Her Old Wounds! MishBir Short Story

Epilogue

Kunal inquired about Mishti's health from Abir, as Kuhu overhead. Once Abir left, Kuhu questioned Kunal on his weird, caring behavior towards Mishti, suddenly. Kunal informed Kuhu about Mishti falling unconscious, which left Kuhu surprised. She questioned him on not informing her earlier. Kunal realized it was time for his second apology to Kuhu and addressed the issue between the girls. He took her to their room and made her sit on the bed.

"I love you Kuhu" Kunal said, which shocked Kuhu. That wasn't the topic. Why was he suddenly proposing to her? What was going on?

Kunal paid no attention to her confusion or interruptions. He knew where he was going and he knew he would also answer her questions with the conversation.

"And you know what I love the most about you? The way you love me. The way you love my family. Especially when I was being a jerk to you, you didn't take it out on my family. You treated them with love and respect. You considered Ketu as your own little sister. You enjoyed and encouraged Mami, even when she was at her best level of being irritable. You formed this special bond with my brother. You are like this rainbow. Especially for me, because I understood no color other than black and white as bhai always said." Kunal looked towards Kuhu as he was talking, who now smiled at the praises she was getting from him.

"I was doing all this thinking last night, about you and us. And I realised that you and I are pretty similar. Wait! No!! You are how I was. A total replica of who I was" that brought Kuhu out of the happy phase. Now she was confused. "What did he mean?" she thought to herself.

"You are this amazing, caring, fun loving person. You do believe in taking everyone together. Your #Kuhuness, #amazingness, #colorfulness is for everyone" Kuhu smiled slightly, again

"Except Mishti" ended Kunal and Kuhu glared at Kunal with shock. "Like I used to be with her," Kunal continued. "What I see you doing right now, just makes me more ashamed of myself. Of my actions towards you! Towards her. And I don't know if I should feel happy or sad that I was left so easily off the hook by both of you. You did because you love me. And she did because she loves bhai. Kuhu, I can't express in words how horrible I feel for putting you through that mess. Those words, those insults and you still stuck by me. I wish I could take it back. I wish "

"No Kunal! It wasn't your fault. You did all of that because of Mishti" Kunal sighed with a hint of irritation and stood up and stayed quiet for some time. He pulled himself together and continued, "Mishti didn't tell me to do that. Mishti did not force me to do that. I did that all by myself. You know it. I know it and everyone knows it. And everyone other than you, my mom, and of course your Jasmeet chachi knows that Mishti wasn't at fault. Kuhu, when a person is given a choice of right and wrong, a strong person always chooses to do the right thing. And a weak person, always listens to what he wants to listen to and does it. And I was weak that time. I was so damn egotistic and full of myself. And everyone, including you, was just busy pampering that ego of mine." Kuhu frowns and looks down. "In the midst of the crowd of people wanting to pamper my ego, there were two loud and very audible voices trying to tell me how wrong I was. Bhai and Mishti. But I didn't listen to them. My ego didn't let me. Or better yet, I let my ego handle me. Bhai kept telling me that when it comes to love, you don't have to choose. Or no one takes anyone's place. They just make a place of their own. I just didn't want to share my bhai with anyone. Frankly to be honest, I really felt like I didn't need anyone if I had bhai. I didn't think I even needed you. But in family, you share. You share everything with everyone. And all Bhai really wanted me to do was accept you and Mishti as family. And when I started falling for you, I realized what he meant the whole time. I realized how stupid I was in understanding this simple logic. I realized how big of a jerk I was to you, Mishti and Bhai. And before I could do anything to repair the damage I caused, Bhai had to break up with Mishti because of Ma. And I don't need to go into any details about the rest because we both know what happened."