Dilkash

(x) Ik Mulaqat

"Ik mulaqat mein, baat hi baat mein"

Advait's POV

"We should get going." I spoke and started walking out of the studio without even waiting for her response because I knew it could've only been a sarcastic comment or an eyeroll.

I reached my car and could see her following me. She reached near the car and I settled myself on the driver's seat. She opened the door to the passenger seat, sat there, and sighed disappointedly.

I turned on the radio and kept playing whatever channel was playing. I wasn't planning to directly reach the office, rather stop somewhere in between to eat something. That is why I told Bhabhi Sa to tell them we'll be there in an hour.

Everything was silent in the car, we weren't talking to each other. Inayat still had her passive aggressive face on. My eyes were on the road and hers kept looking out of the window. I slightly raised the volume of the radio as the song was about to change.

"Na hai yeh paana, na khona hi hai..."

(It is neither achieving or losing)

My eyes shifted slightly to look at her and her eyes made their way to mine.

"Tera na hona jaane, kyu hona hi hai?"

(Why does your absence feel like your presence?)

Tiny snippets of memories flashed in front of my eyes as they went back to looking at the uninteresting road. Mohit Chauhan's voice was honestly no longer audible to my ears. His voice was being overlapped by a certain person's voice in my head. That voice sounded peaceful and complete then. But now, it doesn't feel like that anymore— all it reminds me of is loss— loss of friendship, loss of love. But somehow it didn't hurt as much.

Well, for the next five minutes the car was as silent as it could have ever gotten. No eyes met, no words spoken, no thoughts expressed. It felt quite ironic to me though, because my head was juggling multiple different thoughts in those five minutes.

The song faded but the nostalgia it gave me didn't. It just wasn't possible for me to take her thoughts off of my mind so quickly. How could I? She was my past, she's my present and there is this tiny little part of me that wants her to be my future. She is driving me crazy and it's not fun.

I was not able to think of a nice restaurant to eat at before we went to plan our wedding. So, I just decided that we'll order there. I called Sakshi and told her that we'll be arriving early and in the next 15 minutes, we were at the office.

As we walked in, she was observing the tiny little details around the office. Paintings of the palace and forts on the walls, the white color and light blue traditional designs on the wall which suit the origin of the business perfectly. The interns coming out of the ground floor cafeteria changed their posture as we walked by them. Am I that intimidating?

We climbed the stairs to the first floor where the event management team was located. My employees started greeting us with smiles and nods as we walked towards Sakshi's cabin, she is the head of this department.

I looked over at Inayat, her body language was a lot different from what it was like in the morning. Right now, she was more distant, cold, and more or less awkward. Well, this is her first time visiting the office, after all. She tucked her hair behind her ears as I knocked on the door to the cabin.

Kashvi, Sakshi's assistant, opened the door and greeted both of us with a warm smile. She left the room and closed the door behind once we were inside. Sakshi introduced herself to Inayat and then asked us to sit down and started browsing through all the different coloured and labeled files on her desk.