because even though he isn’t her best of friends, she still wouldn’t want him to not have parents. She wouldn’t want that for anyone. Though the melancholy in his voice is still very much evident, something that makes her turn towards him.

 “I had no idea.” She says, looking down at her hands before finding the courage to look him in the eyes. 

Vivek gives her a sad smile, shaking his head. “Of course, you didn’t. We haven’t even talked properly before this.” He says, and she huffs, before sitting down beside him.

“We haven’t because you didn’t want to. You always think that I’ll somehow take your beloved Samrat sir away from you when I have absolutely no intention of doing that.”

“You don’t?” Vivek asks her genuinely, a childlike innocence in his voice.

Mishti sighs. “No, why would I? I work for him just like you do. And I know that you’ve been working with him for years and years and that you guys must have a good bond, but trust me, I don’t have any intentions of putting that into jeopardy.” 

“Thanks for clarifying. That’s – that’s nice of you.” Vivek says before huffing out an embarrassed chuckle, though the sound doesn’t sound too humorous. He nods.

“I know I must’ve looked like a fool thinking that you’d probably do all those things that you’d said you wouldn’t but Samrat sir…. he means a lot to me.” He says quietly as if telling her a secret and this time it is Mishti who gulps. For reasons unknown, her heart thuds in her chest and not in a pleasant way.

“Do you – do you…...like him?” she asks with a brave breath, afraid to look him straight in the eyes. Though she’s forced to do that when her talking companion just says a confused ‘what?’ in return.

She looks at him and seems just as confused as he sounds. Mishti swallows tightly, yet again. “I mean r-romantically? D-Do you like him romantically? D-Don’t worry, I-I’m not homophobic or any –”

A loud laugh escapes Vivek’s mouth at that, his eyes wide as he sobers for a moment before bending to his knees to laugh.

“Shh, Shh!!” Mishti says hastily, gazing upstairs to see if the voice had disturbed Samrat. He barely gets the time to rest.

“What? Why are you laughing like that? Do you want to wake up your beloved employer who you don’t seem to love in the way I thought you did?” she questions, genuinely confused when another wave of laugh hits the man.

“Has somebody t-told you before that you’re very – very funny?” he asks, in between the laughs and Mishti crosses her arms across her chest, gracing him with her unimpressed look.

“Are you done? You may stop laughing now!” she says, unintentionally reminding herself of what seems like Samrat’s favourite dialogue when it comes to her – “You may stop smiling now.”

It makes her smile.

Vivek gapes. “Wait!” he says before looking at her with wide eyes. “Do you like him like that? Romantically?” he asks and Mishti’s follows suit all with her eyes widening and mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“What? N-No! Ha-ha…” she says forcing a chuckle. “What are y-you saying? It’s – It’s n-nothing like that.” She gulps.

Vivek narrows his eyes. “Your stuttering doesn’t say so.”  

“Stop focusing on me. And continue what you were saying about your boss and the orphanage.” She says, changing the subject. 

Vivek gives her one last amused smile before relenting. “So, as I was saying, Sir means to me a lot but not in the way you’re suggesting.” He pauses to give her an amused smile. “Because I already have someone in my life…. I had.” He amends wistfully, leaning against the railing. “I had met the girl when I was fourteen and she was thirteen. We had met at an abandoned plot where she had reached while chasing a puppy and I was there to give lunch to my father who worked as a guard there. Our story, at least that’s what I like to call it, had begun from there.” Vivek says, a faraway look on his face juxtaposed with a smile. It makes Mishti smile too. 

“We instantly became friends, and as time passed on, she told me that she lived in the nearby orphanage but wasn’t necessarily allowed to go out of the gates. She did it because she was exhausted from being cooped up in that place. From that day I started caring even more for her, brought her two lunch boxes from home. My mother used to cook her favourite food. My father too was happy seeing us together considering that I was an introvert and hadn’t had a single good friend till then. It went on for weeks and months and years until my father lost his job."

"I went out looking for a job as an eighteen-year-old boy and was appointed here by sir’s father as his valet and have been working here since. I couldn’t meet the girl every day anymore but that was ok because I still got to meet her on weekends and give her the food that I now cooked myself but then I heard some news, news that brought my life to a screeching pause. She had run away from that place, that orphanage, and I had no way of contacting her. It was only then that I realised that I didn’t only care for the girl but somewhere had fallen in love with her. Deeply in love. I didn’t dare tell this all to anyone trying to locate her myself, until I shared the story with Samrat Sir, three years ago."

"He’s been trying to find her since, interrogating every orphanage in this city, and this state. He says that she might have changed her name for escaping the place for once and all, but he still hasn’t stopped looking for her. And even though sometimes I tell him to not bother with all this, I’m hopeful that one day I’d come across her.” Vivek confesses, a small, sad smile on his face as he finishes. 

Mishti finds herself smiling too, both at Samrat’s benevolence and Vivek’s unexpected and beautiful love story, although a thought still knocks behind her mind, one that she voices out.

“That’s wonderful of him, and I know that it must be hard for you awaiting any news about her every day, but sometimes – sometimes things happen for good. Not all orphanages are what they claim to be. Sometimes they do more harm than good, they ruin your life and so I think it was for better that she ran away.” Mishti says pensively before sighing. “But you tell me her name. I’ll try to look for her as well.” She says giving Vivek a small smile that he returns. 

Though before he can even utter a single word, a loud noise of a throat clearing barrels into their ears, making them both look upwards only to find their boss glaring at them.

“What are you two doing there so late at night?” he says, narrowing his eyes suspiciously and both Mishti and Vivek don’t need to think for a second before they jump away from each other, a look of disgust naturally overcoming their features realising how close they had come to each other while talking. Involuntarily of course.

Vivek shakes his head, looking at Samrat with panicked eyes. “It’s nothing, sir. I was just – I was going to sleep but she said that she wanted to tell me something.”

Mishti gasps at the blatant lie, and gives a stink eye to the man, gritting her teeth. “That’s an absolute lie, sir. It was him –”

“I don’t care who stopped whom.” Samrat cuts her off midway, making her pout, his stare still as deathly. 

He sniffs. “Just go to your rooms now. Separate rooms.” He clarifies squinting his eyes. Mishti imitates the action and glares at Vivek, gesturing a punch at him before speeding into her room and smiles when she hears Samrat scolding Vivek some more. 

Ha! Serves him right.