Rithvik fell back away from Dhun panting and sweating, They had just had sex. Breathless he muttered, "I really want to go back in time and do it again."

Dhun thought for a second and then gasped. Rithvik grinned, "You forgot again."

Dhun laughed and snuggled close to him, "Unfair. If you go back in time and do it, only you will feel the benefit. I won't be able to feel it as several times." He turned to look at her with flirting eyes. Dhun continued, "I also want it as much as you. So I want to feel it every time as well." Rithvik smiled, feeling elated. "And who is stopping you from doing once more," she pushed him. She got on top of him and kissed him.

"Hm... Dhun," he smiled through the kiss, "Not now, I can't right now. Not for a while... Not for a couple of days, I think." She drew up and looked at him. And she laughed. He moved a finger through her hair. "I love you," he said. He liked to say that a lot nowadays.

"Love you too," she said. And then she lay back on the bed beside him.

"Don't ever reverse time on me, okay?" She said moving a finger over his chest.

"Because you want to feel every time?"

"No. Just... I mean, that included. But just generally. Never reverse time with me. I will feel cheated. Violated in some way. So, promise me. Don't. Ever... okay?"

Rithvik is not fully convinced but he nodded.

*

One day after a practical class Ansh was trying to talk to Rithvik, thinking maybe this is the best time to talk to him about Roli. But Rithvik see Dhun and went with her. Ansh sigh.

As Dhun was drinking her milkshake in the canteen, she said, "This Saturday is my birthday."

"Happy birthday," Rithvik said trying to wipe off the grease of his fingers which he got from the practical class.

"That is all?" Dhun asked.

"No. Happy birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy birthday, happy birthday, Happy birthday to you." He sang to her. Dhun got irritated. It was meant to irritate her. She squinted at him. He laughed. "Don't worry, I'll plan something," he said.

"What?" She asked.

"Surprise." He said. Dhun smiled and did not pry further.

Rithvik ran to Ansh's room after reaching home. "Ansh... Ansh... I need your help. It's Dhun's birthday on Saturday and I want to plan the best birthday date ever."

"It's your girlfriend's birthday. So why should I help you?"

"Huh! Pease..." He said, "And are you not my best friend? And best friends are supposed to help each other."

"Okay, fine..." Ansh said. "But you have to remember that I helped you. You are officially indebted to me."

"Huh! What is that? Okay, okay, whatever. Fine. Deal" He was too excited to ponder over that clause.

As Rithvik left, Ansh got a message on his mobile that said 'Hey.' It was from Roli. Ansh smiled. He began to reply to her.

*

Rithvik's plan was a 2 days Goa trip. He surprised her by taking her to the airport and then to Goa from there. Dhun was stunned. She never expected something so grand. She did not want anything superficial like an expensive gift. But she did not want him not celebrating her birthday at all either. This was exactly something that she wanted.

By the time they were having an evening snack in a restaurant near the beach, Rithvik got a phone call from Ansh. "Where are you?" Ansh asked

"Huh? Why?" Rithvik asked.

"You had told me that you need help with Dhun's birthday plans. That you are planning some grand party and all. You told me to find the best wine available."

"Oh yeah..." Rithvik just remembered that he did not reverse time on that. "That plan is cancelled now. She did not like that."

He actually already had planned her birthday party. A luxurious and expensive dinner with an expensive gift. But she hated the whole thing. He tried something small scale too, but Dhun did not seem to be impressed over that either.

"I did not like what?" Dhun looked up.

"Nothing," He looked at Dhun. "It's not about you."

Dhun narrowed her eyes at him but then gave up. Rithvik cut the call and texted Ansh that he will explain to him later.

The next morning, Dhun woke up next to Rithvik. She smiled to see him sleeping beside her. She watched him for a second. He was looking really cute with sleepy hair. She went closer and kissed the side of Rithvik's head. He got a smile on that, while still half asleep. Dhun ruffled his hair a bit and got off the bed and went to the window. It was a fresh morning. After a while, Rithvik got up and came to her. He snuggled to her in a back hug. She smiled and ruffled his hair.

"I didn't know life could be this good. This awesome." Rithvik said and smelled her neck. "I want to just do this every day" Dhun smiled. "I wish I can relive yesterday and this moment over and over and over and over, and never get out of it." He said.

"By yourself?" Dhun asked.

"Hm?"

"Your time turner. It takes only you to the past, right? Then what am I supposed to do? Be your toy in your time game?"

"Dhun, why are you thinking like that?" He drew back from her.

"I hate you reliving everything alone. I have told you, I don't want you to reverse time on me." She turned to him.

"I am sorry," He said, correcting what he said. But he was relieved that she did not know that he already did turn back time on her. But even after he apologised, Dhun looked annoyed.

"I won't talk like that again. Hm? Sorry?"

Dhun smiled at him, not being able to stay mad at him for a long time. Rithvik saw her smile and hugged her tight. "I love you," he said again.

She giggled. "You are so cheesy." She said.

"No. I won't leave you till you say it back to me." He said.

She laughed. "I love you too," She said, "Happy now?"

He drew back and kissed her lips quickly before releasing her. She laughed and walked off to get ready. He was too cute for her to stay angry with him.

Later that day, Dhun decided to get a tattoo. But Rithvik was flinching and jumping back each time the needle touched Dhun's skin. "Can you stop that?" She asked him.

"It's Ugh..." He closed his eyes. The lady tattoo artist laughed at the couple. She finished the tattoo and wiped over it. Dhun admired the small decorative letter 'R' on her wrist. She showed it up to Rithvik.

"You are the cheesy one." He commented. "I am never tattooing your name or something. Ever..."

"Well, nobody asked you to."

"Well, good that they did not. Coz I am not going to." He said and looked at her admiring her new tattoo. He smiled. For him, she was too cute to have done something cliché as tattooing his name's first letter to her hand.

They went to the beach and sat down. Dhun set her head on his shoulder. They held hands, Rithvik moved his hand over the tattoo.

"Does it hurt?"

"A bit," she admitted.

"Should I get one as well," he asked genuinely now, even though he was scared of the needle. "A D, or your full name?"

"No," she said. "You almost fainted at the sight of the needle."

He chuckled. The wind blew in Dhun's hair, so she tucked it away and watched the sunset. "Rithvik..."

"Hm..."

"This is exactly how I wanted to spend my birthday. You know...just the two of us. Nothing too extravagant. Nothing materialistic. Just real. Just us. And a beautiful sunset." Rithvik smiled. Dhun turned to him, "how did you know I wanted this?"

Rithvik got a slightly guilty expression but he smiled, the smile not reaching his eyes. Dhun's sharp eyes caught the expression. She stared at him to further analyze his expression. Rithvik who was kind of feeling guilty now cleared his throat and looked away.

"I wish I can pause the time right now, on this moment," Dhun said looking at the sunset.

"Well, only one person can feel the paused time, so..." Rithvik said involuntarily,

Dhun looked back at him. And he got flustered and looked away.

"Hm... I am guessing right, am I not? You reversed time on me? Is that how you know I wanted this?"

"You are supposed to forget about the time turner you know. Why are you not?"

"Answer me, Rithvik. Did you turn back time on me?"

Rithvik looked away a bit frustrated,

"You did?" Dhun asked. There was no reply. Dhun was angry now. She got up and began to walk away. Rithvik got up, caught up to her and took her hand.

"Dhun, please..."

Dhun had angry tears in her eyes. "I had told you not to. You promised me."

"Can you stop getting so worked up? It was for your happiness, okay? You were happy these two days. Were you not?" Dhun calmed a bit. " What's wrong in it if I am doing it for your happiness?"

Dhun crossed her hand. "Tell me what happened."

"Huh?"

"Tell me exactly what happened."

"Eh... I had planned your birthday. Booked a resort room and flowers and candles and all. But...through the whole thing, you did not appear that happy. And in the end, you said that what you wanted was something simple. Just you and me. Somewhere far. You wanted to watch the sunset with me. So this..." He indicated around him. She looked around. "Sorry, Dhun. But I just wanted you to have a perfect birthday. It was your first birthday after we got together. I just wanted to make it special for you."

"You could have just let it be. We could have come to Goa some other time".

"Yeah, but that would not be your birthday. And I did not want to have messed up your special day, Dhun. I just wanted to impress you a bit more."

"I am already impressed by you, Rith." She was calm now. " You need not impress me more. I love you as you are. And what if you messed up my birthday! That could have been a really great memory for us. Years later we could have laughed over it."

Rithvik thought that over. But then he looked at her. "I am sorry. What happened has happened. Forgive me now."

Dhun considered that. Rithvik tried to hug her. She let him hug her. She really did not want to be mad at him either. But then she remembered something and kind of pushed Rithvik away from her. She looked up at him. " You said you booked a resort room, right?" He nodded. Dhun's expression changed to a serious one now. "Did we have sex?"

Rithvik looked away. "Rith, tell me we did not," Dhun told him.

"What's the big deal?"

"It is a big deal to me." She was angry now. Rithvik just opened and closed his mouth. "And you turned back time after that? What is wrong with you?" Her eyes spilt tears of disbelief and anger and her whole face got read. She was really really angry. "I can't believe you."

"What is the big deal?" He asked.

She looked at him with tears in her eyes. "Asshole..." she hissed at him. And she turned around and walked.

"Dhun... Dhun..." He ran along with her and tried to catch her hand.

"Don't touch me."

"Why are you making such a big deal of it? Because you wanted to feel it and did not?"

She turned to him in anger... "Why are you making me sound like a slut?"

"Ho! When did I? You only said that?"

"Do you really not understand why it pisses me off so much?"

"Yeah. It's just sex. We do it all the time."

"It's my body, okay, Rith?" She yelled at him, "I want to remember it if I had sex. If my body went through that, I want to have the memory of that event."

"But you did not. It happened in an alternate timeline. You of present did not have it."

"You had. You in this timeline. It's in your past. So what is it like, you did it with some other girl or something?"

"Dhun, you know it's just you. And what's the big deal? We have sex all the time. Just one time does not make a difference."

"It makes a difference to me."

"Dhun please..."

"In any case. You had promised me." She continues in a quieter tone "and you broke your promise. You played with me. It breaks my trust in you." She walked away after that.

On the flight back, Dhun did not really speak with Rithvik Her silence was killing him, When they reached Dhun's apartment, she got down from the taxi and was about to go inside without even saying goodbye to him.

Rithvik could not stand it. He got out of the taxi too and paid the taxi driver. Dhun looked back as the taxi moved away.

"Dhun... Can we talk over this? Fix this?" Rithvik said.

She was less angry now. "Can we talk later?"

"No. I want to talk right now. I don't want to go home while you are mad at me. I want to fix this. I am apologizing. Tell me what more can I do?" She crossed her hands. Rithvik continued, "Dhun, I love you. I just wanted you to be happy."

"Yeah, I know that you love me. But do you respect me?"

"What?"

"Do you respect me? My rights..."

"Of course, I do, baby. I love you, respect you, whatever. You really mean a lot to me, Dhun. I don't want to lose you." She was not convinced yet. Rithvik was frustrated now. "It was all okay if you never found out about it. Just think if you had not found out you would have had the best days of your life and you will always remember it that way. It's all because you found out..." But Rithvik realised that he has made things worse by this. Because Dhun was looking really really angry.

"Of course if I had not found out it would have been so damn convenient for you, right? You could have fooled me all the time. Made a fool out of me."

"Come on, I didn't mean that way. "

"Rith, nobody like to be toyed with okay..."

"It's not that. I didn't say that. I take it back. Sorry."

"You already said that. You can't take it back"

"Oh, Shit. Why do I hit my own feet with an axe?"

He scratched his head in frustration. "Okay, wait a sec." He took out the time turner from his pocket.

"What are you doing?" Dhun asked.

"Making it go away."

"I can't believe you..." Her voice cracked.

"I can take back what I said. You won't remember it in a second. Then everything will be okay."

"Rithvik don't you dare..." her voice was pleading. He looked up at her. There were tears in her eyes again. "How could you?"

"Dhun, I am just trying to make things alright between us."

"Okay. While at that, then just go back to Goa, before I knew you turned back time. And let me know nothing."

"Is that better? Yeah, I guess that is better. I will do that." He looked at the time turner. Dhun was flabbergasted now. "God!!! I can't believe you. You said you respect me. Is this how you respect me? By taking away my right to know? By violating my memories? By being manipulative."

Rithvik noticed how angry she was and got a bit too perplexed.

"I hate you" Dhun hissed at him. She was angry enough to want to say that she never want to see him ever again. But then, she loved him too much to say that.

"Dhun, why are you taking this the wrong way?"

"I am taking this the wrong way? What will you feel if I do the same to you??"

Rithvik fell silent. Dhun continued, "Life is so easy for you, right? Something happens and just turn back time?? While we are at this argument just turn back this moment also... I will never have a say about anything between us. If I have an opinion, if I am mad at you, you can just turn back time, right?"

Rithvik was slowly realizing his mistake now.

"In future also, if I ever have a problem with you, just turn back time and fix it. Instead of trying to fix problems like a normal couple, why don't we just turn back time and make the problem vanish?" She wiped her tears. "You want to keep me happy. Always happy. But you are going to do 'that' to make me happy. Take away my present time... Manipulating my life according to you. Fixing everything according to your convenience." She continued strongly, "I don't belong to you. I love you. But I don't want to be your puppet."

And she turned around and walked away leaving Rithvik really looking hurt to the core.