• ADVIKA •

AN HOUR LATER…

As the movie ended with a group picture of Arjun, Laila, Imraan, Nuria, Kabir, and Natasha at Arjun-Laila’s wedding, I went back to the home screen of Netflix and looked back at Ishaan, who was looking up at the ceiling with that iconic “I feel good watching a feel-good movie” grin on his face.

“Hey! Did you like the movie?” I asked the customary question, though I knew he loved it. His face said it.

“Do you think you need answers for that?” He looked at me and asked, guessing exactly that I asked while knowing the answer beforehand. He straightened his posture and exclaimed, “Oh, shit! I just forgot something!”

I pointed my chin at him as if to ask what was that while he leaned closer to the handle of the couch and took out a paper bag out of the air like magic. He extended the bag towards me and pointed his chin at it, replying to my raised eyebrows.

I accepted the bag and opened it, only to see a familiar bunch of four white-coloured books with tints of blue, yellow, red, and green. Trying not to show off my surprised gasp that may seem dramatic, I took the bunch out and read the title of the book that was the first of the stack: Twisted Love. The books were exactly the same as I had in my bookshelf, except that it was heavier than the ones I have. I knocked on the face of the bunch. It sounded too loud for a normal paperback book's cover. And, that was when it hit me.

“Hardcovers!” I squealed like a rat who spotted a slice of cheddar cheese and covered my mouth— which revealed the gasp of my surprise— with my hands and exhaled through it to suppress my recurrent fits of laughter. “Ishaan! How did you manage to get that?”

“At the bookstore,” he replied as if it was so obvious, but no, it wasn't. Anyhow, this guy wouldn't understand the worth of universes like his which are framed in hard-bound covers. I looked down to see another familiar book inside the bag. It was olive green with words printed in golden ink. Though I knew them at an instant, I took it out and showed the front cover to him, sighing, “Meet your universe. You Belong With Me: written by Aadya Chatterjee.”

“Oh!” His eyes widened as though realisation dawned on him and grabbed the book from me. “This is for me.” He placed the book at the centre of his chest and hugged it. “Now… On a scale of 1 to 10, how complete do you feel?”

“Hmmm… One less than infinity,” I reply after pondering over my mind for a best answer.

“Then, what can make it to infinity?”

“This.” No words escaped my mouth as I had already sealed it with his, preventing words from flowing off mine. Though I wished to settle him with a hot smooch, all I could manage was to give off a delicate peck that may deceive one's eyes to tell whether our lips touched or not. But, our first kiss was the Pharaoh's Secret: only those involved would know what exactly was that. And, being the one involved, I knew that it was a kiss indeed.

Breaking the touch between us, I looked at his face as white as a sheet of real snow with his eyes that may roll out of his sockets anytime soon. And, that made me laugh at him. I mean, with that iconic expression, he looked like a meme template. “This makes it an infinitely complete night for me. Thanks for making my special day even more special.”

Realising that he had been sitting frozen for too long to react, he retrieved himself from the surprise and sighed as if it was last, “I don't think I would have a good sleep tonight.”

We laughed together at his “plight” as the lack of oxygen in my brain forced me to yawn. The timing was wrong indeed, but the timing wasn't wrong. I looked at the digital clock: fifteen minutes past midnight. No wonder I yawned.

“Fine, Ishaan. It's Monday tomorrow. Which means…” I paused and shrugged, letting him continue the sentence with his version of, “I need to go to my Uni.”

He nodded humbly and replied, “Sure. Good night.”

As I got up, I remembered something that I almost forgot to say.

“Ishaan.” He replied to my call with a hum. “I think you need to go to your universe.” As he frowned as though to assess my IQ level, I raised my hand as though to stop him and said, “You have a job there. Something you get paid for,” in a tone Aarvi used to call “no-nonsense”.

“Like… Do you want me to go now?” He asked, his tone begging me to say no.

“No. Aarvi needs to be informed of it. So, stay till tomorrow morning.”

Though I did not want him to leave and stay back with me while working, just like every other man in this universe, I need to be pragmatic. This is real life.

“Do you want me to stay only for Aarvi?” He raised his eyebrows, demanding a proper answer that would sound more like myself.

“Good night, Ishaan,” I replied and went to my bedroom, aware of the fact that I was leaving him outside alone. I looked at the bed and saw Aarvi sleeping in a seemingly uncomfortable position, with Corporate Law notes below her head. I lifted her head delicately, took out the notes, packed the bag, placed them aside, and made her sleep straight before getting myself to sleep. And anyhow, I don't think I would be able to do that tonight.

I didn't know if I sound too dramatic, but I think I would be missing him so much. Like, I knew that we're technically a 3-minute-long song away from each other. But, was it just normal to feel this way? To miss your boyfriend despite him being too near to you?

Okay, fine. I was just being too dramatic. Let me just shut up and sleep.

***

THE NEXT DAY…

Aarvi and I stepped out of our room together with our bags and saw Ishaan sitting on the couch, with his face covered with his hands and You Belong With Me on the teapoy.

“Hey, Ishaan! Good morning,” Aarvi greeted in her usual chirpy tone, unaware of the existing friction between myself and Ishaan. “Did you sleep well last night?”

He took his hands out of his face, giving a clear peak of his distraught face and teary eyes.

Oh, shit! I made him cry for real.

“Hey! Are you okay?” Aarvi questioned, turning back at me, who refused to look anywhere but him. “What happened?”

He took out the book and opened one of the last pages and turned the book upside down. Looking at me, he pointed his chin at the book, suggesting we should give it a look at that.

Unlike Aarvi, who was rooted to the ground, I walked up to him and accepted the book from him. Flipping it upside down, I saw a black-and-white picture of Aadya Chatterjee smiling her heart out with two lines written about her.

I knew what he was trying to ask.

“Yes.” I nodded my head and added, “She is the author. Aadya Chatterjee.”

“Yeah, I know that!” He raised his voice as if I got it wrong. “But… I have seen her.” Noticing our eyebrows developing into a perplexed frown, he raised his voice a little more and explained, “Like, we've met each other once. I've seen her. She's seen me.”

“Wait! What does that mean, Ishaan? Does Aadya Chatterjee know all about you? Did you blabber anything to her?” Aarvi shot the questions at Ishaan at one go, making all of us lose breath in totality.

“Aarvi, wait!” Ishaan exclaimed and let out a deep breath through his mouth. “Yes, I met this girl Aadya. She met me as well. We had a brief conversation. We took a selfie. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Selfie? So, does she have a picture of your—”

“What are the other things she knew about you?” I interjected Aarvi, knowing that my question's answers are more important than hers.

“My name. And that I'm new to Delhi,” he informed, with Aarvi pressing her hands harder and my senses relaxing a bit.

“Thank God! I hope she doesn't find much more about it. It's not really that she will conclude that you're technically from a parallel universe,” I sighed and looked at Aarvi, whose eyes were glaring at her mobile. “What happened?” My eyebrows met each other as my gaze was fixed to her.

“Advika.” I hummed in response to her call. “Do you remember those posts Aadya Chatterjee posted on the AI art made by her fans?” Remembering the post she had mentioned, I nodded a yes, almost guessing what she meant to say. But then, due to extreme loss of words, she said none and extended her mobile to me. I accepted it and saw the slides of fan-made AI art, some depicting various scenes from You Belong With Me while others reimagining iconic movie scenes with “Ishaan” and “Maahi”. I looked particularly at Ishaan's face in all the drawings. All of them were so strikingly familiar— obviously, they had to be so— as I compared them with the guy standing in front of me. “Don't you think Aadya Chatterjee would have found this out by now?”

I glared back at her in realisation, my mind refusing to accept the fact. Then, as if on cue, we heard Aarvi's mobile ping, notifying her of a new notification in waiting. I gave her the mobile back, allowing her to check it out.

With the help of the light radiating from her mobile screen, we could see the unanticipated shock from her. Ishaan, who noticed it at the earliest, asked what was that while instead of replying with her words, Aarvi gave her mobile to him. Ishaan walked to me so that we could see it together. We could get traumatised together.

It was a post from Aadya Chatterjee's personal account, aadyachats, which was a private account that only her age-old fans like Aarvi are allowed to view. A post that helped us know her perspective on a chaos that was haunting our house.

aadyachats Dear Reader,

I don't know whether I'm allowed to post this, which was why I posted this pic in this account. So, a few days ago, I met this guy, and… This guy looked exactly like the one I'd imagined for our baby Ishaan. He had this Indo-Italian-esque Italian accent in his tone (fun fact: he said he was new to Delhi). What was much more surprising was that his name is Ishaan Ahuja (like, MAN!). Could this be a coincidence?

What are your views on this Ishaan Ahuja, y'all?

And, above was the selfie Aadya Chatterjee captured with Ishaan.

“Fuckin’ shit!” I heard the curse from Aarvi, the most unexpected person, as she placed the mobile inside her jeans' pocket.

Then, we heard the thing that was the least expected of all probabilities.

“I'm going to confess it all to Aadya,” said Ishaan, that made our heads turn at him as instantly as possible.

I, trying to deduce whether Ishaan forgot all parts of his brain in his universe, questioned, “Are you sure of what you were blabbering? Like, you have a brain, don't you?”

“I have—” Ishaan assured in a firm— as firm as a stubborn teen— tone. “—a brain indeed, Advika. And…” He sighed deeply through his mouth and continued, “I know what I'm asking for.”

“But… Why?” I thought I was the one asking this in the most dreariest way possible until Aarvi joined me as well.

“Why not? My existence may be just a book for you all, but it's a creation as well. Because, it's real. The one who created me may be a mere human for you all, but she's more like a Goddess for me. While she is the reason for my existence and knows everything about myself and my world, it makes me feel bad that she— out of all people— can't know about this new and special person in my life.”

Though this sounded quite childish to me, looking from his perspective, he did make some sense. But unfortunately, she wasn't the Goddess she imagined. She was a mere human, just like you and I.

“I.. I agree, Ishaan.” I turned to him, placed my hand on his, and gripped it hard while continuing, “But… I don't really think that she would approve of our relationship.”

“We'll convince her, dear. That's what you'd do when our parents don't approve of our relationship, right? If you can convince four people who are double your age, can't we convince someone who's almost of our age group?” He asked the rhetorical question in a tone that sounded tempting to me. “And, do you think she is foolish enough not to understand this? If so, she wouldn't have created a hot male lead like me, would she?”

Chuckling at his subtle joke, I thought of the context behind his words. It all felt wrong to me. This whole convincing part. It didn't add up well to me. My entire instinct told me that this would only mess up what was going on already.

But, there was this other feeling in me that told me that it wouldn't hurt much if I try this for him. At least, I tried.

Sighing out of defeat, I nodded a yes without even looking at him and approved, “If you wish so,” and stayed mum till it was time to replace it with another set of words. “It's time for college. We need to go fast. Bye, Ishaan.”

“Breakfast?” He asked as though breakfast was the only concern at that moment.

“We have some money. We'll manage.” As we were about to leave the house, I stepped back inside and warned him, “And, you! Go to your universe now. I don't want to see you here this evening.”

As we left the apartment, Aarvi asked, “Do you mean what you're saying? Do you too think that Aadya Chatterjee would agree to this whole stuff? This can bring grave danger to both of you.”

“I have thought about this, Aarvi. And, yes, I know what I'm doing,’’ I replied in my typical no-more-negotiation tone; to myself more than to her— so that I won't be backing off from this when I think about it.

***

These guys are just so cute together, aren't they? Well... Let's see if they DO remain happy forever (or maybe... They don't).

Stay tuned for more, peeps!