It had been thundering down the street all night, loud lightning and dark sky but it is only now that the pitter-patter of the rain has begun.

Mishti had been waiting for the arrival of her brother for half an hour, hands clutching tightly at the straps of her bag, half of her face covered by a scarf in an attempt to conceal her identity, her eyes warily gazing at her surroundings every five seconds, apprehension getting best of her.

It was then when she had received a call, from the said man who stated that his car has broken down but he'll be there shortly.

Mishti, like a good sister, had told him not to bother and that she'll come home by herself in a cab.

Mihir had protested.

"No, Chutki. It's twelve in the night, the weather is not very amiable, neither are those things in your bag. You know we can't let anyone doubt you." He had said and then groaned, most likely to himself.

"I – I don't know how this happened. Everything was planned, I was on my way to you but then the tire punctured. I can't seem to find any cab on this highway, and it would take Raghav or Ranvi so much more time to reach to you...."

"Bhai! Calm down, will you? I'm big enough to take care of myself as well as this bag, so don't worry, ok? I'm pretty sure I'll find some transport on this street. I'll see you in half an hour." Mishti could tell that he wanted to protest but knew that this was probably the fastest option, and so he had begrudgingly agreed.

That had been fifteen minutes ago and Mishti is still waiting for a cab.

It isn't until she hears the police siren in the near distance that the panic settles in her heart, eyes frantically searching all over the place to hide.

Miraculously, it is then that she sees a taxi zooming in her direction, but the speed at which the car is moving, not slowing down to pick up a ride, tells her that it already carries a passenger. But that doesn't matter to her. Between the nearing police siren and a passenger filled cab, the choice is obvious for someone like her. 

Making a quick decision, Mishti flails her hand in the rain splattered air for the driver to see, her uncovered forehead getting marred with lines of distress which hopefully would make the driver sympathize with her, should he be a good person.

Turns out he is a good man when he stops his speeding car right in front of her, rolling down the window as he peeks from it from the driver's seat.

"Miss, do you need a ride? Mine is the last cab that would be passing through this street for the next six hours."

Mishti answers the man with a grateful nod, opening the door to the back seat and settling in. As predicted, a passenger is dozing off there, his head thrown back on the headrest and mouth opened in silence. What grabs her attention though is that even while asleep, the man has a huge furrow between his brows and lines marring his temple.

Shaking the thought out of her head, Mishti tells the driver to drop her on the highway, not giving him her proper address, lest any investigation happens in the future.

The sleeping man lets out a noise then, something akin to a sorrowful whimper.

"Don't mind him," the driver interrupts her train of thoughts, looking back at her from the rear-view.

"He has been like this for hours, talking in his sleep and letting out those noises. I think he's drunk. Had it not been for the money he had given me beforehand, I would've dropped him somewhere on the street. It's been hours since I'm driving, and he still hasn't told me his address." The driver grumbles, an exasperated look on his face.

House No. 293, White Villas Road, Pitampura, North Delhi.

Mishti reads the address that's written on the business card but doesn't say it out loud.

"His house is right around the corner," she says instead, trying not to look the driver in the eyes whose eyes, she can only assume are currently portraying confusion.

"Is it? How do you know?" he asks but Mishti has nothing to say in response. She's not going to tell him that she has snooped around the man's pockets to find the said card because that's what criminals do.

"Anyways, good for us – me, good for me! I just want him to get out of my car." The driver chuckles, somewhat nervously,  glancing at her from the rearview but Mishti doesn't bother replying, simply exhaling a breath of relief.

821XXXXXXX, the number on the card says.

SEPIA - INDIA'S LEADING FURNITURE MANUFACTURER, the front of it tells.

And Mishti is only able to read till then until another sound erupts from the mouth of the man sitting beside her. This time a bit more comprehensible, a bit more distressed.

"Y-You lied...." The sleeping man cries as he shifts in his seat, another whimper following those words.

"Why – you...why do it – you...." his words become increasingly incomprehensible as he goes on, the furrow between his brows only deepening with the passing seconds.

Another sound follows those words, this time a choked-up sob that has the man's face crumbling.

Mishti's heart positively breaks for the stranger. God knows what all he must have had gone through for him to be like this.

"Ugh! Why can't this psycho just shut up? I think I should just drop him on the next turn." The driver doesn't stop complaining and Mishti realizes that he isn't as good as she had thought him to be.

But Mishti zones him out completely in favour of focusing on the person lying next to her, his hands clenched into fists from where they had been previously resting languidly on his thighs, the frown loosening on his face just to be overcome by another melancholic expression, eyes scrunching tight before suddenly fluttering open.

An involuntary gasp leaves Mishti's mouth at the action, her gaze not ready to turn away. She sees as the man observes his surrounding, groaning and straightening up in his seat.

"Arghh..." he exclaims holding his probably throbbing head, before looking straight at Mishti.

"Y-You!" He exclaims, a shock evident in his eyes that turns to confusion moments later. "Who are y-you?" he questions, finger-pointing at Mishti who instinctively brings her bag closer to her chest, and before she can answer, the car comes to a stop.

"Here. Now get out of my car, you irresponsible spoilt brat. God knows how your parents must be surviving with you. I bet you starve them just to buy yourself some drinks. Bloody bastard!" the driver curses and Mishti's temple invites a frown hearing those untoward and completely unnecessary words.

The man sitting beside her lets out a pained noise at that. He looks at her, face crumpled, finger pointing towards the driver. "He – he talked bad about m-my parents, my f-father."  The man complaints, a childlike innocence in his eyes that convert to rigidness when Mishti can't find the proper words to the man with or admonish the driver.

His eyes shine with betrayal when he looks at her one last time before getting out of the car with a loud huff, taking the support of the open door when the drunkenness doesn't let him stand straight on his feet.

He shakes his head before taking one look through his surroundings and heading in a specific direction, most probably that huge mansion that is situated just a few steps away, staggering on his feet.

Mishti stays sitting in the car, unable to come to a quick decision. On one hand, she has to reach her house as quickly as possible to her brother awaiting her, on the other hand, there is an unexplainable urge in her heart to follow the stranger who has just gotten out of the car, wanting that look of betrayal to change into something else before not seeing him for the rest of her life.

"So.... where would you want to go, now that the obstacle is out of the way."

She suddenly hears the driver saying, and when she looks up at him it is only to find him staring at her through the rearview, a slightly perverted smirk crawling up his lips as he scans her body.

"You can remove that scarf now." He drawls in the same demeanour, making a shiver run down her spine in the most horrible way possible.

Indeed she had been too quick to title him as a 'good man'.

Mishti gets out of the car quickly, shutting the door with a bang, throwing the money on his face and following the stranger to where he is heading.

Had it not been for the bag, she would've taught that driver a lesson, both about how to speak to another individual about their parents and how to look respectfully at a woman.

Mishti reaches the stranger just as he stumbles through an invisible stone, swaying on his steps. She wounds an arm through his waist, supporting his weight on her side before he falls face-first on the floor.

The man looks at her wide-eyed, a flash of recognition shining through his eyes before he narrows his eyes at her, pulling away.

He frowns. "Who – who are you and why a-are you following me?" the man asks, all the while entering through the gates of the villa, the guard sleeping in his cabin as per her luck. She holds the man back by his arm when he tries to wake the guard up.

"Let him sleep, he's tired. You are too, aren't you?" she asks the man in a soft, steady voice as if talking to a child. The man's face relaxes at that, but the look of doubt doesn't vanish completely from his eyes.

"I'm sorry I didn't scold that man for saying bad about your father. It was wrong of him and wrong of me," Mishti says then and sees with a slight smile behind her mask as the man's gaze immediately softens at the confession.

"But some people are bad like that. They are not worth it. You should just leave them be." She continues and the man nods, a flash of hurt passing through his eyes.

"Yes, some people are b-bad. They l-lie and before y-you –you have a chance to l-leave them; they leave –" The man slurs before coming to a stop at the front of his door, looking at the locked piece of furniture confusedly.

"You have the key, don't you?" she Mishti asks but the man keeps staring at the door, brows furrowed, his index finger raised in the air.

"Wait." He exclaims suddenly, turning slightly to point that raised finger towards her. "Are you – are you following me?" he asks and Mishti freezes on spot, not believing that the man is still capable of asking such questions even when he's drunk. But before she can say anything in her defence, the man shakes his head, a laugh escaping his mouth.

A humourless, bitter laugh.

"On a s-second thought –" he starts unlocking the door with a weird object, a card. "You're welcome to take anything you like. People – People d-don't stay with me for too long, y-you see. But you're here....." He takes her hand that is not clutching the bag and pulls her inside the house. "Take whatever you want. Anything!" he yells in the empty house, the voice echoing throughout.

Mishti doesn't wait for too long or bother pondering upon those extremely melancholic words voiced by the man because clearly something else is more important right now and that is to make the man sit somewhere seeing how he is staggering through the chairs that have been haphazardly put inside what seems to be a living room.

It's as if a storm had hit this place that had forced someone to act upon their rage and sorrow and push the furniture everywhere, probably this same man.

"Where's your bedroom?" Mishti asks, keeping her bag on the sofa, and holding the man by his forearm. She had probably underestimated his discretionary powers seeing the scandalized face that he's currently making at her question.

Mishti truly doesn't know if to roll her eyes at the man's train of thought or laugh at how childlike he looks. She settles on the former. "Get your head out of the gutter, 'kay? You have to lie down on your bed otherwise you'd be found lying on this floor!"

"Really?" the man asks with a genuine face, eyes wide and mouth gaping, and this time Mishti's unable to stifle the small chuckle that leaves her mouth.

"Really, so now direct me to your room."

Turns out that his room is situated on the first floor of his house which means that Mishti has to make his drunk self climb the stairs which safe to say turns out to be one of the most tedious tasks of her life.

Though once they are there and the man sprawled across his bed, Mishti heaves a sigh of relief, panting as she does. It's enough she decides. The man is safe in his home, on his bed. There isn't a look of betrayal on his face anymore and it's not like she has all the time in this world. She must get back to her house to the people awaiting her.

Mishti decides to leave.

However, just as she turns back towards the door, a noise once again catches up to her, making her stop in her tracks.

"Tired already?" his voice sounds hoarse, heavy with sorrow as he raises on his elbows to say those words. "She went after – after a year, and he –"

Mishti hears the man swallow audibly, his voice breaking with the next few words. "– and he took twenty-two to go. They all leave. Am I so bad? Is – is it, is it my face? Is something wrong with it? Is it the scruff? I'll shave it tomorrow, I promise."

The words have Mishti's cooing sadly, her heart aching for a man she doesn't know, whom she'd probably never meet again. It forbids her feet to take another step forward.

"N-No one likes me, n-no one stays. They all – they all hate me!" The man's voice breaks as a whimper follows those words. Mishti despite herself and the bag awaiting her on the sofa, finds herself turning around and walking towards his bed, and sitting beside where he is laying, his elbows once again lying flat on the mattress, the back of his hand covering his eyes as whimper after whimper escapes his lips, culminating into a heart-wrenching sob.

"Shhh, it's ok." She whispers, hesitantly reaching out to pet his hair, something someone would do to calm down a baby.

"I'm not going anywhere, see? I'm right here." She says and watches with a small quirk of his lips as the man lifts his hand from his eyes and looks at her with a disbelief that breaks her heart yet again.

"I – I don't know who hurt you like this; who left you and why they did but it's their loss, yeah? They never tried to take out their time and get to know you, they don't know what they are missing out on." She says and then with a quiet voice adds, "Life is shorter than you think. You shouldn't be hung up on the past.... Though had it been me, I would've never left your side." Mishti consoles with words that she doesn't know would have been true or not had that been the case, but something tells her that it's the former. That this man probably has a heart of gold if his childlike and drunken innocence that forces him to bawl his eyes out, is anything to go by.

"You think so?" he asks with a quivering lower lip and astonishment in his voice, and this time it's Mishti whose eyes mist a little as she nods. "I know so."

The man's hand reaches out then towards her scarf, probably looking to remove it which makes Mishti flinch back. The man's face crumples.

"I – I just want to see what you – you l-look like. You're the f-first person to say that to m-me." His voice breaks as he says that making Mishti smile sadly behind her scarf.

"It's the words that matter, not the face, right?" she says then, patiently and sees as the man's face relaxes once again, as he nods, wiping the stray tear clinging to his eyelashes.

Mishti's phone starts vibrating in her pocket then, and she without a doubt knows that it's her brother calling her and that she'll have to get out from here now.

"I'll – I'll go to the washroom and come back, yeah?"  Mishti whispers to the man who has his eyes closed, his chest heaving up and down relaxed. It doesn't continue for too long though, because this time when the man opens up his eyes, he seems almost sober, an unkind, almost sorrowful smile crawling up his face.

"You're lying. You're not going to come back. Ever again."  He chuckles humorlessly before averting his glassy gaze and staring blankly at the ceiling. A sigh escapes his lips, this time seeming a lot heavier. "But that's ok. I don't need anyone." He states, turning his face to look up at her.

"Don't need cruel liars like her," his eyes land at something behind her before flitting back towards her, his hand yet again reaching to her face that Mishti doesn't stop this time. But instead of removing her scarf like she thought he would, he just gives her a small smile and brushes away a stray tress from front of her eyes.

"– or sweet liars like you. Go."

Mishti leaves the house with a guilt that she hadn't even felt while filling up her bag with someone's precious jewels and hard-earned money, because earlier she had broken into a person's house, but this time she had broken a person's heart.