Manan ff : Shining Armour

Epilogue-5(A)

Nandini

I fluttered my eyes open and a big yawn left my mouth. Stretching my arms and legs, I groaned feeling my muscles stretch. Ah ! What a wonderful feeling.

Today was my haldi function, a beautiful garden was booked as a venue with enchanting decorations.

I knew my friends hated me for playing pranks on them, I mean not HATE hate but a bit tiff and by god, did they get their revenge today.

Don't answer that, it's rhetorical question.

I mean there's not even a single part of my body, well except few Ahem!, not covered with haldi. You guys know, in villages how girls make a paste of cow dung and bang it against the wall, my situation was similar where I was the wall.

After the haldi function, I was dead tired so I slept off without the care of world because tomorrow I'm getting married !! Yuppie !

I turned towards my right in search of my phone to look at the time, it's 7 in the evening. Damn ! I slept so long. I sat up and tied my hair in a bun and walked upto the balcony. Its so dark inside the room. When I removed the curtains, it was the most romantic thing I witnessed.

Rain.

It was raining heavily. Let's just hope it doesn't rain tomorrow although it's a indoor wedding, it gets too uncomfortable for people to enter and leave. Sighing I left the room.

As soon as I came out, I saw navya talking on the phone in hush tone and was visibly upset. Furrowing my eyebrows, I walked near her only to hear,

"Cabir, he'll be fine. Just give him sometime. You know how sensitive he gets in Rishu's matter"

Within a span of time, I knew she was talking about manik. My breathing varied, pushing away all the swaying thoughts I kept my hands on her shoulder making her yelp in surprise or shock , I don't know. Muttering a bye, she hung up.

"Nandu, when did you get up?"

"Where's manik ? What happened to rishu?" I said in a hard tone.

"Hey nothing's wron-"

"Don't lie navya, just tell me what happened?"

She sighed.

"After the haldi function, manik got a call from the doctor saying that rishu broke down and started crying. He started stuttering 'di' 'ma' ' rockstar' words which you taught him. Doctor said his slow recovery is now gradually increasing and he's in lot of pain as lot of things are coming back to him at the same time. Manik and everyone ran over there. I stayed here with you and arav" she said in a worried tone. My heart hurts knowing about rishu and how hand-tied we are as we couldn't do anything to ease his pain.

"Why didn't you guys tell me?" I was furious, where everyone is worried out of their minds, I was sleeping like some kind a princess.

"You were tired and Nyo aunty told not to disturb you, sorry" she said in a low voice. It's obvious that she's also tired from all this.

"Where is manik ?"

"Now everything is under control, but manik couldn't handle everything that happened over there and left the hospital a few minutes ago, no one knows where he went" she said rubbing my arms, looking at my worried face.

I sat on the couch trying to wrap my head around all this.

"Nandu, do you think manik went to that fighting stuff" she uttered every word in hesitation.

"No he won't, he can't go there, not after what happened last time" I shivered remembering last time.

It was after few days we moved in together, we knew rishu was recovering slowly but it was a painful process for him. We visited him everyday and stayed with him as long as we possibly could. But one day rishu had a seizure, that day hell broke loose. Manik lost it, looking at rishu suffering so badly. He left.