SERENDIPITY: A DEVDUTT PADIKKAL FANFICTION.

22. The Conflict

Chhupa bhi na sakenge, bata bhi na sakenge,hue hai yun tere pyaar mein pagal piya

What was this jealousy stemming from?
Dev hated this irrational and reckless side of his.
The fact that Rohit being better than him and a possible rejection made Dev act impulsively.
This was the same Rohit who had proposed to Meera when they were young.

Being jealous was never his element given the fact that he was a man of composure.
He knew he was behaving like a 16 year old kid.
Love does that to you.
He was head over heels in love with Meera.
Seeing her so close to a man, both emotionally and physically infuriated him to a different level.

Emotional intimacy with his partner was his greatest and heartfelt expectation.
He was always the shy and reserved person who wouldn't open up to other quickly.
With Meera it was as easy as 2+2.
He could tell her his deepest darkest secret with the assuarance of her not being judgemental.
He wanted a person who could engulf all his happiness and miseries with the same intensity.
He wanted someone who could read him in the right way.
He could discuss trivial issues with her and she would always listen intently.

Like on Sunday, he had told her how his trimmer wasn't working and so he couldn't shave his beard.
To which she had replied that she liked bearded boys.
Though she was a speaker for the majority of times, she'd listen to him patiently.
And overthinker must date a great listener.
This was more of an emotional jealousy than romantic jealousy.

Tuesday.
Meera and Dev hadn't talked the whole day yesterday.
It was pretty evident to the others that something was wrong.
Perhaps some people already knew the reason of them ignoring each other.

Meera knew where the problem was.
Dev being erratic and getting jealous was an assuarance that he liked her.
She could feel that affection when they sat on the hilltop watching the citylights.
As much as she wanted to shout out to the world about this happy discovery, she wasn't going to tolerate this brutal ignorance and reckless behavior.

She would love to spend her life with Dev but she had also seen the hate and flack by social media.
Rape threats to kids, death wishes and the blame game was the saturation of toxicity of the fandom.
She wasn't ready to face such insensitive and infurating remarks.

This time she wasn't going to initiate a solution to this silence.
She wanted to see if Dev realizes his fault and incompetence or not.
She knew Dev enough to know that this wasn't physical attraction.
This was on the emotional level.

"Devdutt, did you do the exercises I'd told you?"
"Yeah". Dev replied without looking at her.
"How's your shoulder now?"
She had to ask him as providing treatment to the players was her profession.

"So its Devdutt now,huh?" Dev asked evidently hurt.
"So it's the hurtful looks now,is it?" Meera replied in the same tone.
"How does it matter to you anyway? You already have a boyfriend." Dev said smiling in the angry way.

"What's with that tone? And I don't have a boyfriend." Meera tried to explain it to him as she walked behind him.
"Clearly you prioritized him over me" Dev said ignoring her.
"Dev, he's been my bestfriend from so long! I had not seen him since 3 years!"
"Stop being so immature Dev! You're more than this superficial facade of disappointment" Meera cut his path and held him by his wrists.

"What reason do you even have to be angry? It's not what you think it is, you aren't even my boyfriend for you to get annoyed" Meera spoke in the heat of the moment and before she could apologize, Dev looked into her eyes and she knew he was hurt.
"You ruined everything!" He uttered loud enough for everyone around to look at them.

Meera was rooted on her spot with tears in her eyes.
She hated being gullible.
Mihir took her to the dressing room and Virat came to talk to her.
"Meera, are you alright?"
"No I'm not." She replied crying profusely.
"He likes you, you know" Virat said softly.
"I know he does. But that doesn't give him the right to spoil our friendship. He's a celebrity, I'm just an ordinary person."

"Even if this works out on the emotional level, what about the people on social media?" Meera stated.
"Look, Meera, kuch to log kahenge, logo ka kaam hai kehna. I know you're not ready for all the harsh comments but jab you're with the person you've desired your whole life, there's nothing that affects you." Virat comforted her.
"Talk to Nush once. Usne to itna dekha hai ki its more of a joke now" Virat chuckled along with Meera.

"I'll just not pay attention to the possible romantic angle right now." Meera said a little relaxed.
"Jitna mein Dev ko jaanta hu, he's not the person who behaves immaturely on trivial issues.
I'm sure this is not just romantic jealousy." Virat said.
"Haa, this is emotional jealousy. He always approaches me for support and yesterday I was so engrossed with Rohit that I forgot about Dev completely. Main bhi kaisi hu".
"Don't blame yourself Meera, if I was in your place, I'd have acted the same. Afterall you guys met after 3 years."
"And the fact that Rohit has a girlfriend to whom he's getting engaged makes all this funny. Dev didn't try and listen. I wanted to tell him that this all is purely platonic."
"Tu use chhod, aur ye chocolate kha" Virat said offering her a chocolate.
She let out a chuckle and ate it.

"Dev, this was very wrong of you! 25 saal ka hogaya fir bhi bachho jaisa bartaav hai tera" Harshal scolded Dev.
His face was stoic, devoid of any emotions.
"Meera jaisi achhi ladki ko rula diya tune. Sharam nahi aati tujhe" Yuzi said.
"Itna kyu jal raha hai, wo to teri girlfriend bhi nahi hai" That sentence was enough to trigger Dev and he walked off to the dressing room.

He saw Meera sitting on a chair with tear strains on her face, eating a chocolate.
They looked at each other for a minute until Meera's phone rung and she had to pick up.

In that minute,their eyes had conveyed all their emotions.
Angst,regret,pain,hurt,apology and love.
They just wanted to run into each other's arms for comfort but ego didn't let them.

Main tenu samjhawan ki naa tere bin lagda jee.
Tu ki jaane pyaar mera main karu intezaar tera
Tu dil Tu yun jaan meri.

_________________________________________

We've always read about romantic jealousy, emotional jealousy is something when you fear losing your emotional support or your stabilizer.

Dev isn't and will never be the irrational Kabir Singh 'Kisne touch kiya use' types.
Dev has anxiety issues in my story which are very common for an introvert.
I just tried to portray a different type of jealousy.
There are obviously little parts of romantic jealousy but I'm sure Dev can overcome all of this.

Keep reading, keep supporting!