#khisher

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She wakes up tangled in him.

It should surprise her - the way her head’s positioned exactly where his heart is, the way her right hand is carelessly thrown over him, burrowing her form as deep into him as she can – but all she can do is stare at the way he looks when he’s asleep. His glinting brown eyes are shielded from her view, but she can see his teasing mirth in the way his lips are curled softly in a smile, can feel the possessiveness, that his eyes usually reflect in the way he looks at her, from the way his arms are wrapped around her waist, pulling her as close as he possibly can. She can see him even when she can’t see him at all, her mind tells her, and that is what makes this so much more beautiful.

She’s awoken long before her time, she realizes, because  she’s used to waking up to his tickles and his whispers, to his singing and to his touch, but the man before her sleeps so serenely, so calmly, that not for the first time, she takes her sweet time in studying his features – the slightest stubble framing his jaw, which she runs her hand over softly - before she realizes that she’s border-lining creepiness by the way she’s looking at him, and immediately opts to pull her hand back. She all but gasps when a very warm, very firm hand instantly detaches itself from her waist and stops her midway; his fingers, calloused from years of guitar playing, easily wrap around her wrists, and the laugh that follows is really the best kind of music.

“So this is what it feels like to be watched by Edward Cullen,” he muses seriously, but his eyes give away the twinkle. She looks back at him instead of the instinct which tells her to just hide her face in his shirt; looks at him with a small smile.

“The fact that you know who Edward Cullen is, is enough to make me jump up from this bed right now.”

The smile on his face becomes a smirk. “Are you sure you can?” As if it’s a sort of reflex, his hold on her tightens, even with his single arm around her.

She doesn’t want to break away from him, but the way he looks at her, with the glint of challenge reflectedin his sleepy eyes, she finds herself struggling against his hold.

“It’s not fair!” She whines a few minutes later, and his laughter resounds in the entire room. “I need to go make tea, you can sleep. Wake up later, I promise I won’t disturb.”

She usually does disturb, but none of them mention it. If she ever manages to wake up early, she’ll try to stall for around fifteen minutes until after she’s had her tea, then she jumps on the bed and pushes him relentlessly until all he can do it grab her wrists and pull her to him in one swift movement, and that’s really all he needs to do for her to know he’s awake and they easily fall into casual banters, discussions and cheesy pick-up lines and brainstorming about various things they could do.

At that moment, though, she doesn’t mention that he must be exhausted from the shoot that he returned from at three in the morning – doesn’t mention anything about waiting up for him without eating, but she really is all sorts of food-deprived. She thinks that maybe he can sense it in her tone, or maybe he’s just too sleepy, but almost immediately, his hands drop from her side. She notices his eyes close just seconds after, still in the same position, and she softly gets out of bed.

She makes herself some tea and walks out of the kitchen, chooses to stand by the windows that show her the entire beauty of the city. She can imagine the traffic on the roads, can hear the honking in her head, even though her eyes are fixated at the sky, the blue of which stands out without the clouds covering it.

She puts the cup down by the table before sheleans by the glass and closes her eyes, wonders what it would be like to be running on the shore with rain trailing all over her face and him chasing after her as their laughs echo in sync, wonders how long it’ll take for him to just grab her and twirl her around in the sea, how long it will take for him to catch her as she runs as the ocean waves crash at her feet, when she’s pulled back to the present, against a strong body with a soft thud,  whose hands are immediately wrapping themselves around her front like that’s all they ever learnt to do.

He presses a kiss to her ear, and smiles softly when he notices the way her eyes are suddenly downcast. She might be the bubbliest and naughtiest, but he knows exactly what to do, what buttons to push, to get her to react the way she does. He couldn’t miss the color staining her cheek even if he’d tried.

“Good morning.” He whispers into her ear, and this time he can literally feel the slight tremor of her body at his proximity. She’s much too strong to tell him, though – much too egoistic and confident to tell him that she’s suddenly feeling shy, to ask him if he could please stop doing that because it’s making her blush - so he doesn’t even pretend to hide his observations, only turns her around slightly and softly presses her against the window.

The way he sounds right after he wakes up, his voice hoarse and low, has always had an effect on her, and she damns herself for letting it show, because the way he’s looking at her tells her that he knows exactly what he does to her, how her insides feel a little bit gooey and squirmy, how her knees feel like jelly almost immediately, and she realizes that he notices when his grip on her tightens almost instinctively.

“Good morning,” he says again. She doesn’t have to look up to catch the mocking glint in his eyes.

“I thought you were sleeping,” she says simply as she forces herself to look up at him. He’s trying to hold back a laugh at her disoriented form, but she can see the wild adoration pooling in his eyes.

“Want me to tell you a secret?” He asks, leaning closer till his stubble slightly brushes against her cheek. She doesn’t say anything in response, and he smiles at her impatience. “It’s hard to sleep without you around.”

He expects the shove even before it happens, which is why he easily lets her push him out of her way. “God, I think you wake up every morning and contemplate over what cheesy lines you should slaughter later on in the day. Bet you have a diary of clichés.”

Her voice becomes normal as she walks away from him, no longer feeling like just a squeak caught in her throat at the light in his eyes. Feels more like this is the Fawad she met during Humsafar – the one she teased, the one she made jokes about – instead of the Fawad that loves when she turns crimson, who adores when the girl who has a story for everything suddenly runs out of words to say. She doesn’t wait for him to walk with her as she heads to the kitchen cabinets to make omelets for the two of them, but he catches up to her with easy strides.

“Absolutely,” he laughs, stopping with her as she tries to find plates. “But I know you love it when I’m all romantic.”

He’s looking at her with a proud kind of smile when she turns with the plates in her hand, so she steps up on her tiptoe to ruffle his hair quickly before running out of his reach to the opposite side of the kitchen. She bubbles into laughter despite herself.

“Fawad,” she says, between hiccups of amusement. “Your cheesy dialogues are literally like they’ve been written by some B-grade movie scriptwriter. No offence to the scriptwriter, of course.”

He loves her like this – so easy and quick to bite back, so Mahira – that he fondly watches her as she washes the plates and looks at him with an easy grin. “Omelets work, right?”

He gives her a pained expression. “Why are you giving me the illusion that if I say they don’t, you’ll make something else?”

She laughs lightly. “What do you want?”

She’s by the kitchen wall drying her wet hands when he stops her in her tracks, stands trapping her between himand the wall, and he knows the fact isn’t lost on her.

“What I want is for you to admit that I can make you blush,” he says directly, eyes never once leaving hers.

“What I want to know is why I’m being trapped against walls and windows when I’m not shooting for an Indian soap,” she counters. She immediately opts to run, but he sets his left arm over her head, the right close to her waist. She couldn’t miss the smirk on his face even if she wanted to, which adds up to the ruffled hair and reminds her of one of the many reasons she fell in love with him.

“Dang, in the rulebook it said that walls are the best helpers when you need confessions,” he whispers.

Her eyes don’t back down even once. “And how’s that working out for you?” She asks slyly.

He takes a step closer, catches the way she flusters a little, before his smirk broadens. “I don’t quite know,” he says. “I’ve been too busy staring in the depths of your eyes.”

She bursts into laughter at his statement and subconsciously places a hand on his shirt, right over his heart. He warms up at her gesture.

“That was the worst one ever,” her voice informs him between short bursts of laughter. “You do this effortlessly, Fawad. Forget acting, become a scriptwriter. Aakhir duniya bhi tou dekhe where it is that your true talents really lie.”

“Duniya tou maan legi,” he whispers, suddenly much closer than she initially realized. “Tum kab manogi?”

“Abhi us mein thora time hai,” she counters, a hand still resting on his heart, the other one playing with the buttons of his shirt. Then, softly, she wonders out loud. “I swear I feel like I’m on the sets of an Indian soap, you know? The whole, ‘trapped-against-the-wall-by-a-hot-guy-demanding-a-confession-of-love-that-probably-won’t-come-for-the-following-three-episodes’ wala scene.Same old, same old.”

He involuntarily laughs at her mockery. “You’re calling me hot?”

She doesn’t seem unfazed. “You’re still waiting for a confession?”

“Will I get a confession?” He retorts.

“Can I leave without one?”

He leans closer, close enough that he knows will really make her blush. She can feel his breath on her face. “Do you think I’ll let you go without one?” He whispers.

His eyes are boring into hers, and she doesn’t find the will to look away, even when her cheeks begin to grow warm. Her fingers are still playing with his shirt, and she tugs his collar towards her without warning. He almost looks surprised as she pulls him closer.

She stands on her tiptoes then - he can feel them pressed against his - and leans up slowly, until she’s at the same level as his shoulders. Involuntarily, he bends his head down until his stubble tickles her forehead. She’s looking up at him with a playful smile, and it’s only when he catches the echo of her voice in her ear, whispering ‘Acha? Watch me,’ that he notices the challenge in her voice, the way she immediately escapes from under him, leaving behind a trail of laughter and giggles.

He runs after her, though, because Fawad finds that he's incapable of doing anything but - chases her around the living room and the kitchen until he finally, finally manages to grab her and tickles her relentlessly until she's burying her head in the crook of his neck and laughing against her skin.

He knows, can feel it deep in his bones, that he's never been happier.

She drops her bag on the floor and leans against the walls outside the university, stubborn and all too agitated with the people she’s surrounded herself with. She glances at the time on her wrist – 8:35, it reads –and she runs a hand through her loose stands as she starts to look for a ride back home.

There are four guys from her batch in her immediate view, chatting with a couple of girls she recognizes from the younger years, but she doesn’t want to walk up to them and strike a conversation – prefers, not for the first time, to plug in her earphones and listen to something, anything, that can calm her down.

Standing outside the University gates isn’t unsafe per se, she knows, but she feels uneasy even in the presence of the guards only a few feet away. The road before her is empty, the dimming street light painting a picture of a deserted street, and it’s so different from all the chaos inside. The cars are lined up on the other side of the building, facing the main gate, but she doesn’t attempt to go there to find the one she knows as well as her own.

She should’ve called her driver, she thinks, but obviously, obviously she’d decided against it.

“I’ll come back with my friends, Mummy!” She’d insisted in the morning, before heading out to attend the exhibition they’d put together in three weeks, clearly unaware that come evening, she’ll be standing alone looking for rickshaws. She doesn’t want to be too bitter, she thinks, so she turns the volume higher, tries to drown out the voices in her head.

She stands waiting for over ten minutes to no avail; for a few seconds, she thinks that maybe this is just another excellent surprise for the day – all the rickshaw drivers probably decided that they had better things to do than circle one of the best universities in the city on a night when it was given they wouldn’t finish till late – and mulls over her luck.

She pulls out her phone, then, thinks it better to call Afsheen to see if she’s planning to leave the lively rush anytime soon and drop her home, but in one swift movement, the phone’s snatched from her hand and she’s pulled against someone’s body, one of their hands wrapped around her waist, the other effectively blocking her scream.

She shuts her eyes and tries to break away from the hold even though she knows it’s futile, and feels someone’s lips press against her ear.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he whispers in a low voice, but she can feel his body shaking, pressed against her back.

“Ashar!” She squeals, pulling his hand off her mouth – much more scared than she’d like to be - and he lets her go immediately, clutching his stomach and doubling over in laughter.

“That wasn’t funny,” she yells, eyes stinging a little from both the fear and being caught off-guard like this. “You scared the life out of me,” she stresses.

She knows the waterworks in her eyes might start anytime soon – Khirad’s never been too fond of being alarmed – and she attempts to gather herself together by fixing her eyes on the floor - staring at their feet facing each other – and trying to blink back the tears that threaten to fall.

“Why were you standing all alone like this?” He asks, suddenly cross with her even though it’s supposed to be the opposite way round.

“None of your business,” she says in a shaky voice, cursing herself inwardly for being so sensitive to fear.

He’s immediately right before her, pushing her chin up with his index finger. He hates her tears; he never has to say it for her to know. Softly, he runs his thumb over her wet cheeks.

“Itni si baat pe ansoo?” He whispers gently, willing her to look up at him. She doesn’t, though; she’s much too pissed for his romantic antics to work their charm. “Aurjo main tumhe pichle pandra minute se dhoond dhoond kar pagal ho gaya hoon, uska kya? Do I look like I’ve been crying?”

That’s when she really looks up, eyes spitting fire despite being filled with tears.

“You should’ve stayed with Sara, then,” she counters. “I didn’t ask you to come looking for me.”

He looks at her face carefully for a few seconds, and cannot help the laugh that tumbles out immediately, eyes crinkling at the sight of her furious face.

“So that’s why you stormed out?” He asks bemusedly. “Because Sara Ajmal and I randomly crossed paths- or, to be a little more dramatic, reconnected?”

She looks at him stubbornly, arms crossed over her torso. “I don’t care about you or Sara, much less your reconnection!” She says with finality. If her voice wobbles a bit, she’s glad he doesn’t call her out on it. He’s looking at her with his mock-serious expression, and she knows he’ll say something ridiculous even before the words come out of his mouth.

“Are you jealous?”

There, she thinks, satisfied. He never disappoints.

“I’m not jealous,” she says with distaste. “I’m just telling you to go spend some time with her, since you clearly seemed to be having such a good time earlier.”

He wishes he had a camera on him – this, this fuming Khirad who’s way too stubborn to admit that she’s uncomfortable, is entirely new. The way her eyes have suddenly dropped to her fisted hands, and she’s trying to take a couple of breaths to calm herself down.

He’s not supposed to notice it, he reminds himself, but it’s hard when he can read her like a book.

“Tou phir main jaoon?” He asks immediately, etches a little bit of haste in his voice. As he expected, she looks up sharply.

“By all means,” she snaps. “Enjoy yourself.”

He knows it’s wrong to leave her riled up and flustered, but he calmly strolls away from before her, tries not to notice the way her eyes narrow almost immediately. He knows she’s struggling to control her tears, but he loves this jealous, a little bit crazy, side of her. With Khirad Ihsan, you don’t get to see it often.

The second he’s out of her view, he breaks into a run towards the main gate. His car, thankfully, is right outside the gate, so there’s not too much of extra walking involved. He hops into his BMW, and puts his key in the ignition.

“Not going to cry,” she wills herself once he’s out of sight. “Log nikalte hi honge.”

She’s trying to pacify herself, but she knows she’s fighting a losing battle. No one’s going to be leaving before eleven, and no one’s going to notice her absence.

She’s not self-derogatory, but she knows that Afsheen’s going to be too caught up with her fiancé to notice, Nudrat’s not going to step away from the paintings for even one second, and Sara and Ashar will probably intellectually discuss and debate their way through the night. She knows– in fact, everyone in the university, including Ashar, knows of Sara’s larger-than-life crush on him – and it bugs her that she doesn’t even try to conceal it. Something bubbles inside her, but she knows it’s not jealousy because she doesn’t get jealous.

She thinks it has more to do with the fact that he just walked away so carelessly, like it was so easy to leave her behind.

She takes the phone into her hand again. She’s almost hoping that he stops her, again, but doesn’t wait for the disappointment to sink in. She calls her mom immediately, not in the mood to answer Afsheen’s inquisitive questions anymore.

Of course, her mum doesn’t pick up. This is a trait in her household, never picking up the phone on time.

She picks her bag up from the floor, then, and grabs the hair-tie from one of the pockets. She’d decided to leave her hair down because Ashar usually said something cheesy – he’s always been very vocal about his appreciation of her hair – but he hadn’t said anything, and she didn’t even want a compliment from him anymore.

She’s contemplating calling her Dad, then, when she sees headlights from a little distance away. It’s a taxi, she knows it, because God’s finally had some pity on her miserable being, so she holds two fingers out as an indication.

She’s wrong, though, because the black car that’s approaching is one she knows all too well. It stops right before her.

The windows roll down immediately.

“Yes, Madam?” He asks in the best ‘serious’ voice he can muster. The smile he’s giving her is lighting up his face entirely, she cannot help but notice.

She steps away and turns her back to him, internally ecstatic that he never went back in. He came back for her, and she’s glad, but she’ll be damned if she lets him see it.

He laughs at her stubbornness - he knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Nothing about her ever was. Parking his car in the space only a few meters away from where she stands, he hops out and, instead of walking towards her, jumps up comfortably on his bonnet.

“Madam,” he addresses her professionally. “Bataein, kahan jana hai?”

She suppresses her smile and turns towards him, recalls the initial anger that had bubbled inside her. “Jao, Ashar,” she says simply. “I’ll go home myself. Tum andar jao, logon ko company do.”

It’s unspoken and it hangs in the silence between them, but they both know that neither does she want him to leave, nor is he going to.

“Naraaz kyun ho?” He asks simply. There’s no pleading in his tone, no desperation, just a soft tone of voice that he only uses with her like she’s the most fragile thing in the world. It makes her insides gooey and squirmy in a second.

“Naraaz nahin hoon,” she clarifies. “Mood theek nahin hai. Tum jao, enjoy karo.”

He scoffs. “Tum yahan phooli hui si shakal bana kar khari raho, andherey mein, aur mein andar fuzool mein bore hoon?” He clicks his tongue. “Nah, I’m staying here. Haan, agar tum ghar chalne ko haan kar do tou kuch acha khaleinge rastey mein?”

She knows what he’s doing, and normally it would’ve worked, but she’s still annoyed at him and the image of Sara’s smug face hinders her vision every two seconds.

When she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t raise her eyes from her floor, he jumps off the hood of his car effortlessly. Slowly, deliberately, he takes each step towards her.

“Ghar chalein?” He questions, stopping to a standstill only a few steps away from her. She doesn’t look up nor answers.

He doesn’t hesitate, just grabs her hand gently with this firm sort of ownership, smiling as he does so. His grip isn’t solid but she knows that, even if she tries, he won’t let her hands fall from between his.

He takes his key and unlocks the car – never once letting go of her fingers as he does so – and stands by her until she gets in grumpily and shuts the door herself. He all but skips smugly to the driver’s seat, and smiles when he realizes that she’s already leaning against the leather seats, slightly relaxed.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he says mockingly as the car roars to life. He spares her a casual look and smiles. “Oh, I’m sorry. I see you already have.”

Within a second, she’s straightened in the seat again, and he laughs because she’s so predictable when she’s annoyed. This is usually how she acts when they fight, but under the circumstances of jealousy, this is the first time he’s seen her like this.

They drive in complete silence for a couple of minutes.

“Music sunogi?” He asks, corners of his mouth turning up at the sight of her head resting against the window.

“It’s your car,” she shrugs, eyes fixed on the world outside.

It’s not a big deal, she knows, but something feels oddly insecure inside her and she doesn’t know how to deal with it, hasn’t really ever had to before, so she avoids conversation the only way she knows how and prays that he’ll drop her home without any massive fuss about it.

Khirad’s not narrow minded, doesn’t think in terms of discomfort and jealousy, but she’d been planning the exhibition for over a month now. Ashar knew, of course, he’d even helped out quite a bit between his classes, but he hadn’t showed up for the past two weeks because of an impending group presentation for one of the lectures. Khirad never asked who was in the group with him – it felt entirely too lame a question, and if she’s being honest, she hadn’t even thought about it – but today, almost two seconds after he’d walked in the hall, Sara just kind of went and glued herself to him, engaged him in a conversation that Khirad couldn’t hear from the opposite end, but what stung was that Ashar didn’t once come looking for her.

It’s childish and immature, but this kind of stuff does bug her sometimes.

It hadn’t helped matters when Khizer had walked up to her with two glasses of tea in his hand.

“Here,” he’d said, handing one to her. “Now we can sit back and properly enjoy the fruits of our labor.”

She’d smiled at him, then, as he’d talked to her about a few of the art pieces he’d seen while they were being worked upon. Khizer Alam had always been a little too fond of art. Maybe that’s why Sara’s gorgeous cheekbones and the chocolate of her eyes always had appealed to him a little too much.

“Ashar and Sara get along quite well,” he’d remarked randomly, eyes set on the farther end of the room. Khirad had looked up to catch the sight of Sara casually smacking Ashar’s shoulder, and she’d looked down immediately.

“Yeah, they’ve known each other for quite some time, it makes sense.” She’d said casually.

“Absolutely. I heard that they had a presentation today, Sara and Ashar. Apparently, they’ve been working on it for the past month or so, I’m not sure. Either way, it was apparently the best one,” he’d informed. She doesn’t know if he was ridiculing them, or if he was just genuinely proud, so she hadn’t tried to prod.

“That’s great to hear,” she’d said, a little too formal in her tone.

“Yeah,” Khizer supplied. “They’re on the same level intellectually, I guess. It must’ve come easy.”

Khirad hadn’t seen the point of the entire conversation, so she excused herself immediately, made her way to Afsheen and her fiancé, Zulfi.

“Kahan ho yaar?” She’d complained to Afsheen, eying Zulfi Bhai with distaste. “Aapke saamne tou hamari ehmiyat hi nahin hai,” she’d told Zulfi.

He’d only laughed in response.

After a few cheery greetings and normal conversation, Afsheen had looked at Khirad a little incredulously. “Ashar isn’t here?”

Khirad had pretended to ignore her question. “Enjoying yourself, yeah? All of this really did come together brilliantly.”

Maybe Afsheen had picked up on her slightly agitated mood, or perhaps her demeanor had given it away, because no more questions followed.

Khirad had spent a few more minutes with them and decided to walk out instead, get a breath of fresh air and hopefully calm down the slowly intensifying headache. On her way out, she’d caught sight of Ashar and Sara, laughing as they walked through the exhibition. She couldn’t see his face, but she’d recognize that plaid shirt anywhere.

Suddenly, there was slight change of plans in her head. She’d closed the door with an air of finality and braced the chilly breeze outside – she’d already seen the paintings way too many times, there was no point in going back in.

Except now, she feels a little ridiculous, because Ashar keeps looking at her every couple of minutes as if he wantsto ask her something, but isn’t sure if it’s a good time. She knows she won’t be able to lie to him if it really came down to it, so she prays for her house to suddenly be closer.

“Where do you want to go eat?” He asks softly. She’s not even sure she’s heard him right, but his eyes are focused on the road.

“I’m not hungry, but thank you. Can you please just drop me home?”

Her voice comes out soft and small, and she absolutely despises when it does that stupid, fragile thing, that Ashar always points out. It makes her sound whiny and five, and she’s twenty one and it’s just sort of an insult, now.

He doesn’t say anything, only drives silently, and all that echoes between them is the RJ’s voice, saying “What’s up Kaaarrrraaachaaaay?” over and over again.

He glances at her when the car stops before the traffic light, and with her eyes closed, she looks lost and dimmed out, like someone took all the life from her in a swift movement, and he immediately feels empty, too. She’s always had that effect on him. Instantly, he feels bad for ridiculing her jealousy – he took it a bit too far, he thinks.

She opens her eyes when the car brims to a stop, but freaks out when she recognizes the driveway as his, instead of hers.

“I told you to drop me home,” she tells him stubbornly.

“Ghar hi tou laya hoon,” he says in mock-confusion, bemused. “Maanta hoon yeh future wala ghar hai tumhara, but you never specified.”

She wants to ignore his implication, but the color rushes to her cheeks before she can stop herself. She knows he notices, though; it’s obvious in the way he runs his hand through his hair and tries to bite back a laugh.

“Mere ghar jaana hai,” she says curtly, refusing to step foot out of the car.

“Uncle and Aunty have gone out with Mummy and Daddy,” he explains, turning to her completely. “They told me to pick you up; they’ll take you from here, later. Aunty said you don’t have the house keys,” he adds with a smirk.

She looks up at him, alarmed, and then involuntarily checks her bag for the keys. Without telling him that her mother was right, she just steps out of the car immediately.

He hops out of his seat, too, and laughs as he catches up to her. He knows she’s tied her hair because he didn’t say anything about it. She thinks he didn’t even see them – he laughs softly, he doesn’t know when she’ll realize that she’ll always be the first person his eyes find.

He does it so swiftly, so quickly, that she doesn’t even realize when he pulls the hair-tie of her hair until it spills all over her shoulders like a raven blanket.

He takes her hand, then, softly, and this is a touch she’s memorized. She cannot pull her hand from his even if she wants to. He tugs her a little closer, to she’s slightly pressed into his side, and leans in to whisper playfully.

“Ghussey mein kaafi cute lagti ho.”

She tries to pull her hand away immediately, but he easily repositions their hands in a way that she’s walking next to him, and their entwined hands rest by her waist.

She cannot help the small smile at the familiarity of the situation. In the numerous times they’ve fought, he’s always had some cheesy tactic to try and fix it all up to make it better.

He doesn’t say anything as they walk to the door, and uses his free hand to grab the house keys and unlock the door. She notices that he hasn’t let go of her for even one second, and that thought makes her smile involuntarily.

She knows his house as well as her own – she has been visiting since she was a child, after all. Their dads have been the best of friends for as long as she can remember, and that goes for their mums and them, too. He’s a couple of years older, and wiser, he usually says, and so they’ve always been around each other in some way or the other. In a way, she realizes, he’s the one constant of her life that she depends on more than any other. Except, you know, when he’s the cause of her distress.

He leads her to the kitchen table and then gently pushes her by her shoulders to sit properly. He bends until they’re at an eye-to-eye level, and smiles his famous I’m-Ashar-Hussan-and-I-can-woo-them-all smile at her. She looks down immediately. She doesn’t even have to wonder; the color’s already rushing to her cheek.

He laughs heartily at the sight, then stares at her until she meets his eyes with confusion.

“Kya?” She whispers, barely audible.

“Kya khaaogi?” He asks lightly, voice octaves lower due to the proximity.

She leans back from their closeness, and fixes her eyes on her knotted fingers in her lap, back to avoiding him.He seats himself on the chair next to hers, and tugs her hands, pulls her closer. Her eyes are still red, and as amusing as it was before, her discomfort is really disturbing him now.

“Kya hua hai meri Khirad ko?” His voice is soft and soothing, and seeing him like this – so bothered and confused by her demeanor – makes her want to curl into him and cry.

Her eyes start watering all by themselves. “I’m jealous?” She asks, not quite sure of her words. She wants to hide her face because of how ridiculous and childish she feels, but he instantly pulls her out of her chair and into his lap.

She doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t fight his touch like earlier, just buries her head in the hollow of his neck and cries out her pent-up frustration, tries to drown out that little voice that tells her she’s not enough for him. He’s a little taken aback, but he runs his hand through her hair softly, shushes in her ear and tells her that ‘It’s okay, I’m here. I’m with you. Talk to me.’

Her hands are clutching the front of his T-shirt, and he can feel the wetness of her tears on his skin, but when she doesn’t stop crying after ten minutes, he ruffles her hair affectionately, and slowly detaches her head from his shoulder.

She’s still sitting on his lap – she probably hasn’t realized it yet, or she’d have jumped up in embarrassment already – and he wraps one arm around her waist to secure her flailing form. With the other, he cups her face, wills her to look at him.

“What happened to you?” He asks gently. “Subah tou tum theek thaak thi.”

Her bottom lips quivers again, but it doesn’t stop her from talking. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and if they weren’t sitting so close, it probably would’ve been lost somewhere on its way to him. “I’m not like this, you know I’m not, but Khizer came to me and started saying all this stuff about you and Sara.”

Ashar’s jaw clenches despite himself.

“And he said that everyone thinks you guys are intellectually compatible, and that everyone loved your work on the presentation. I was just waiting for you to come and find me,” she admits honestly. “But I found you with Sara instead. And Khizer was just there, saying all these things, so I –

“So you walked out because you’re in love with me and seeing me with Sara made you uncomfortable. You thought I hadn’t noticed you,” he cuts her off. His voice is a whisper, and he knows she’s slightly shivering at their proximity. It’s in the way her eyes are suddenly downcast, now. He smiles at her innocence.

“But my darling,” he says slowly, deliberately, because she might not admit it, but he knows she loves his endearment. “No matter what you do, or what you say, or how angry you are at me, I’ll always come back for you.”

She looks at him and he can see the doubt brimming in her eyes, glistening in the pool of tears.

“I came to you, first,” he tells her. “This morning, right after my presentation, but you were with Khizer putting up the paintings in the corner. I got annoyed because out of all of your friends, he’s always the one who falls over his own two feet to help you. So I thought, agar mein Khizer ko itni mushkil se baar baar tolerate karsakta hoon, let me see how my silly girl deals with Sara. Mujhe kya pata tha intey aansoo involve honge!”

She giggles softly at his apt description. Khizer really does follow her around quite a bit, which annoys her given his blatant interest in Sara, and he smiles because he’s made her smile.

“I really don’t like him,” he says sincerely. He’s never really admitted it before – admissions of jealousy don’t suit him, he thinks - but something about her sitting like this, so vulnerable and honest, makes him say it anyway.

He’s diluting it, though, but saying he doesn’t like Khizer. If he’s being honest, he loathes the sight of Khizer’s smug face. He’s made a mental note to invite Khizer to their engagement the following month, and refer to Khirad as my girl whenever they talk that night.

“Were you jealous?” She teases, eyes coyly blinking up at him.

“I’m in love with you,” he says as an answer. She grins despite herself because she’s the only one who’s ever been on the opposite end of his “in love” and it’s only when she looks down in embarrassment that she notices exactly how they’re sitting.

He laughs the second she jumps out of his hold. He could easily stop her, but there’s something about watching her all flustered and blushing. He hops up from the seat, too.

“Chalo, ab batao, kya banaoon?” He asks, heading to the kitchen cabinets, following her lead.

She gives him a bright smile. “Noodles,” she orders.

“Alright, Madam,” he grins, then looks at her seriously. “Khirad, tum shaadi ke baad mujhe bhooka marogi?”

She clicks her tongue, then gives him a mischievous smile. “You’re the one who’ll be cooking – so technically, you’ll be the one starving yourself.”

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” He remarks, pulling out a packet of noodles as she sits herself on the kitchen counter. She gives him a cheeky smile.

“I’m adorable,” she grins. “You’re just jealous.”

He knows it’s too early to make jokes just yet, but he can’t help himself. “I’m the one who’s jealous?” He asks incredulously. “Because I could’ve sworn that less than five minutes ago a very frail voice almost drenched me with her tears and told me she was jealous.”

Khirad doesn’t seem to mind, though, only looks at him with mock-frustration. “Oh, really? Because I could’ve sworn someone mentioned something about Khizer Alam’s attachment to me,” she retorts. “Guess it was you, huh?”

He walks up to the counter when she’s seated comfortably, and stands right before her. With the napkin thrown over his shoulder carelessly, he really is all sorts of adorable. He takes her hand instantly and pulls her towards him. She immediately looks like she’s out of her element at their closeness, but he gives her an easy smile.

“I admit it, though. I was jealous, but at least I wasn’t throwing a fit about it,” he teases. “I don’t remember crying and fighting and sulking outside the university gates.”

She pulls her hand from him, cross already. “You’re pathetic,” she says pettily. “Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Go back to cooking now – I’m starving.”

“Apne hi ghar mein naukar bana diya hai, kamala hai,” he complains, attending to the noodles almost immediately. “Yahi kaam reh gaya tha mere liye, aansoo pochoon aur khana banaaoon,” he adds grumpily.

“Uff, Ashar,” she groans, jumping off the counter. “Kitna drama kartey ho. Hato, I’ll cook.”

She gives him a soft shove and wears the apron that hangs by the door. She knows he’s watching her antics fondly, is inwardly grinning ast her being very particular about the way the apron should be worn even though she hates the idea of cooking.

“I’ll assist,” he volunteers immediately, wrapping a loose arm around her waist.

“Sada ki chichori harkatein karoge tum,” she laughs, pulling herself from his hold. He finds it adorable how his touch always makes her jittery.

She’s about to tie her hair because of the disturbance it causes while cooking, but he takes the hair band from her hand almost immediately and situates himself behind her. “I’ll tie it,” he reassures. “Just please make something edible. Agar itna drama na karti tou Port Grand se kuch khalete.”

She involuntarily shoves her elbow in his stomach. “Stop bringing it up, Ashar,” she whines. “It’s embarrassing as it is.”

He runs his hand through her hair softly, and she almost can’t focus because of how affectionately he does it. How gently he treats her, like she might break at any given point. He laughs when she almost immediately leans into him.

“Agar ab Titanic ka scene khatam ho gaya ho tou kya aap wapis khaaney par focus kar sakti hain?” He mocks her instinctively, and she straightens the second the words leave his mouth. He tightly wraps his arm around her waist to prevent her from storming off.

“Alright, I’m sorry,” he whispers in her ears. “I won’t tease, you can work calmly now.”

She shakes her head in refusal. “I won’t cook until you go sit on the table and quietly wait for me to finish,” she instructs, turning around to face him when his arm becomes a little loose. She looks up at him with wide eyes, and he doesn’t have the heart to say no.

“Alright,” he says with an empty sigh. “Agar tum hi mujhe door jaane ko keh rahi ho tou mein apney bechaare dil ko kya samjhaoon?” He asks dramatically. She hides her face in his shirt and laughs.

“You are something else, AsharHussain,” she tells him fondly. He smiles at her endearment and tugs her towards him. When she looks at him with questioning eyes, he leans in closer to her ear, jaw brushing against her cheek.

“Jo bhi hoon, I’m all yours, silly girl, and don’t you ever forget that.”

And he realizes that even without trying, it’s probably the cheesiest thing he’s said out of all his lame lines, but her winning smile is entirely worth it.