Another week passed in a completely new, fragile kind of harmony in their small Chandigarh apartment.
In the mornings, they shared buttered toast and hot coffee.
In the evenings, he studied on his end of the couch while she lay right against him, sideways, with her soft back pressed firmly to his shoulder. He read his thick engineering books and made notes while she sketched lazily in her pad. If she had homework that was more academic, he helped her with it. In return, she began teaching him the finer art of cooking real Punjabi dinners, with more than just instant noodles.
They even played Ludo and Uno in their free time. And when they argued over the rules, it was done playfully, without any real poison in their words.
Their truce was more than just a white flag now. It was far more than just a brother and an elder sister finally getting along. It was a shared, deep friendship. It was excellent company and a physical comfort level with one another that hinted at a dark, forbidden closeness neither of them wanted to admit, and that neither of them wanted to put an end to.
They had built a home away from home… and they were genuinely happy.
But on one particular Friday, Vyom came back from his college classes, and the air in the apartment felt… different. Heavy. Charged.
He dropped off his heavy bag on the dining table and carried two cold iced coffees from a local cafe toward Urvin’s room. One for him, and one for her, with extra chocolate syrup and whipped cream.
As he walked down the hallway, he noticed the bright light spilling from the open door of the bathroom. The loud, spinning sound of a hair dryer filled the air, sending the strong, intoxicating scent of her expensive lavender shampoo drifting down the hall.
Suddenly, a weird, unsettling feeling washed over him, something dangerously close to dread. Not that something was wrong or dangerous, but… something was off. The atmosphere in the flat was completely different. The mood of the evening didn’t feel right.
He looked around the bathroom doorway. Urvin smiled a bright ‘hello’ at him through the mirror while the hair dryer’s motor blew loudly. Vyom nodded back and set her cold drink on the bathroom counter.
“Drink laya haan tere layi!” he yelled over the noise.
“Thanks!” she yelled back.
She was wearing a black silk night-suit with delicate Chikankari embroidery at the edges. She hadn’t put on a bra yet, and the soft, delicate fabric clung helplessly to the heavy, shadowed curve of her breasts. The deep neckline exposed the creamy swell of her cleavage, and the faint, hard outlines of her nipples pushing against the silk were highly distracting. She turned off the noisy dryer and immediately began styling her damp hair into long, beautiful, bouncy curls that shone like spun gold in the harsh bathroom light.
For whatever reason, they stood there in an awkward, heavy silence as she worked her hair carefully in front of the mirror.
Vyom felt she had an almost guilty, secretive look on her face.
Urvin did feel guilty.
