CHAPTER 45 #2
And with that, she picked up her phone and dialled Komal, even as she heard Karan mutter behind her, “Did you just say… deal with it?”
She didn’t reply.
That was Karan Wadhwa, after all, and his tantrums had only just begun. She almost wished she could actually swat his arse to make him listen. Not that her hands didn’t twitch at the thought.
Thankfully, Komal answered immediately, and Mishti focused on the matter.
***************
An hour later, Komal was already at Wadhwa Mansion.
Mishti hadn’t come up with her. She was still downstairs, completing her morning puja, so she had sent Komal ahead, asking her to check on Karan and telling her she would join them in a few minutes.
Komal knocked on Karan’s bedroom door. He was standing near the balcony doors, looking outside, lost in thought, when he heard the knock. He told her to come in, and that was when Komal walked inside.
They had never really gotten along. And even now, when his gaze fell on her, he didn’t smile.
Neither did she.
“I was going to come see you anyway,” Komal said, breaking the silence.
“Yesterday, I was caught up with another emergency at a different hospital. When Abhimanyu told me you’d been shot…
” She paused, then added honestly, “I couldn’t believe it.
Just like everyone else. But thankfully, it wasn’t serious. ”
Karan nodded once and walked toward her.
“Anyway,” she continued, slipping into her professional tone, “let me check your wound. Mishti is worried if the stitches are out.”
“Mishti worries too much,” he muttered as he sat down on the sofa.
Komal sat beside him and first inspected the bandage from the outside. Her brow furrowed slightly. “How did this happen, though?” she asked. “Your morning bandage was soaked in blood. Did you put any pressure on it while sleeping?”
Karan shrugged lightly. “Not deliberately,” he said. “Might’ve pulled Mishti closer in my sleep. That’s all, I guess.”
Komal paused. She stared at him like she’d just heard him crack a joke.
“What?” he asked, mildly offended. “That’s not heavy weight lifting. And honestly, what kind of bandages are these if they can’t sustain a simple gesture from a husband toward his wife?”
That did it.
Komal grinned. “Is this really Karan Wadhwa I’m talking to,” she teased, “or are these your medications speaking? Because the Karan Wadhwa I knew was never this… wife-centric.”
He rolled his eyes. “Doctor,” he said dryly, “do the job you’re here for. I don’t have the time or patience to entertain your teasing.”
Her smile faded as she leaned forward, ready to remove the bandage. But the moment she reached for his arm, he pulled it back sharply.
“Don’t,” he said.
She frowned. “Why not? How am I supposed to inspect what’s wrong if I don’t touch it?”
“Do whatever else you need to,” he replied firmly. “Just… let this be.”
Confused now, Komal hesitated.
Karan then lifted his free hand and lightly touched the bandage himself, his fingers brushing over it with unexpected care. “Mishti tied this,” he said quietly. “Don’t take it off.”
And suddenly, Komal was stunned as she recalled a vivid moment from the past. A moment very similar.
She remembered the day Mishti had injured her leg at the temple. How Karan had cleaned the wound himself, carefully, and tied his own handkerchief around it. And later, when Komal had come to inspect the injury, Mishti had said the same thing.
“He tied it. Don’t take it off, please.”
Komal was instantly emotional. And she wasn’t the only one. Mishti, too, had heard everything.
She had been standing by the door when Karan and Komal were discussing how the earlier bandage had soaked through with blood.
She hadn’t interrupted. She had stayed there quietly, listening, overhearing it all.
Including the part where Karan had flatly refused to let Komal change the bandage simply because she had tied it.
Now, she walked in. Surprise shimmered in her eyes, at Karan’s words, at his gesture, at the depth of it all.
Both Karan and Komal looked up when they noticed her.
Komal finally exhaled a long breath as she looked at the two of them, almost in awe, “You husband and wife… you’re both crazy, you know that?”
She shook her head with a faint smile and added, “Your love is crazy. I don’t think I’ve ever met a couple as madly in love as the two of you.”
Karan and Mishti didn’t respond. They simply looked at each other. Karan felt something warm bloom in his chest at Komal’s words, which he didn’t even try to hide. And Mishti didn’t quite know how to take it all in. She had never believed a day like this would come.
A day when Komal, the same friend who had always said Karan wasn’t good enough for her, was now standing there, openly admitting that the man was crazy about his wife.
About her.
That had to mean something… didn’t it?
Komal cleared her throat, bringing them back to the present and turned to Mishti, clearly defeated. “Mishti, now you tell me what to do. He’s not letting me touch the bandage.”
Mishti snapped out of her thoughts and moved first, straight to Karan. Komal stepped aside, giving her space, and instead pulled an ottoman closer, sitting across from them.
Mishti gently began removing the temporary bandage she herself had tied around Karan’s arm. And Karan let her without a word or protest.
Komal watched the two of them quietly. Then she carefully checked the stitches. “They’re fine. Nothing to worry about.”
Mishti took a sigh of relief as Komal continued, teasingly this time, “But you might want to stop cuddling your wife so tightly at night, Mr Wadhwa… unless you want a repeat of this.”
Karan clenched his jaw, fully aware she was only pulling his leg.
“Next time you visit,” he said dryly, “do bring a feedback form along. I’ve got a lot to write about you. So that your hospital knows better than to send you to treat any couple again.”
Komal burst out laughing, even though he followed it up with, “I’m not joking.”
Mishti couldn’t stop herself from smiling too.
She knew Karan had softened toward Komal in his own way. And she also knew this nok-jhok between them would always remain, no matter what.