It was about to be 5 pm now as Vyani just put on her red top and blue pajamas before heading out, and the rotation of her pedals was messy, annoying with a creak, before she reached Rivan’s street. She hopped off her cycle and went to the main door of the haunted house. Before the door opened itself, it was Rivan’s older sister, tall, pale in a yellow kurti and her glasses tilted on her face, before she raised her eyebrows at the stranger who was losing her breath in front of her door.
“Umm, who are you?” Rivan’s sister asked.
Vyani didn’t answer, she just looked at his sister with a terrified expression before she asked slowly, “Is your younger brother home?” How ridiculous it is to ask if the person you killed yesterday is home or not, she thought to herself.
“My younger brother? I am a single child, I think you have some misunderstanding,” his sister said in a confused expression, before her mother came out too, and Vyani looked at Mrs. Shukla. Her tears hadn’t left a stain on his mother’s cheek while her own hands still reeked of Rivan’s blood. She faintly heard Rivan’s sister tell her mother why Vyani was there.
“Oh, you must be looking for him, I have seen you in Sankshu’s school,” his mother said, coming out with a husky laugh. “His house is that one, beta.” His mother touched her shoulder slowly, and it ached so much as she pointed to a big green house, Sankshipt’s house.
Vyani nodded slowly. “Oh yeah, sorry, I misunderstood.”
Now she was standing in front of Sankshipt’s house. She knew it was his house, that’s how she knew where Rivan lived in the first place, because she saw Mrs. Shukla in Rivan's instagram highlights and his mother had attended Sankshipt’s parent-teacher meeting after his mother passed away, and there had not been a single time Avni hadn’t mentioned it’s Sankshipt’s street, every time they passed by this street in her childhood, as both Avni and Sankshipt were in the same class before the great separation in grade 10.
She sighed. Rivan’s mother didn’t know she had a son, his sister was also clueless. It’s like she was going to be alone in his funeral, mourning for someone who never existed for the world.
“Sorry, I am very sorry,” she whispered, looking at the sky, maybe to dead Rivan, or herself, she didn’t know, before she wiped her cheek and proceeded to her home.
120Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ42tl3SvTYn
120Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrW8HkKlZrz
120Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCxsFzK0JHn
It was a Sunday. Sundays are supposed to be easy, but for Ayaan they weren’t because his father would be home, and that meant he would wake up at 6 and study till his father got bored. He was sitting in his old school’s sports jersey, which he wears to become an eyesore in front of his father because Mr. Mehra declared it long ago that Ayaan should only do sports till his height is growing, but even though the guy was now 6 foot, he was still as obsessed with football as he was when he first saw a football. He was trying his best to find the domain and the range of a random function when his father snatched the notebook from him.
“Didn’t I already explain that to you?”
“I was trying to solve—” Ayaan pretended to plead.
“Question no. 4 was just like that, still you don’t understand anything.”
“I was trying,” he replied while actually looking at the mirror behind his father.
His father sighed. “You would have understood functions better if you had taken PCM, but no, you have sworn to never listen to me.”
“I don’t want a degree in functions, Papa—”
“Vyani, Mr. Kushwaha’s daughter listened to him and took PCB, and look at you. I don’t know what I did for having this kind of children.”
Ayaan smirked internally listening to him while his fingers still pretended they were working on that function question “Vyani” Of course his father loves this name, and especially after she topped with 97 percent, it’s not like his 86 percent was enough to satisfy him.
After two more whole hours of comparison and insult, Mr. Mehra finally made his son complete the functions, and before he could ask him about anything else, Ayaan stood up from the chair and vanished into his brother’s room.
“She always listens to her father,” Ayaan mimicked his father’s tone “Sure as hell her father didn’t tell her to stalk me both online and offline,” Ayaan said, throwing his books at Arth’s bed.
Arth laughed. “Who said that? Papa?”
Ayaan scoffed. “Yeah, of course. Who even told him that Pixel’s percentage?”
“Of course her mother made sure Papa learned that by heart,” Arth said.
“Does her mother know what her daughter wrote to me about how much she wants me?” Ayaan laughed.
“Don’t ever delete those screenshots, she is such a dweeb,” Arth said, laughing.
“Why would I?” Ayaan laughed back.
“Save those on your laptop.”
“Already did, you think I am ever letting it vanish,” Ayaan said, smirking.
“And do you remember that message when you asked her if she likes you and she replied, ‘I don’t like you, I love you,’ like what the hell, oh my god,” Arth started laughing hard.
“Let’s not forget she told me everything from her favourite colour to her favourite movie and even asked mine,” Ayaan smirked proudly.
“And she wore yellow the next day when you said it was yellow,” Arth said between laughs.
“And the fact I hate that colour,” Ayaan said, laughing.
“She was so desperate, it was so funny,” Arth added.
“Was? She still is desperate for me, in fact very desperate—”
“No, I mean she totally avoids us now and doesn’t come on her terrace with those heart eyes, you know,” Arth said in defence.
“Probably busy in physics or something, but of course you know I am not very hard to forget,” Ayaan winked.
Arth laughed hard, smacking his brother on the neck.
As for Vyani, she was washing her clothes in the bathroom, rubbing the brush over her cotton green shrug like a child running a crayon on his art, even though her mother told her to just put it in the washing machine. But she was here in the small bathroom near the water tub. Tis had already erased all the traces of blood and sin from her, she still felt the need to wash her own clothes, the ones she wore on the “accident.”
“Vyani, come fast, I have to go take a bath too,” Adbhut said from outside.
She hummed before yelling, “Coming,” as she put on her clothes fast and put her clothes in the bucket before slamming open the door and running to her terrace with the bucket filled with drenched clothes. She was halfway into unfolding her clothes for stretching them on the wire before her eyes met with Tis, watching her in a new light.
“Are you okay?” he asked slowly.
“Yeah, I am okay, everything is okay, my sister is going tomorrow and I have to complete my physics homework, everything is okay,” Vyani overexplained again.
“Good, you should be, because we have to focus again, we are back at point one.”
Vyani nodded.
“We were on the wrong train. Now our first task would be to find out about that prisoner, who he killed and why.” Tis resumed explaining.
“Maybe someone related to whoever he murdered wanted to take revenge, you know, a grudge?” Vyani said, sitting on the corner of the roof where it was not very sunny.
“Kiddo, the Hucia thief is smart, she won’t provoke me just to take personal revenge,” Tis replied, hovering around her.
Vyani looked at him. “In the end, the Hucia thief is also a human. When I committed a murder over someone I love, why can’t she?”
“I don’t think that’s possible, but we can work on it, yeah,” Tis said, considering her idea.
120Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj9lBpO2LRZ
120Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8HqxdT14z7
120Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtfJfsdfJuQ
“Sankshu!!” Mrs. Shukla shouted towards Sankshipt, who was going inside his house with eggs and milk in his hand. He turned back.
“Aunty, namaste!” he replied, joining his hands.
“Namaste, Namaste, Did you meet that girl yesterday?” she asked.
“Which girl?” Sankshipt asked, confusion etched on his face.
“The one who came looking for you, umm....short height, short hair, she is from your school, misunderstood our house for yours.”
“Huh? No one from school came by yesterday.”
“Huh, weird, because she said she was looking for you,” Mrs. Shukla said in a confused expression.
“Did she mention her name?” he asked gently.
“No, but she is that girl, in your parent-teacher meeting, the one whose mother was checking everyone’s result.”
“Uh, umm—” Sankshipt was confused.
“Arre, her mother also asked to see your Hindi scores in the second pre-board meeting, when you had the highest score in Hindi, don’t you remember? The teacher stopped her. She was standing behind her mother,” Mrs. Shukla insisted.
“Uh… oh yeah, Vyakhya,” Sankshipt nodded, now clearly remembering the whole incident of the parent-teacher meeting after second pre-board of class 10, where Vyakhya’s mother caused a whole scene because she scored less in every subject, mostly maths and Hindi, and her mother asked the Hindi teacher, Mr. Shubash, to show the highest score copy to her, but he refused, saying it’s against school rules. Then she caused a whole scene because she wanted to make sure her daughter doesn’t make the same mistakes in actual boards.
“Yes, yes, that was her name!” Mrs. Shukla laughed.
“Um, aunty, why was she here? Did she tell you that? I didn’t meet her,” Sankshipt asked.
“I don’t know, beta,” she shook her head.
Sankshipt nodded and said goodbye to her before going inside his house to make breakfast for his sleeping sister. They both slept late because of the Pokémon movie they were watching last night, so now at 11 am, they were about to eat brunch.
ns216.73.217.39da2
and then Add to home screen.