Arylie FF: I'm Happy Here With You

eight ~ iss pyar ko kya naam doon

had se zyada teri chahat main karta hoon

yeh pata nahin tujhko main tujhpe marta hoon

... ... ...

Sometimes you don't understand something is there until it goes missing, perhaps more surprising was when sometimes you don't understand what is missing until it magically appears in your life. Aryan sat at the door of Arvind's room and watched the three ladies sitting inside, laughing, and going through Arpita's wedding album. They had called him to join them but he preferred the distance. He didn't know how he'd end up reacting to the old happy pictures.

Jiju's death had hit him so hard that somewhere he'd forgotten that this was the tragedy of his sister's life more than it ever could be his. Didi had recovered remarkably well after the initial year of bleakness. She'd bounced back, filled her life with smiles and hope, no matter how forced they were.

He was the one who was stuck, and it never occurred to him how much he was holding her back with his own grief. He never thought that maybe his sister wanted to talk about Arvind, about her marriage, about good memories instead of bottling up everything in a wrapper of sadness. Now that the unspoken taboo, that he'd somehow placed on them, was lifted, Didi looked much fresher.

Yeah, I've been an idiot of the highest order, he thought as he saw Didi tell Imlie a story about her wedding lehenga, his Ma chirping in every now and then with missed details.

He tried to focus on his tab but his attention shifted every time Imlie spoke, her voice high pitched, her giggle silly. He shook his head, mocking himself. He was good at projection and he'd genuinely thought he loved Imlie as much as love was possible. Turns out, he was wrong. Every day he just kept falling harder, so much so that it was getting tough to contain. More often than not, he just found himself staring at her. Silly, yeah, but it was what it was.

He almost forced his mind to think about the piece of news Abhay had brought. It was nothing on the surface, but it has made him uncomfortable. It made no sense, and he hated when things didn't make sense. Arvind was on a path of expansion when he was killed. So, when Aryan had officially taken over the business after Arvind's death, he'd inherited a truckload of loans, a rioting labor force, and a scandal along with the controlling shares of Rathore Pharma.

Back then, selling his own shares was the only option for him to keep the company floating, safeguard Narmada and Arpita's portion of the inheritance and keep the expansion plan going on. The buyer, his father's friend, was like an uncle to him and Arpita. He'd known Rawat Uncle since he was a kid, he was a decent person and had created no trouble for him in the last five years.

Yet now, the guy was looking for buyers to sell those shares, without even informing Aryan. It was not an obligation to inform him, of course, but common courtesy would have been to offer him a chance to buy those shares back.

Anyway, it should not matter because it changed nothing for Aryan if someone else owns the share. That made the secrecy even stranger. Yes, he wanted those shares but it was not that important to him, not really. Rathore Pharmaceuticals, renamed as SpherePharma after Arvind's death to overcome the bad reputation, had always been the source of trouble in his life. Frankly, it had taken more from him than given him. It had damaged his body and mind when he was a child, taken away all his life choices as a teen and corrupted his soul as an adult. The only emotional connection he had with it was that it was his father's legacy. Nothing else.