The rain had a way of making the world feel softer, as if everything sharp and ordinary had been rinsed away. On the balcony, with steam rising from their chipped mugs and pakoras gone warm in their fingers, Aarya let herself breathe for the first time in days. The night smelled of wet earth and frying batter, of chai and something faint and musky that belonged to Hiten — a scent she couldn’t name but that settled oddly in the back of her throat like a promise.

Hiten was watching the drops, tracing a random pattern on the glass with his fingertip. For a moment they were side by side without trying to be anything other than two people who had stolen a day together. The light above them hummed quietly, casting a circle of safe yellow on the floor.

“Twenty-four hours,” Aarya said, softer than she meant to be. “Twenty-four hours and… this.”

“This what?” he asked, turning to her. His voice sounded like it belonged to the same quiet as the rain.

She smiled and gestured at everything — the balcony, the soaked street below, the way the rain ran in silver rivers. “This. All of it. You. Me. Pakoras.”

He laughed, that low sound that made her chest feel roomy. “We forced fate with a soggy umbrella, apparently.” He set his cup down and nudged her shoulder. “C’mon, the rain’s still going. Don’t tell me you want to stay cooped up inside.”

She looked at the street, at the greenish halo of the streetlights reflected in every puddle. He looked at her with a kind of hopeful mischief she was starting to recognize. Her feet itched with the memory of bare toes on wet tile. She didn’t have to think too long.

“Let’s go,” she said.

They carried their cups back inside, the pakora plate left unfinished for a minute as they slipped their sandals on. The door clicked behind them and the warm kitchen air met the sharp outside cold like a dared challenge. Hiten opened the balcony door wider, and cold rain air rolled in, smelling like thunder and fresh ground.

Once they were outside the building, the full orchestra of the storm welcomed them — the slap of water on the road, the distant hiss of a tire through a puddle, the occasional rumble that felt like the clouds clearing their throat. The lane looked different, as if someone had repainted it with broad strokes of gray and neon.

Aarya laughed without meaning to. She grabbed Hiten’s hand before he could protest and pulled him toward the nearest puddle. Their shoes hit the water and it exploded up to their shins, cold and sharp and alive. He yelped and then laughed because she yelped, and the sound sounded new to both of them.

He scooped her up with that quick, practiced lift — the same one he’d used in the garden hose chaos earlier in a version she had half-remembered in some rewind of the day — and spun her around until the world tilted like a cup being poured. Her hair fanned out in a wet halo, droplets catching the streetlight. The world narrowed to the two of them, to the rain and the way his arms were steady against her ribs.

“Stop!” she gasped, laughter bubbling out of her. “You’re going to ruin my hair.”

“Then I’ll ruin it properly,” he teased, kissing rain off her temple like it was something he could steal. She slapped his chest playfully, but her laugh had gone soft at the edges. Being in his arms felt like the only sensible place to be.

They ran. Puddles kicked up like small fountains. They splashed under the streetlight, made faces at each other, and for a while the world belonged only to them. The neighbor’s dog barked once, protesting this invasion of joy, and an old man’s silhouette watched from under an umbrella, smiling in the way old men sometimes do at sudden bursts of youth.

At one point Hiten ducked behind a parked car and produced a garden hose from somewhere near the kerb — whether it was stored there or he had just improvised, she never found out. He turned it on with a wicked grin, the water arcing in a silver rope that met them like a second rain. She shrieked and retaliated, grabbing the hose and swinging it toward him. They tore across the yard, the hose making weird, squealing noises. Rain mixed with hose water splattered against their faces, and their clothes stuck to their skin like second skins.

“Hiten!” she scolded between giggles. “You’re wasting water!”

“You started it!” he said, but his voice had gone gentle where it mattered. “I’m not letting you win without a fight.”

They were drenched in minutes, clothes dark with rain, hair dripping in small rivers that made their cheeks glisten. Every time his hand brushed hers it felt electric — a short, hot zap that left the rest of her feeling oddly hollow and full at once.

When the cold finally bit too deep, they ran for home, laughing and breathless. The door slammed behind them and the small apartment wrapped around them like a towel. She leaned against the frame, trying to breathe the warmth back into her limbs. Hiten peeled off his wet shirt with a casualness she envied. The air was thick with steam from their earlier cups of chai and the warm smell of the pakoras, and her damp hair smelled like rain and lemon shampoo.

“I should take a shower,” he said, more to himself than to her. He glanced toward the bathroom and then back. “You should too. You’re shaking.”

Her hands were still cold, fingers white. “Okay.” She didn’t protest. There was a small, stubborn part of her that wanted to stand in front of him forever soaked and reckless, but reality lived in squeaky radiators and school uniforms and headmasters, and she didn’t want to be ridiculous.

They took quick showers — the kind that are practiced, that strip away the wet and leave you raw and laughing. The bathroom steamed; the mirrors fogged with cartoon faces. He kept talking absurdly about the shape of the raindrops like it explained everything, and she pretended not to notice how the water made his freckles shine.

They dressed in dry clothes, socks warm and soft, the chill retreating. In the kitchen, Hiten put on a pot of water and hummed tunelessly while she wrapped her hair in a towel. He offered her a mug without asking; she accepted it like a truce. They stood close, shoulders nearly touching. The bond from the day felt like a thread now braided between them.

“You know,” Hiten said, leaning on the counter, “I never thought a rainy day could be this… loud.”

“Loud?” she repeated, sipping the tea. The heat went straight to her chest. “It’s been perfect.”

He watched her with that look that had stopped her heart twice already — the look that was a mixture of something careful and something braver. “It’s not just the rain,” he said quietly. “It’s everything else that gets louder when the world is quiet. The things you don’t say.”

The words landed like soft stones in the quiet kitchen. Aarya caught her breath, her mind listing all the things she hadn’t said — her grandmother’s hands, the braces of school, the reasons she drew to feel less alone. Standing there with him, with rain pooling in the corners like loose coins, the unsaid words felt heavy and maybe, for the first time, breakable.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Instead she reached for the bowl of chutney on the table and tasted it absurdly, buying herself time. The chutney was sharp, like lemon and ginger. He smiled, an answering smile that asked a thousand questions without urgency.

They started cooking again, deliberately this time — slow, careful. Hiten guided her hands when she chopped, his palm pressing hers to show the angle. Each small touch was a punctuation mark; each look a sentence. When they moved to the floor with two plates stacked on a low table, the apartment felt like the only house in the world. They ate quietly, punctuating the silence with small laughter and late-night jokes that tasted like comfort.

After dinner they did what tired, content people do — they collapsed on the living-room rug, side-by-side, breath still warm from the small emergency of the day. The television hummed quietly in the corner, but neither watched. Somewhere outside a car drove through a massive puddle, the splash a distant drum.

Aarya turned slightly, watching Hiten’s face as he toyed with a loose thread on the rug. There was a softness there now, softened by the rain and the shared secret of being reckless together. She wanted to say something, to confess how strange it was that someone could become so important so quickly, but silence seemed kinder.

Thunder rolled, soft at first and then closer. The light above them flickered, once. Hiten didn’t look up immediately, but his hand moved as if it already knew where hers might be. It hovered near her knee, then inched closer, brushing her fingers. The contact was featherlight, electric.

She did not pull away.

The overhead light hummed and stuttered, the room dimming like someone easing down a curtain. For one suspended second everything was outlined in the silver of the storm — her damp lashes, the faint salt on his skin, the tiny scratches on his knuckles from some small chore he never talked about.

The light went out.

Darkness softened the edges of the room; the only illumination came from the streetlight bleeding through the curtains and the occasional lightning that sketched their silhouettes in white. They held a breath like two people waiting to see what would come next.

Hiten’s hand found hers in the dark, fingers lacing before thought. It was a small, decisive thing; no words, no rush — just a truth asserted with careful pressure.

Aarya’s heart hammered so loud she could feel the beat in her throat. Time thinned into a single moment where the storm, the darkness, and the closeness between them all seemed to condense into something fragile and impossible.

Someone down the lane shouted, a rough voice carried by the wind, and the spell broke. For a second they both laughed, breathless and small.

Hiten squeezed her fingers once, then let go as if to give her space to breathe. “We should check the electricity,” he murmured, voice a hush.

She nodded, hand still tingling where his had touched hers. The apartment felt too small and too big at once. They moved toward the light switch, stepping carefully, shadows sliding against the walls.

The door to the hallway creaked.

A pause.

Then a faint sound — a phone buzzing, or perhaps footsteps in the stairwell — reached them, an ordinary interruption that felt like fate knocking.

They froze, hands inches apart on the light switch.

As Hiten reached up to flip the switch, a sudden, unexpected knock sounded at the door — three quick taps that cut through the rain’s heartbeat.

Who could be visiting at this hour? Would the knock force them back into the ordinary world — dry, dressed, and distant — or would it throw them together, two dripping silhouettes facing whoever had come to the door?

They exchanged one look — equal parts dread and dare — and Hiten moved toward the door.

The rain soaked them, the laughter rang loud… yet a shadow of something unexpected lingered nearby. Click Next to see what happens next?

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