CHAPTER 46
ARYAN
I never thought I’d be the kind of man who knows where the spare mugs are in someone else’s kitchen. Or which switch in her living room flickers if you press it too hard. Or that the faint creak in her bedroom door isn’t a problem—it just needs to be pushed a little harder at the bottom.
Her apartment doesn’t feel like someone else’s space anymore. It feels… known.
Familiar in small, quiet ways.
The faint smell of coffee that never really leaves. Books stacked in slightly uneven piles. A throw blanket that always ends up half on the floor by the end of the night.
Her.
“Sit,” she says, already moving toward the couch.
I raise a brow. “Bossy.”
“You like it.”
She doesn’t look at me when she says it, but I catch the hint of a smile tugging at her mouth.
I drop onto the couch beside her anyway. “What are we watching?”
She gives me a look like I’ve offended her. “You don’t remember?”
I don’t. That’s probably a mistake. “…should I?”
She grabs the remote and presses play with unnecessary force. “My comfort show,” she says, like that explains everything.
The screen lights up.
I recognize it vaguely. Not because I’ve watched it, but because Radhika loves this one and forced me to sit down to watch it which I gave up in almost thirty minutes because I tend to stay ten thousand miles away from things that remotely scares me, but maybe I have changed because Ishika scares me and I love that.
Besides there's no way in hell I will not do something she likes.
I lean back into the couch, stretching my legs out, trying to look like I belong here—which, annoyingly, I’m starting to.
She pulls the blanket over herself, tucking her feet under her and then throws some on me too, I try to hide my smile but I am definitely failing by the irritated look Ishika is giving to me.
I notice things like that now. The way she gets comfortable. The way she relaxes differently when she’s not trying to hold herself together.
The show starts properly and it starts coming back to me, how intense this was. There's tension building on screen, something lurking in shadows, music doing that thing where it climbs just enough to make your brain anticipate something unpleasant.
I shift slightly.
I glance at her. She’s completely engrossed. Eyes fixed on the smart television..
“Relax,” she mutters without looking at me.
“I am relaxed.”
“You just moved like something’s behind you.”
“There could be.” I say my face pulling into a frown.
“It’s a fictional show.”
“Tell that to my instincts.” She snorts.
I glare at the screen.
Something jumps. I flinch and she slowly turns towards me, her lips pressed together as if she's trying to contain a laughter but her eyes are giving it away. She’s enjoying this far too much.
I shift again, this time less subtly, leaning closer to her under the pretense of adjusting the blanket.
She shakes her head as I lean forward and very smoothly—at least in my eyes—wrap my arms around her shoulder. She narrows her eyes at me but smiles, "Will snuggling help you watch a kids show that should definitely not scare a thirty two years old man?"
"If I get to snuggle with you, I would watch anything..." I pull a face, "Even those Conjuring movies."
She laughs. Full, unrestrained laughter this time. And a loud noise from the screen makes my body jerk. I close my eyes briefly. "I hate this show."
She snickers, "let's not watch it then. I don't want to force—" I peck her lips to interrupt her sentence.
"No, it's your favorite show, I am watching it." I declare, "even if I pass out after it...or you may have to at least give me a CPR..." I beam at the way she gasps, "which I will happily accept by the way."
She rolls her eyes, "You won't have a say if it reaches to CPR, Golden boy. You would be happy to accept it from anyone."
I tsk, "I would rather have only you touch my lips." She blushes and I love that.
"Can we stop talking about your near death please...I don't like it."
I smile softly this time, interlinking our fingers, "I like it when you care for me."
"I always care for you golden boy...I may just not show it." She shrugs and I press a kiss in her hair and feel her melt a bit in my chest. She leans forward and closes the laptop as she pushes me on the couch. I follow her lead and my breath catches in my lungs as she lies down beside me.
We're cuddling. Oh my god. Ishika Vyas is cuddling with me. Dreams do come true.
Not the first time we are cuddling but the first time she has initiated it. I let her warmth engulf me and the press of her body against mine feels so...good. As if she's a magnet and she takes away all my stress. "Talk to me, Golden boy." She whispers.
“You ever feel like you had people around you,” I inhale the scent of her hair, it spreads comfort in my chest, “but still didn’t have the one person you actually needed?”
The words come out quieter than I expect. She doesn’t answer immediately. I don’t look at her. I don’t know if I want to see her reaction.
“I had my family, Rudra, Siddhant,” I continue, my voice steady even though something under it feels… off-balance. “They were always there. Still are.”
My fingers tighten around hers without me meaning to.
It’s strange—how you can say something that sounds whole on the surface and still feel the hollow underneath it.
“I wasn’t alone,” I add, quieter now. “Not really.”
She shifts slightly against me, her head resting more comfortably against my chest. I can feel the weight of her there. The warmth. The steady rhythm of her breathing. It does something to me. Calms me down and unsettles me at the same time.
“But I still felt like something was missing,” I say, staring at the ceiling. “Like there was this…gap I couldn’t explain.”
She doesn’t interrupt. That’s something about Ishika.
When she listens—she really listens. No rushing.
No fixing. No pretending she understands more than she does.
Just… presence. “I had people who would show up if I called,” I continue.
“People who would fight for me, stand by me, do anything I asked.”
I pause. “That’s not the same as having someone who sees you before you even say anything.” My thumb brushes absently over her knuckles. “You know?” I murmur.
She hums softly. I exhale slowly. “I think I got used to being…easy to handle,” I admit. “Not needing too much. Not asking for anything that would make things complicated.”
That part comes out more honestly than I expect. “I didn’t even realize I was doing it,” I add. “It just…became normal.”
Normal to be the one who adjusts. Normal to not expect more. Normal to fill your own spaces. “And then you came in like a storm and made everything complicated anyway,” I say, glancing down at her.
She tilts her head slightly, looking up at me. There’s no defensiveness in her eyes. Just quiet curiosity. “And now?” she asks.
“Now I notice it,” I say simply.
“The gap?”
“Yeah.”
She studies my face like she’s trying to map that answer onto something she understands. “And I hate that I notice it more now,” I admit with a small, almost self-aware smile. “Because I was doing fine before.”
“Were you?” she asks quietly.
I don’t answer immediately. Because I don’t have a clean answer to that. I was…functioning. I was moving forward. I was okay. But fine? I huff out a soft breath. “I thought I was,” I say. Her fingers tighten around mine. Just a little.
“You don’t seem like someone who lets themselves feel that kind of…emptiness,” she says slowly.
I laugh under my breath. “That’s exactly the problem.”
“I don’t,” I admit. “Or I didn’t.” Saying it out loud feels…strange. Like pulling something into the light that’s been sitting quietly in the background for years. “It’s easier to stay busy,” I continue. “To focus on things that make sense. Work. People. Responsibilities.”
“Control,” she adds softly. I glance at her. Yeah. She gets it.
“Control,” I repeat.
There’s a pause. “And me?” she asks. The question is quiet, I can hear she’s trying to be careful.
I look at her fully now. At the way she’s watching me—not guarded, not distant. Just…open enough to ask something that matters. “You?” I echo.
She nods slightly. “What am I in all of this?”
“You’re the reason I noticed it,” I say.
Her brows pull together faintly. “Not because you created it,” I add quickly.
“It was already there.” I reach up, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear.
“But you didn’t let me ignore it.” Her gaze softens.
“You don’t let me…stay surface-level,” I continue.
“You push without pushing. You say things without dressing them up. You make me stop and actually look at what’s going on in my own head. ” She huffs a small breath.
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.” That makes her smile. “But it’s also…” I pause, searching for the right word. “…real. I’ve had easy before,” I say, softer now. “People who didn’t question me. Who went along with whatever I said. Who didn’t challenge anything.”
Her expression shifts slightly. “That gets boring,” I add.
“And I’m not boring?” she asks, one brow lifting.
I grin faintly. “You’re the opposite of boring.”
“That’s not always a compliment.”
“It is to me.”
She studies me for a second. “You could have chosen easy,” she says.
There’s something under that. Something she’s not fully saying. But I hear it anyway. I could have chosen someone simpler. Less complicated. Less…her.
I smile warmly at her, my heart thudding against my ribs, “Ishika, It’s very easy to like you, Sunshine.
” That part comes without hesitation. Her breath slows slightly.
“It feels like I don’t have to pretend I have everything figured out,” I say finally when she doesn’t respond, just looks at me as if trying to decipher if I am lying or not.
Her eyes flicker. “It feels like I can say something that doesn’t make sense yet—and you won’t try to fix it or dismiss it. ”
My fingers brush against her cheek lightly. “It feels like I’m not the only one holding everything together.” She goes very still at that. “And it feels like…” I hesitate for just a second, then let the words come anyway, “…I don’t have to be alone in my own head all the time.”
She looks at me like she’s trying to understand something bigger than the words themselves. “You’re not,” she says softly, cupping my cheeks.
“I never thought…” I whisper against her forehead, “I would find being with someone so exhilarating and…effortless.” I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
She scoffs, “I don’t think you understand how much effort you put into this…into us.”
“Maybe you see it that way…but to me it comes out like breathing. I never get tired from anything I do for you and for me…it screams things.” I smile. Her eyes soften and she rises up to place a kiss on my eyes as they flutter close.
“And you?” I ask quietly. “Where do I fit in for you?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Of course she doesn’t. Ishika never rushes something like that. Her fingers trace lightly against my shirt, absent, thoughtful. “You’re…” she starts, then stops. She exhales softly. “You’re the first person who didn’t feel temporary. And that scares me,” she adds.
I smile faintly. “I know.”
“But it also…” she hesitates again, then looks up at me, “…feels right.” Right.
I lean down slightly, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead.
She melts into me just a little more. And for a moment—we don’t talk.
We don’t need to. Her hand stays over my heart.
Mine stays wrapped around her. And whatever this is—this unexpected thing we’ve built—it doesn’t feel like a gap anymore.
It feels like something filling it.