Silently, watching her from the couch, Vyom wondered how any girl could look so incredibly messy and still look so breathtakingly cute. But he didn’t tell her that. No fucking way. He didn’t need her arrogant head getting any bigger than it already was… or for her to realize that he was paying any sort of deep, hungry attention to her body.
The sharp, angry edges between them slowly became dull. Little by little.
Vyom stopped leaving sticky coffee rings on her expensive sketch pads. Video games were played strictly with headphones on. He even started keeping his dirty, smelly socks safely in his own room.
For her part, Urvin bought her own expensive snacks for her own fridge shelf and stayed completely away from Vyom’s stash. She kept her Punjabi pop music volume down, and did her best to swallow her sharp, biting sarcasm.
They both finished their house chores, for the most part, and tried to be understanding if something wasn’t done on time.
In short… they found their way into being nearly perfect roommates. Some might even say “compatible”… to a very dangerous limit.
And then, one October evening, as the Chandigarh temperatures began to drop and the air turned crisp and cold, something… shifted.
Urvin had stayed late on campus, as she often did. This week she was working with oil paints, one of her favorite things to use, and couldn’t pull herself away from the studio.
Still smelling slightly of sharp paint thinner and her signature sweet vanilla perfume, Urvin walked through the front door looking half-asleep. The heavy wooden door clicked shut gently behind her as her backpack slid off her tired shoulder and dropped heavily onto the floor.
Turning toward the kitchen, she stopped dead in her tracks. Her ears perked up as she heard a very familiar, nostalgic voice coming from the television speakers. Her eyebrows pulled together, and she leaned backward to look around the corner into the living room. Her pink lips parted in a silent gasp.
On the screen, Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol were arguing in a European train station. It was Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.
“No. Fucking. Way.”
Vyom looked over at her from his spot on the couch, where he lay resting lazily under a thick blanket. A large steel bowl of buttered popcorn sat balancing on his broad chest.
“Ki hoya?” he asked casually.
“Tu DDLJ dekh reha hai?”
“Uh… haan. Kyun?”
“Yeh meri favorite movie hai! Like… ever!”
“Achha?” His head tilted, acting like he didn’t know. “Kad ton?”
“Jab hum aath saal pehle ek saath dekhde si, tab ton.”
“Seriously? Main toh bhool hi gaya si…”
“Restart kar. Abhi.” She interrupted his lie immediately.
“Par yeh interval tak pohoch gayi hai!”
“Exactly. Tu galat tareeke naal dekh reha hai.”
He groaned loudly, but she was already walking forward. Her wide hips swayed softly as she snatched the TV remote right off the coffee table. Vyom muttered something under his breath about needing a new rule for the TV, but didn’t make a single move to stop her. Three clicks later, the famous opening scene began playing on the screen.
