||- Strings - ||

I never understood why
Angels love to sin
Until my lips
touched your skin

She rains on him like a new emotion washing away what he was before - what he could have been after, leaving him drenched and shivering marked by her even after she had left. The girl with eyes like lightening on purple clouds had blood of his brother in her hands - a fact his lady mother would not have him forget.

A lightening cracks the sky in half and buckets of ice fall from the clouds. Everything about that night is purplish black, rain smudged and hazy. They stand on the opposite sides of a wide highway - deserted either due to the time or the weather. It is a fluke if he dared to admit. His fortune is rising or hers falling. Even without the gates leading him he has arrived at the right place. Theon wipes his forehead with the back of his wrist and pulls his hood further over his head. Rain pounds on him, a trail of water drains down the fringe laying on his forehead and bet his lashes with a rhythmic tap tap.

Cold metal under clammy skin - his fist clenches around the hilt of his dagger. If it happens now a war could be averted. If he takes her now a city could be spared. His mother’s nation would continue to thrive if he acts now.

On the opposite end the girl slides down to the ground. Her hair plastered to her face and her clothes rain soaked. She wraps herself into a ball, hands around her knees and head bowed against the pounding rain. She shakes violently as she sobs. He cannot hear but he knows. It is a taste as familiar as the taste of blood the taste of disappointment - the taste of loneliness.

They had shared a loved one before. His friend - her pledged sister. He wonders if the gates had stolen that grief from her or if they had only erased its origin. His own wounds have weathered ages but still sting the same. His hand only tightens around the cold metal. Cold as ice - just like his heart.

The girl does not notice the lights turning. She does not notice him walking across the rain beaten asphalt towards her. He does not need the rain to dull away his steps, they are silent from years of training. They are close enough for the street light to cast a ghostly sliver on her. There is a healing bruise on her wrist he notes as his boots stop in front of her. Water from his hood falls on her head and she looks up startled.

Her eyes are not purple. They are the dull gray of the dirty snow. There is a cut on her lip, a bruise in the side of her neck and a bloody mess of hair sticks to her temple. She is pale in a unhealthy way - bony and too young. The silence hangs heavy as she waits him to speak.

His blade is suddenly too heavy for him as are the memories.

“Watch over her for me. I leave her in your care…” A voice calls out from his memories, pulling him back once more. He owed a debt to that friend of his, a debt he should pay with his life.

“Perhaps not today -” He holds her when she collapses on the pavement, letting go of his hold on the blade. “It doesn’t mean anything. It is not a truce.” He tells himself as he covers her with his own jacket. “Today was not supposed to happen. Let’s just pretend it did not. Then when we meet we can be the enemies we are supposed to be.”

But she remembers that night when she had ran away from that cruel orphanage, a hooded stranger and the warmth in his arms.

The morning after Vanya wakes up in the guest bedroom of The Kashyap house and three years later that fragmented memory ends up splashed over a webtoon screen in blacks and purples. And she tells the world Adya Kashyap her best friend turned love of her life had been her inspiration, her savior that rainy night when she ran away from home.

*

If it had been her story, Vanya would have called it a loose end. Since it was her life she settled down on - strings attached. She had strings attached to her past, puling her with an irresistible pull towards them. But the problem was that she had strings attached everywhere.

It took all her self control not to say something bitter at the look on Adya’s face. Instead she stuffed her mouth with pasta and chewed moodily. She felt sorry for him alright. He might have planned this night down to each candle on their table since months and by sharing the news of her impending departure she had potentially killed every opportunity there was for him to go down on one knee. But it boiled down to the simple truth that Adya had months that he wasted. Vanya had no such luxury.

“You should have told me,” he said in the end still sounding a bit miffed. Vanya swallowed the ball of starch clogging her words and looked at him. She had never tried to avoid an argument as much as she did at the moment. Perhaps it was not even worth the try.

“Well I just did - didn’t I?”

“After booking the tickets and packing your bags. Essentially when only three hours are left for you to board the flight.”

He didn’t look at her as he spoke, instead stabbing a piece of tomato in his plate with avid focus - crushing it into a pulp.

“When you put it like that it sounds like I’m running away,” Vanya said addressing the tomato herself.

“You want me to think you are not?” Adya looked up at her, brows raised accusingly. “You are giving up on the chance to put everything right between you and dad to attend a funeral of a woman who is practically a stranger?”

“For starters - I’d be long gone if it had not been for that practical stranger’.” Vanya hated herself for losing her calm. But sweet temper has never been her best friend. “And why would you think I want to run?”

“Because that’s what you do -,” Adya put his cutlery down and pressed the napkin to his lips. Even when she could see he was gritting his teeth he had to behave like the perfect gentleman first. For some reason it agitated her further. “Admit it Anya your MO is running away.”

“It is not!” Her voice was too loud for their whispered argument and the people dinning around them fell silent for a moment. Vanya shook her head, cheeks burning slightly but pressed on in an angry whisper. “It isn’t!”

Adya sighed.

“I hate to go there - but remind me why on the first place you haven’t contacted this - this fairy God mother of yours for so long?” She hated being cornered into a speechless moment and Adya knew exactly how to do it. Blast him and the seven years they were dating! Adya raised his glass at her, nodding. “Exactly!”

“And your point is?”

“You’ve been operating along for too long. You think if you get too close to depend on someone they are going to leave you heartbroken. Either that or you are too lazy to let your walls down. Instead you run away from all the potentially interested people who wants you in their lives.”

“Whoa - you just gave me a psychiatric diagnosis!” Vanya snorted. “What am I ‘that broken girl who could put you together’? She quoted a line from his last work, a mushy romance she had fallen asleep halfway through. “You are in the wrong line of work Adya you should have been a shrink!”

“Not everybody is your father Anya - not everybody is going to get up and leave you at an orphanage one day.”

It was one thing to realize your best friend turned boyfriend knew all your scars and another to have him poking at each of those tender spots.

“Don’t - drag - him - into - this!”

“I choose you against the wishes of my Dad who was set to disinherit me if I continue to date a - to quote him - penniless cartoonist - anymore. I was there before you turned into the Vanya Moirai. Do I still need to prove myself?” He exhaled sharply. “How further you want me to go before you take a step towards me?”

Vanya blinked. Adya was not one to talk so long or so bitterly. It was as if he had kept it brewing inside him for too long and could not bottle up his feelings any longer.

“I won’t beat around anymore. You know what I was going to say. In fact you’ve known it for almost a year that I’ve been trying. It’s not only my failure to say the words - it’s your determination not to hear them as well. You like to have nameless relationships that stay suspended between this and that. But sadly I think I’m reaching my limit of tolerance.”

Vanya stood up, her hands balled to keep them from shaking.

“I need to go.”

“Vanya - leave if you must.” He called after her. “But please know that I won’t wait for you to return.”

“Must you turn this into a twisted challenge of sorts?” Vanya groaned. “Just a month - can’t you give me a month?”

“I’ve given you seven years,” he bored into her eyes as he repeated the words. “Seven years.”

“And I’ve denied her ten years of mine.” She muttered slowly. “Please don’t turn this into a choice between you and her. She was the mother I never had and you are my life saviour!”

“But perhaps that is what you need now,” Adya insisted his mind set. “You need to be pressed to choose. World doesn’t stay suspended forever.”

“But I can’t!! Not now.”

”Then think why you can’t. I think you need to give me an answer for that. If not now when? If not me, who?”

**

He steps down when the pilot gives clearance for disembarking and is immediately soaked to the bone. It is ironical somehow that the skies are purple again and it pours like the end of the world. They had been circling the helideck for a long time unable to land due to poor visibility. The sound of the rotor blades drowns away the thunder and he catches the dark expressions of the approaching helideck crew. They would not have done this for all the money in the world. But they would also not risk Kishor Kashyap’s wrath for all of it either.

Adhir runs his fingers through his drenched hair as he is wrapped in warm layers and led to away from the helideck towards the shelter where his host is waiting. He has not seen the old man in a while but their partnership had been too fruitful for him to change loyalties in a hurry. Other than being pampered to death - he is in no imminent danger.

Kishor shakes his hand with both of his own nodding as he blabbered how extraordinary it is to see him. Adhir dismisses the words - his focus already elsewhere. He is always weary of men who kept secrets for him. Secrets are expensive and dangerous. For last decade Kishor has been one of those people.

“I suppose all is well?” He aska as they walk under the umbrellas held by the assistants. “You received my instructions?”

The man stumbles a little and tries to mask the flinch in his expression with another beaming smile. Adhir notices in his peripheral vision.

“Did you fail again Mr. Kashyap?” His voice is colder than the rain falling around them and the man flinches again.

“It was not intentional sir - I - my son - no the girl -”

A dark chuckle escapes him coated in no real joy. Their meetings were always brushing of shoulders as they race towards opposite directions. At this point Adhir is not even surprised.

“You play the blame game extremely well Mr. Kashyap.” He says thoughtfully. “If she does not care to accept an invitation to dine with you and put away the old differences - whose fault does that become?”

“She had promised to come! I - we didn’t know until the evening. She is leaving to attend a funeral tonight.”

The conversation leads them to the car and the engines purrs to life.

“To the hotel sir?” The driver asks for confirmation.

“To the airport -” Adhir puts eloquently before Kishor opens his mouth.

He does not bother to explain and instead leans back on the headrest and closes his eyes. “Wake me up when we are there.”

Kishor dares not ask, but he wonders all the while they travel. How did he know that the funeral was abroad?

**
Hello,
As promised I'm back with the Friday installment. A lot of happenings past and present - edging closer to the line between real and dream.
Did you like Adhir? How about the almost fiance Adya?
I'd like to know only you can tell me. The opening quote is a slightly altered version of a poem by realm of raven poetry. The last verse go - when your lips touched my skin. No copyright infringement was intended.
Light up my sky by pressing that little star! Thanks for reading!