TuHir FF:Never Your Wife Again! Ch-37 on p69: Kab Tak? - Page 69

Originally posted by: ABC_1234

Hey!! I was just curious is Rithik-Mitali the endgame or Rithik-Munni??

What do you want? Because that’s the next subplot

Originally posted by: ElitePerfumer

Thanks a lot, dear. My replies are in red.

I’m sure I’m one of the few who has been asking you to write about a delulu Noina to actually witness TuHir’s love, healing, and growing bond firsthand through the romance. Maybe now she’ll finally stop resorting to cheap tactics like trying to remind Tulsi about the incident where Mihir pushed her, or invading Mihir’s personal space at the office while completely failing to notice how uncomfortable he was and how he instinctively recoiled.

Hopefully, this was the moment that finally got the message across - loud and clear - that nothing she does can break their bond anymore.

And of course, we’ll happily take every TuHir scene we can get! But please do continue giving us romantic moments alongside their teasing and playful banter, just like in the early days of the show. That balance made them even more special compared to other ITV couples and highlighted not just their love but their lifelong friendship as well.

Chapter 37: Kab tak?

The room was still dark when Mihir woke, the kind of dark that meant it was earlier than it needed to be, and his hand had already gone to the other side of the bed before the rest of him was properly awake.

Empty.

It wasn’t a surprise. It hadn’t been a surprise in six and a half years — the mattress cool where no one had been, the pillow undisturbed, the whole other half of the bed arranged with the flat, unclaimed neatness of a room no one used. He’d stopped expecting anything different a long time ago. He’d trained himself out of it the way a man trains himself to stop favoring an old injury, until the absence had simply become part of the terrain of waking up.

Lately, though, the terrain had started shifting under him again, and he didn’t fully know what to do with that.

He lay there a moment, staring at the ceiling instead of the empty side, and let himself think, with the particular honesty the dark made easier, that this was the last thought he carried into sleep most nights now, and the first one waiting for him most mornings. *Kab tak?* Not if. He didn’t let himself use if anymore. Just *kab tak?* How much longer.

They had walked together to the staircase last night, same as always — her room waiting at its foot, the one that had once been Baa’s. Nothing about it should have felt any different from any other night this past month.

And yet something in it had.

She hadn’t said anything unusual. She hadn’t done anything he could have pointed to and named. Only that at the staircase, she’d paused a beat longer than the goodnight required, her eyes finding his and staying there — not searching for anything, not uncertain, just present in a way that made the ordinary “Good Night” between them feel, for a moment, like it was standing in for something neither of them had said yet.

He’d almost asked her, right there at the base of the staircase. *Tulsi — humare room mein kab wapas aaogi?*

The question had gotten as far as his throat and stopped there, the way it always did.

He knew why. The moment he asked it out loud, it would stop being hers to decide in her own time and become his wanting, spoken into the space between them, sitting there with a weight it didn’t need to carry. He had promised himself, somewhere in the long wreckage of these years, that whatever right he’d once had to ask Tulsi for anything, he’d spent it completely. What was left now was only what she chose to give, unasked — the hand that had found his shoulder first, the hug she’d finished for him after the balcony proposal, when his own arms had failed him. He did not get to be a man who wanted things from her out loud anymore. Not about this.

So he’d only said goodnight, and climbed the stairs alone, and let the sound of her door closing below him be the last thing he heard before his own door shut behind him.

Lying here now, in the dark, hand still resting on the cool, empty stretch of sheet beside him, he thought of the stairs between their two rooms — how many nights he’d climbed them by himself, how many mornings he’d have to come down them not knowing if today would be the day that changed, and understood, in the specific, quiet way a man understands something he’ll never say to anyone, that he would climb them every night for the rest of his life if that was what it cost, and never once let her see what the climbing cost him.

*Kab tak*, he thought again, and had no answer, and got up anyway, because the day — hers, theirs, ordinary and undramatic for once — was already waiting on the other side of the door.

-----

The balcony, when he stepped out onto it, was already holding her.

If yesterday’s balcony morning had been full to bursting — the proposal, the article, the children’s ambush before the sun had even properly covered the compound wall — today’s held none of that urgency. There was nothing to confess, nothing to give, nothing that needed saying before breakfast. Just the two of them and the kaada going down slow and companionable between them, and under it, something that felt less like happiness announcing itself and more like happiness that had simply decided to stay.

It was only later, over the chai, that he noticed she’d gone quiet in a different way — not the comfortable quiet of the kaada, but somewhere else entirely, her eyes fixed on the garden without actually seeing it.

“Kahan kho gayi?” He asked.

She came back slowly, like she was surfacing from something. “Karan aur Gautam,” she said, and then didn’t say anything else for a moment, turning the cup in her hands. “Kal jab Karan ka call aaya tha, Gautam baith bhi nahi paaya wahan. Tab se soch rahi hoon — agar use pata chala ki Karan aur Nandini kuch mahino mein yahan move ho rahe hain…”

She stopped, and when she looked at him, whatever had been quiet in her eyes wasn’t anymore.

“Agar Gautam phir ghar chhodke gaya toh main bardaasht nahi kar paaoongi, Mihir.”

He didn’t answer right away. He set his own cup down instead, and for a moment the only sound was the garden waking up below them.

“Darr toh mujhe bhi hai iska,” he said finally. Not a reassurance. An admission, offered plainly, the way he’d learned to offer things to her now — without dressing them up as something smaller than they were.

She looked at him, surprised he hadn’t tried to talk her out of it.

“Bangalore mein bhi toh ye issue usne chhoda nahi tha,” she said quietly. “‘Apne sauntele aur god liye bachchon se fursat mil gayi aapko’ — yeh keh kar hi toh humein sunaya tha. Aaj bhi woh Shabd chubhte hain dil mein.” Her voice wasn’t even when she said it.

“Haan,” Mihir said. “Angad, Pari, Ritik — teeno ke saath uska yehi gila raha, barson tak. Ki hum unhe utna hi apna maante hain jitna use. Ki uske hisse ka pyaar baant diya gaya.”

“Toh phir ab?” Tulsi asked. “Ab toh woh teeno ke saath theek lagta hai.”

“Ab,” Mihir said slowly, turning the thought over as he said it, “shayad usne khud dekha ki woh pyaar baanta nahi jaata. Ki Angad, Pari, Ritik ko apnaane se uska hissa kam nahi hua.” He paused. “Ya shayad Bangalore jaake, jab humne use dhoondha — jab hum uski be-rukhi ke bawajood bhi peeche nahi hate — tabhi use shayad yeh yakeen aaya ki woh khud kabhi kam nahi tha humare liye.”

Whatever it was, Tulsi thought, something in him had finally let go of the arithmetic he’d been doing his whole life — dividing a mother’s love into shares, certain his own share was shrinking every time another child was added to it.

“Toh Karan ke saath bhi—” she started.

“Karan alag hai,” Mihir said, before she could finish it hopefully. “Angad, Pari, Ritik phir bhi pehle uske cousins the. Karan… Karan uske liye kuch aur hi represent karta hai. Gomzi kehta nahi Tulsi lekin sab se zyaada pyaar woh tumse karta hai. Usne aaj tak poori tarah mujhe Mandira ke liye maaf nahi kiya. Aur isiliye Karan ko lekar uski resentment natural hai.” He said it without flinching, though she could see what it cost him to say it that plainly, this early in the morning. “Lekin agar usne baaki teeno ke saath yeh raasta paar kiya hai, toh I’m hopeful— woh Karan ke saath bhi kar lega. Time lagega. Lekin kar lega.”

Tulsi didn’t say anything for a moment. She wanted to believe it as simply as he’d said it.

Maybe that was the difference between them, even now — he could sit inside a fear and still hand her a reason to hope. She could only sit inside the fear.

“Umeed toh yehi hai,” she said finally, quiet, and reached for her cup again, though the kaada had long gone lukewarm in it.

“Abhi bhi paanch mahine baaki hain Karan-Nandini ke aane mein,” Mihir said, after a moment. “Tab tak humare paas time hai. Har din use yeh yakeen dilate rahenge ki iss ghar mein uski jagah kabhi kam nahi hui.”

Tulsi nodded slowly, though the worry hadn’t fully left her eyes.

He was quiet for a while after that, long enough that she thought the conversation had settled into its usual place — unresolved, but not unbearable. Then he spoke again, in the tone of a man thinking out loud rather than announcing a decision.

“Ek kaam karte hain — sabko keh dete hain ki abhi Karan-Nandini ke aane ki baat Gautam ke saamne na aaye. Jab tak announce karne ka sahi waqt na ho.”

Tulsi turned to look at him properly.

“Jitna hum chhupaayenge, Mihir, utna hi risk hai ki agar usse pata chala — kisi aur ke through, galti se — toh hum uska bharosa phir se khoyenge. Itni mushkil se toh woh hum par vishwas karne laga hai.”

“Nahi, nahi,” Mihir said quickly, shaking his head. “Main directly kuch chhupaane ki ya jhoot bolne ki baat nahi kar raha. Bas itna — jab tak woh ghar mein poori tarah settle nahi ho jaata, tab tak koi Karan ke baare mein khud se mention na kare. Agar woh khud poochta hai, koi jhoot nahi bolega. Bas hum khud aage badhkar yeh khabar uske saamne nahi rakhenge.”

He looked at her, wanting her to see the distinction he was drawing — a difference, in his mind, between silence and deception, even if he knew the line between the two could be thinner than he wanted it to be.

“Bas thoda waqt, Tulsi. Bas itna ki jab tak uski jaden iss ghar mein poori tarah se phail na jaayen, hum uspe koi aisa bojh na daalein jiske liye woh abhi taiyaar na ho.”

Tulsi didn’t answer right away. She turned her cup slowly in her hands, the reluctance still sitting in her, unresolved.

“Theek hai,” she said finally, quiet, not quite looking at him. It wasn’t agreement so much as surrender to his logic, and they both seemed to know the difference.

Mihir let the silence hold for a moment before he reached to lighten it, the way he always did when he sensed her carrying something too heavy for this early in the morning.

“Aaj toh sooji ka dhokla banega naa naashte mein?”

“Haan,” she said, something easing in her face despite herself. “Ferment hone rakh diya hai kal raat hi.” She glanced at him. “Tumhare liye paratha chalega?”

She uncovered the chai cups and both picked up theirs.

“Arre nahi,” he said. “Main bhi dhokla khaaoonga.”

“Lekin tumhe toh pasand nahi naa.”

“Ab pasand hai.” A small pause, and then, simply: “Tumhare haath ka sab kuch.”

She understood exactly what sat underneath the sentence — not the dhokla at all, but the years he had missed her cooking, and was only now allowed to say he’d missed. She didn’t acknowledge it out loud. Some things, even now, felt too large to hold in words this early in the day. But he saw the understanding cross her eyes anyway, quick and unhidden, before she looked away.

To break the moment before it could settle into something neither of them was ready to sit inside, she said, lightly, “Chalo, achha hai — aaj dinner mein karela aur lauki ek saath khaa lenge. Mere dono favorites.”

Mihir went still for half a second — long enough that she caught it — before his face rearranged itself into mock outrage. “Yeh toh sahi nahi hai,” he said. A pause, just to tease her a bit. “Actually ek meeting karni hai — lunch ya dinner pe. Ab sochta hoon dinner hi rakh loon.”

“Hamare ghar ka rule hai na,” Tulsi said, sternly, not even looking up from her cup. “Breakfast aur dinner — family time.”

He held his hands up, mock-defenseless, and let his face fall into the exact expression of a man who had personally checked his calendar seventeen times and found no possible remedy. “Kya karoon, Tulsi,” he said, shaking his head with theatrical gravity, “yeh meeting ka time mere bas mein nahi hai.”

“Mihir.” Her eyes narrowed.

“Arre, lunch meeting hi rakhi hai,” he said, laughing now, giving up the pretense.

“Ab toh main tumhe karela aur lauki dono khilaake hi rahoongi,” she said, and went back to her chai like the matter was closed.

-----

Breakfast was winding down — plates half-cleared, the last of the dhokla disappearing off the serving tray faster than it had any of the other mornings this month — when the door bell rang, and a moment later the medical store boy was let in, the familiar cloth bag of strips and bottles in his hand.

Vrinda got up without being asked, already moving toward the cupboard where the files were kept. “Main laati hoon,” she said, and returned a moment later with three thin folders — Daksha Chachi’s, Gayatri Chachi’s, and Mihir’s — setting them down beside the bag for Angad to check against, the way it had happened every first Sunday of the month.

“Angad,” Tulsi said, but then stopped herself, and glanced instead toward the chair next to Mihir’s. “Gautam, tu kar le na aaj yeh.”

The table quieted in the particular way a room does when it’s decided, without being told, that something is being watched.

Gautam looked up, caught mid-bite, and for a second didn’t seem to understand what was being asked of him. “Yeh — medicine wala kaam?” He looked toward Angad, some old instinct reaching automatically for the familiar arrangement. “Angad hi kar leta hai na hamesha, main kyun—”

“Bhaiya,” Angad said, easy, not making a thing of it, “main toh naam hi gadbad kar deta hoon kabhi kabhi — yeh wali strip aur woh wali, sab milti julti lagti hain mujhe. Aap lawyer ho, aapka toh kaam hi words ka hai — aap zyada acche se kar loge, galti nahi hogi.”

It was said lightly, almost as a joke, but there was nothing in it that gave Gautam room to argue with the logic.

Mihir looked at Angad for a beat longer than the moment needed, something quietly grateful in it — the silent acknowledgment of a son who’d read the room perfectly and made room for a brother without either of them having to say so out loud.

Gautam looked down at the three files sitting in front of him, then at the bag of medicines, then, briefly, at no one in particular.

“Theek hai,” he said, not quite meeting anyone’s eyes, already reaching for the first file with the slightly stiff carefulness of a man handling something he hadn’t decided yet how much he was allowed to want.

He didn’t say anything else. He opened Daksha Chachi’s file first, checked the strips against it, set it aside, moved to the next — and if there was something almost pleased sitting underneath the reluctance, something that had very little to do with medicines and a great deal to do with dhokla and a chair no one had questioned him sitting in this morning, he kept it to himself, the way he kept most things.

-----

Gautam had worked through the last of the strips against Gayatri Chachi’s file, and finally signed the medical bill for the month. The table was settling into that loose, unhurried post-meal sprawl — when Gautam cleared his throat in the particular way that meant he’d been building up to something for a few minutes.

“Main… Damini ke saath lunch pe jaane ka soch raha hoon aaj,” he said, not quite to anyone in particular, already looking slightly like he regretted announcing it at all.

“Achhi jagah dhoondh raha hai toh,” Mihir said, easy, “Amaya try kar — bahut achhi jagah hai, hum bhi kal—”

He stopped.

Too late.

Shobha, who had never in her life let a slip like that pass unclaimed, looked up from her phone with the slow, delighted attention of a daughter who had just been handed a gift. “Aap dono lunch date pe gaye the?”

“Haan,” Mihir said, at the exact moment Tulsi said, “Nahi.”

The table’s attention swung between them like a tennis match.

“Matlab,” Mihir said, recovering with the speed of a man used to thinking on his feet in boardrooms, “tumhari maa ne mujhe birthday treat di.”

Tulsi looked at him, unimpressed, the kind of look that promised a longer conversation later.

“Toh phir hum sabko treat kyun nahi mili, Mumma?” Shobha said, entirely too pleased with herself.

And that was all it took. The word *treat* landed on the children like a starting gun.

“Aur Dadu ne jo raat ko softie ice cream treat promise ki thi?” Timsy said, already half out of her chair. “Woh kab milegi?”

“Haan, promise kiya tha!” Akshay and Madhvi said it together, with the particular unified force of twins who had clearly been rehearsing this grievance since the previous night.

Garima didn’t say anything, just looked at Mihir with the wide, wounded eyes of a girl who trusted her Nanu completely and expected that trust to be honored immediately.

“Kal raat hi toh chocobar khilaayi thi tum sab ko Dadu ne,” Vrinda tried, gently. “Kitni ice cream khaoge.”

“Haan, thoda ruk jao,” Mitali added, already sensing it was a losing battle. “Shaam ko le chalenge khaane.”

“Nahi, abhi chahiye,” Timsy said, with the flat, non-negotiable finality only a five-year-old can produce. Pari opened her mouth to try a different angle, but the twins had already picked up the chant — “Abhi! Abhi!” — and Garima’s lower lip had begun its telltale wobble, and the three mothers exchanged a look that said the negotiation was, for all practical purposes, over.

Mihir laughed, holding his hands up in surrender before the wobble could turn into anything worse. “Achha, achha, chalo — abhi khilaata hoon.”

The children’s cheer was immediate and enormous.

He turned to Gautam, who had been watching the entire exchange with the faint, bemused expression of a man who had forgotten how loud this house could get before ten in the morning. “Tu free hai na lunch tak? Toh chal, tu bhi saath.”

He then glanced toward Tulsi, the question already forming on his face — an unspoken *tum bhi chalogi?* — but she was still looking at him with that same flat, unimpressed patience, the birthday-treat cover-up clearly not something she intended to let go of that easily. Whatever silent invitation had been sitting in his eyes, he thought better of it before it could even fully form, and turned back to the children instead.

“Chalo,” he said, and the four of them scrambled up from the table with the particular chaotic speed reserved only for ice cream, Gautam pulled along in their wake looking faintly like a man who had signed up for lunch with Damini and somehow ended up chaperoning a softie run.

-----

The house had gone quiet in that particular post-breakfast way — the children’s chatter fading toward the gate, Mihir’s car pulling out a few minutes after with Gautam driving it, Vrinda and Shobha already deep in some conversation about the week’s errands. Tulsi stood at the table a moment longer than she needed to, watching the last of it empty out, and then went to her room.

Mitali’s envelope had been sitting on her dresser since her birthday yesterday, unopened, waiting for a morning quiet enough to hold it properly. This, she thought, closing the door behind her, was as quiet as the house was likely to get.

She sat on the edge of the bed and opened it.

The letter ran to several pages, Mitali’s handwriting small and careful at the start, as though she’d been choosing each word with some effort, loosening only gradually into something more like speech.

*Dearest Maa,

Yeh letter likhna mushkil hai, kyunki jo main likhne wali hoon, woh main kisi se bhi kehne se darti thi — shayad khud se bhi.*

It began, Tulsi realized within the first paragraph, as a confession — and did not spare itself. Mitali wrote plainly about the years under Suchitra and Noina’s shaping, about being taught, without ever being told outright, that the world existed to be used, that other people’s breaking was simply the cost of one’s own rising.

*Mujhe pata nahi tha — ya shayad jaanna hi nahi chaahti thi* — she’d written, of her cruelty to Ritik that included calling him a loser numerous times a day — *ki woh sab uske andar kitna gehra jaa raha tha, jab tak woh din nahi aaya jab usne khud ko khatam karne ki koshish ki. Aur phir bhi mujhe khaas farak nahi pada. Perhaps I was only happy to see him suffer that way.*

Tulsi had to stop there, the page trembling slightly in her hand, and made herself breathe before she read on.

The letter moved through more than Tulsi had expected — an accounting, it seemed, of nearly every relationship Mitali felt she’d once damaged, each one named and sat with rather than excused. Pages of it. Tulsi found herself slowing down without meaning to, rereading whole paragraphs, understanding somewhere in the middle of it that this was not a letter meant to be read quickly.

Further down, the tone shifted — the handwriting itself seemed to loosen, as though something in Mitali had exhaled.

*Main iss ghar mein cheh saal rahi, Maa, jab aap yahan nahi thi. Cheh saal — aur mujhe pata hi nahi tha ki “family” hone ka matlab kya hota hai. Yeh ghar bhi ek ghar nahi tha, aapke bina. Jab tak aap wapas nahi aayi mujhe pata hi nahi tha - ek Maa kya hoti hai.”

There were several more pages after that — small memories Tulsi hadn’t known Mitali had been quietly keeping, moments that had apparently meant far more to her than Tulsi had ever registered at the time — before the letter finally turned, near its end, toward something Tulsi hadn’t expected at all.

*Aur ek baat aur — meri Mom bhi, aapko dekhkar, badalne ki koshish kar rahi hain. Unhone kaha mujhse, ki aapko dekhkar unhe lagta hai ki zindagi jeene ka koi aur tareeka bhi ho sakta hai — a more meaningful way. Agar meri Mom bhi badal sakti hain, sirf aapko dekhkar, toh sochiye aapne mujhe kitna badla hoga. Thank you Maa for changing my perspective on everything completely. Thank you for giving me a much more meaningful life*

The last page was shorter than the rest — just a few lines, written, it seemed, after some gap, in ink very slightly different from the rest.

Tulsi read it twice, and then set the pages down in her lap, and did not move for a long time.

-----

She found Mitali in the garden a little later, sitting on the low stone edge near the tulsi plant, watching the children tear across the lawn in some chaotic game of their own invention. Mitali looked up when she heard footsteps, and something in her face went very still when she saw what Tulsi was still holding, folded, in her hand.

Tulsi sat down beside her. For a moment she didn’t say anything at all — just reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind Mitali’s ear, the way she did with Pari, with Vrinda, the way a mother’s hand moves before her voice catches up to it.

“Padh liya,” she said finally. Simple. Nothing more than that, at first.

Mitali’s eyes dropped to her lap.

“Jo tumne likha, Ritik ke baare mein,” Tulsi went on, quiet, “uska bharosa ek din mein nahi banega. Shayad bahut waqt lagega. Aur mujhe nahi lagta tumne yeh letter iss umeed mein likha ki main tumhe uske liye maaf kar doongi — kyunki yeh maafi meri thi hi nahi kabhi dene ke liye.”

She let that sit for a moment before she softened it.

“Lekin jo tumne likha mere baare mein — family ke baare mein — Suchitra ke baare mein—” Her hand found Mitali’s, and held it. “Mujhe nahi pata tha ki tum itna sab andar liye ghoom rahi thi, na jaane kab se. Thank you, beta. Itna sach likhne ke liye, khud ke baare mein. Bahut hi kam log yeh kar paate hain.

Mitali finally looked up, her eyes wet.

“Ek mohra banke aayi thi main iss ghar mein,” she said, voice unsteady. “Mujhe pata nahi tha ki mujhe maa mil jaayegi.”

Tulsi didn’t answer that in words. She just pulled her in, one arm around her shoulders, and they sat there together a while, watching the children run.

Tulsi was quiet for a long time, still holding her, before she spoke again.

“Ek baat kehna chahti hoon, Mitali. Apni Mom ke liye dil mein koi gila mat rakhna.”

Mitali looked up at her, surprised.

“Tumhare papa ke achanak jaane ke baad,” Tulsi said, carefully, “Suchitra akeli reh gayi hogi. Itni chhoti umar mein, ek chhoti si bachchi ke saath. Hum dono, yahan baithe hue, andaaza bhi nahi laga sakte ki uss waqt uss par kya beeti hogi.”

She paused. “Aisi haalat mein uska apni behen ki taraf mudna, support ke liye — koi ajeeb baat nahi thi. Hum kaun hote hain yeh judge karne wale ki unhone apni aur tumhari zindagi ki dor apni behen ke haath mein kyun de dee?”

She looked out at the children for a moment before continuing.

“Aur Noina ne bas woh kiya jo woh sabse achhe se karti hai — kisi ki majboori ko, vulnerability ko, apne faayde ke liye use karna.” The words came out flat, unsentimental, a fact rather than an accusation. “Aur pata hai? Mujhe hamesha se lagta raha hai ki Suchitra ne koshish ki thi — apni behen ko sahi raaste par laane ki. Lekin Noina bahut door nikal chuki thi apne galat raaste par, itni door ki koi wapas nahi la saka use.”

She turned back to Mitali, her hand tightening gently around hers.

“Toh apni Mom ke liye koi aisi feelings mat rakhna, beta. Woh khud bhi kisi na kisi tarah se Noina ki shikaar thi — bas tumhare bachpan mein dikha nahi ki kis raaste pe jaa rahi hai woh aur Noina ka sach ab sabko dikh raha hai.”

Just then Munni came through the gate, a little breathless, touching Tulsi’s feet as soon as she reached them. “Sorry, Malkini,” she said, “mujhe Ritik ne bola tha kal shaam ki pooja mein aane ke liye — lekin ek professional commitment thi jo aise achanak cancel nahi kar paayi. Isiliye abhi aayi hoon.”

“Koi baat nahi, Munni,” Tulsi said, warmth coming into her voice easily. “Collector ho tum — duty pehle aati hai. Aa gayi, yehi bahut hai.”

Munni exchanged a quick hi with Mitali, who returned it with a small smile before falling quiet again, watching, as Tulsi drew Munni into conversation — asking after her work, her family, whatever small threads of her week there were to catch up on.

It was a few minutes later that Mihir came through with Ritik and Angad, still mid-conversation about something from the office. Munni turned and touched Mihir’s feet. “Sahab,” she said to Mihir, and then, to Angad, “ namaste Bhaiya.” Both greeted her fondly.

And then she looked at Ritik, and something in her face opened.

It was small — the kind of thing that would have passed entirely unnoticed on any other day — but Ritik’s whole face seemed to catch light as he spoke to her, some ease coming into him that wasn’t there a moment before. Tulsi saw it. Mitali saw it too, her eyes flicking briefly to Tulsi’s.

Mihir saw it as well, and Tulsi watched the exact moment it registered on him — his brow creasing faintly. And something like a growing alarm in him as she had seen the last few times he had noticed Ritik with Munni, and then his eyes found hers with a question he didn’t need to say aloud. *Yeh kya hai?*

She held his gaze for a second, and let her own eyes answer, just as silently. *Baad mein bataungi.*

He seemed to accept that, for now, and turned back toward the house with Angad, their conversation resuming — something about an email Angad had forgotten to send on Friday, Mihir’s voice already sliding into mild reprimand as they disappeared inside.

The children, who had not stopped their game for a moment through any of this, came thundering across the lawn the second they spotted her. “Jury aunty!” Timsy shrieked, and within seconds Munni and Ritik had both been pulled bodily into whatever elaborate game was currently underway, protesting and laughing in equal measure.

Tulsi watched them go, then turned to Mitali, who was still watching the two of them with an expression Tulsi couldn’t quite place.

“Tumhara aur Ritik ka rishta kaisa hai ab?” she asked, gently.

Mitali was quiet for a moment before she answered, her eyes still on the game. “Timsy ke hone ke baad se humne kabhi room bhi share nahi kiya, Maa.” She said it plainly, without self-pity. “Mujhe kabhi uske liye waisi feelings thi hi nahi. Maine sirf shaadi ki, bachcha kiya — kyunki Noina Maasi chahti thi. Sirf iss ghar mein meri aur uski jagah pakki karne ke liye.”

She finally looked at Tulsi.

“Aur jitni buri tarah se maine usse treat kiya hai — mujhe nahi lagta woh mujhe kabhi maaf kar payega. Aur agar kar bhi de -aapki parvarish ki wajah se — toh bhi woh bhool nahi payega jo maine uske saath kiya.”

Tulsi didn’t answer right away.

She sat there, Mitali’s words settling into her slowly, and found she had nothing ready to offer back — no reassurance that would be honest, no argument against what Mitali had said that wouldn’t ring hollow. Because some part of her feared Mitali was right. Ritik’s forgiveness, if it ever came, might never stretch far enough to erase what he still carried in his body, in the way his shoulders tightened at times in Mitali’s presence. She could not promise Mitali a peace she wasn’t certain existed to be given.

She said nothing. She only reached for Mitali’s hand again, because it was the one honest thing she had to offer in that moment, and let the silence stand in for the answer she didn’t have.

-----

Munni came into the kitchen a while later, tying her dupatta back before reaching for a knife without being asked. “Kya banana hai aaj, Malkini?”

“Baingan ka bharta,” Tulsi said, sliding the vegetables toward her, “aur dal.” She watched Munni settle into the rhythm of it — chopping, stirring, moving around the kitchen with the easy familiarity of someone who had done this a hundred times before, in another life, in this same room.

“Aaj bilkul pehle jaisa lag raha hai, Malkini,” Munni said after a while, not looking up from the onions, “jab main kitchen mein aapko help kiya karti thi. Bas ek kami hai.”

“Kya?”

“Aaj aap mujhe daant nahi rahi.”

Tulsi laughed despite herself. “Ab collector sahiba ko daantne ki himmat kaun kar sakta hai.”

“Phir wohi baat, Malkini,” Munni said, mock-wounded. “Kitni baar kaha hai — aapke liye main wohi Munni hoon.”

“Aur maine bhi kitni baar kaha hai,” Tulsi said, “tujhe collector kehne mein mujhe garv hota hai.”

They worked in comfortable silence for a while after that, the kitchen filling with the smell of roasting baingan, until Tulsi set down the spoon she’d been holding and looked at her properly.

“Tu mujhe apni maa jaisi maanti hai na?”

Munni looked up, something sincere and immediate in her face. “Maa se kahin zyaada maanti hoon aapko.”

“Toh usi naate kuch poochoon?”

She nodded.

“Tujhe nahi lagta tujhe shaadi karke settle ho jaana chahiye ab?” Tulsi asked, keeping her voice light, testing. “Koi hai kya teri life mein?”

“Yeh kya keh rahi hain aap, Malkini?” Munni said quickly, too quickly. “Nahi, nahi, koi nahi hai. Aur shaadi ka socha bhi nahi hai maine.”

“Achha, toh main dhoondhti hoon tere liye koi achha sa ladka—”

“Mujhe nahi karni shaadi.” It came out sharper than anything Tulsi had ever heard from her — a flash of force entirely out of character for the composed young woman standing in front of her.

Tulsi didn’t flinch, only watched her carefully. “Kyun? Umar toh teri kab ki ho gayi.”

“Kyunki—”

Munni stopped.

The silence sat between them, too long, too complete.

“Kyunki tu ab bhi Ritik ko bhula nahi paayi,” Tulsi said quietly. “Yehi na?”

The knife slipped from Munni’s hand, clattering against the counter. She caught it back up almost instantly, not meeting Tulsi’s eyes. “Malkini, maine Timsy se promise kiya tha use story sunaungi — woh wait kar rahi hogi.”

And she was gone before Tulsi could say another word, her dupatta trailing behind her, her footsteps quick down the corridor.

Tulsi stood there a moment, looking at the space where she’d been, entirely unsure what to do with everything she’d just been handed.

-----

Lunch, when it finally gathered everyone around the table, was louder than usual — even without Gautam and Damini who were out for lunch. The children still riding the high of their softie run, Pari recounting something about garima’s school project she was supposed to submit the next day, Angad still being ribbed about the forgotten email.

It was Ritik who noticed first. “Munni kahan hai?” he asked, looking around. “Usne toh kaha tha lunch tak rukegi.”

“Woh chali gayi,” Tulsi said. “Kuch kaam aa gaya hoga.”

Ritik’s face fell, just slightly — disappointment he didn’t quite manage to hide, mild surprise underneath it. “Lekin usne toh kaha tha—”

“Kuch kaam aa gaya hoga,” Tulsi said again, sterner this time, closing the subject before it could open any further.

Across the table, Mitali’s fork paused over her plate for the briefest second, her face flickering with something quick and complicated before she smoothed it back into neutrality — but not quickly enough. Tulsi caught it. And by the time she’d turned to see if anyone else had, she found Mihir already watching, his eyes moving between Ritik’s disappointment and Mitali’s carefully recovered face, something tightening in his expression that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

He didn’t say anything. But Tulsi could see the question already forming in him, the same one that had been sitting there since the garden, only heavier now.

-----

The rest of the day passed without any particular incident, the way Sundays in Shantiniketan generally did once the morning’s excitement had settled — errands, a lazy afternoon, the children finally worn thin enough by evening to stop asking for anything at all.

By the time Tulsi made her way to the balcony, the house behind her had gone quiet in that familiar end-of-day way. Mihir was already there, two cups of chamomile waiting on the little table between the chairs, steam still rising faintly off them.

She sat, and for a while neither of them said anything, the silence comfortable in the way it usually was at this hour.

Then Mihir cleared his throat, the sound of a man about to say something he’d been sitting on for hours. “Munni aur Ritik,” he said, not quite looking at her. “I mean — aapas mein bahut comfortable hain na?”

Tulsi didn’t answer immediately. She reached for her cup instead, buying herself a moment she didn’t know how to fill, and took a slow sip, the warmth of it giving her something to do with her hands if not with the question.

Mihir waited, but when nothing came, he tried again, this time more directly. “Kab se aisa lag raha hai ki inn dono ko lekar tum kisi chinta mein ho,” he said. “Aur sach bataoon toh — mujhe bhi kuch ajeeb lag raha hai inn dono ka interaction.”

Tulsi was quiet for a moment, turning her cup slowly between her palms, trying to find the beginning of something that didn’t have an easy beginning.

“Samajh nahi aata tumhe kya bataoon,” she said finally. “Lekin pehle—” She paused, gathering it. “Jab Munni yahan kaam karti thi, tab Ritik aur Munni ke beech achhi friendship thi. Ritik uss waqt ek vulnerable age mein tha — under-confident, khud ko lekar hamesha uncertain. Lekin Munni ke saath woh sabse comfortably baat kar paata tha. Munni ko night school bhejne ka idea bhi shayad usi ka tha. Phir usse padhai mein help karna, uske exams ki taiyaari karwaana.”

She looked out at the garden, the dark shape of it below them.

“Aur unhi dino mein Ritik ko ek ajeeb sa inferiority complex hone laga tha.”

“Inferiority complex?” Mihir asked, surprised. “Kis cheez ko lekar?”

“Hume shayad silly lage,” Tulsi said, “lekin usne dekha ki ladkiyaan Angad par fida rehti hain, aur uski taraf koi dhyaan hi nahi deta. Munni ne shayad ye socha ki agar use koi social media par baat karne wali mil jaaye, toh uska confidence thoda badhega. Toh usne khud ek fake account banaya, aur uski taraf se chatting shuru ki.” She paused. “Ritik ko toh pata hi nahi tha doosri taraf kaun hai — bilkul anjaan tha. Woh uss ladki se pyaar kar baitha. Aur phir jaise jaise baatein badhti gayi, Munni khud bhi uske pyaar mein pad gayi. Jo sirf uska confidence badhaane ke liye shuru hua tha, woh dono taraf se sach ban gaya.”

Mihir looked up, something in his face genuinely struggling to hold the shape of what he’d just heard. *How could a maid —* He didn’t finish the thought, as if finishing it would make the thought more real than he wanted it to be.

Tulsi saw it — the flicker of something old and unexamined crossing his face, the same instinct, she thought, that had once made a man measure people by the compound wall between their houses rather than by what was inside them. She didn’t say anything. She only watched it pass, and let it pass, and went on.

“Phir jab Mitali ko pata chala — uss waqt woh Angad ki fiancée thi — ki koi ladki social media par Ritik se baat kar rahi hai, lekin kabhi saamne nahi aa rahi, toh usne uss account ka pata laga liya.” She took a breath. “Ek function tha hamare ghar mein tab. Mitali ne sabke saamne Ritik ko bata diya ki woh ladki kaun hai. Mitali ki friends ne mazaak banaya — ‘tumhe toh maid hi milegi’ — aise kuch.”

Mihir’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing, waiting for the rest.

“Ritik humiliate hone ki wajah se sabke saamne Munni par bahut bhadka,” Tulsi said, her voice quieter now, the memory clearly costing her something even to retell. “Bahut sunaya usne use. Mujhe darr laga ki kahin woh aisa kuch na keh de jo na woh khud kabhi bhula paaye, na Munni.” She looked down at her cup. “Toh maine bhi — mostly sirf Ritik ko dikhane ke liye — Munni ko khoob sunaya, aur usse ghar se nikal jaane ko keh diya.”

“Aur phir?”

“Phir jab woh apna saamaan pack kar rahi thi,” Tulsi said, “tab maine akele mein use samjhaya — hostel mein reh kar apni padhai poori kare. Kuch ban jaaye khud ke dum par.”

Mihir studied her for a long moment. “Aur uski padhai ki saari responsibility tumne uthayi,” he said — not really a question at all.

Tulsi only nodded, and went on. “Ritik ko us din ke lagbhag turant baad apni galti samajh aa gayi thi. Apne shabdon ka pachhtava. Lekin maine dono ko dobara contact mein nahi aane diya — mujhe laga, pehle Munni apni padhai poori kare, khud ko establish kare. Ritik bhi thoda mature ho jaaye. Phir dekhungi dono ke dil mein kya hai, sach mein. Shaadi ke baare mein sochungi tab.”

She stopped, something tightening around the next part.

“Lekin phir main chali gayi. Aur jab wapas aayi—” She didn’t need to finish it. Mihir already knew what she’d come back to find — Ritik married to Mitali, a child already between them, the years having moved on entirely without her.

Mihir sat with all of it for a while, turning the whole shape of it over, and Tulsi could see the unease in him hadn’t lifted — if anything, it had settled deeper, taken on more weight now that it had a history attached to it.

“Mushkil se toh humari family settle hone lagi hai,” he said finally, “tumhare aane ke baad — dheere dheere. Ab hum yeh afford nahi kar sakte, Tulsi.”

“Lekin Ritik—”

His phone rang before she could finish, cutting cleanly through whatever she’d been about to say. Mihir glanced at the screen, and something in his face shifted — reluctance, quickly folded under practiced warmth as he picked up.

“Aashish,” he said, his voice pitching into easy cordiality. “Kaisa hai? Achha, sun — thodi der baad baat karoon?”

He ended the call before whoever was on the other end could answer.

Tulsi looked at him. “Ashish Patel ka phone tha?”

“Haan,” Mihir said.

“Baat ki tumne uske saath Noina ke baare mein?” Tulsi asked. “Ab shayad woh permanently US shift ho rahi hai — use warn karna zaroori hai.”

“Conclave ke baad se koshish kar raha hoon contact karne ki,” Mihir said, “lekin kabhi woh meeting mein hota hai, kabhi travel kar raha hota hai, kabhi kuch aur. Time zones bhi alag hain — theek se baat hi nahi ho paayi ab tak.”

“Abhi baat kar lo usse,” Tulsi said. “Agar usne khud call kiya hai, toh free hoga baat karne ke liye.” She paused. “Lekin dhyaan se, sambhal ke. Kabhi kabhi jab hum kisi ko kisi cheez se warn karte hain, woh insaan wahi karne lagta hai jiske liye humne use rokne ki koshish ki thi. Toh pehle yeh dekho ki dono abhi bhi contact mein hain ya nahi — baat karte hain ya woh conclave sirf ek one-off cheez thi.”

Mihir nodded slowly, taking it in.

“Aur,” Tulsi added, quieter now, “behtar hoga tum usse yeh na bataao ki Noina ne humare saath kya kiya.”

She didn’t say more than that, but Mihir understood exactly what she was leaving unsaid — that she didn’t want him standing exposed in front of his old friend circle, the humiliation of it laid bare to men who’d known him since before even their wedding. He said nothing, only nodded again, something quietly grateful in it that she hadn’t made him ask for that particular mercy out loud.

She got up to go inside.

-----

At the base of the staircase, she stopped.

She didn’t need to climb it. Her room was on this floor, just past it, the short walk she’d made every night for months now.

And yet her feet had carried her to the foot of the stairs anyway, the way they always did lately, some old habit or newer hope pulling her there without her quite deciding to go.

*Even yesterday*, she thought, *I was so sure he was about to ask me to move back. And this morning I had almost decided — tonight, I’ll do it myself, I won’t wait for him to ask.*

She glanced back toward the balcony, where Mihir was still on the phone, his voice pitched low and warm for Aashish, one hand braced against the railing.

Her feet didn’t move.

*It’s strange*, she thought, standing there in the quiet of the staircase, *how hard it is now to close a distance I built myself, so resolutely, with my own hands. I was so certain, once, that this was the only way to protect what was left of me. And now that the reason for the distance is gone, the distance itself doesn’t seem to know that. It just stays where I put it, waiting for me to have the courage to undo what I was once so sure I was right to do.*

She stood there a moment longer, then turned, and walked toward her own room instead.

-----

Morning brought its own small relief. Tulsi found Mihir on the balcony before she came with the kaada and tea, already looking lighter than he had the night before.

“Baat ho gayi Aashish se?” she asked, settling into her chair.

“Haan,” Mihir said. “Aur achhi khabar hai — usne khud kaha ki Noina ka phone use bhi surprise kar gaya tha. Conclave se sirf kuch din pehle aaya tha uska call, itne saalon baad. Use pata chala hoga ki Aashish ko invite mila hai, toh bas uske saath conclave mein entry chahti thi.” He shook his head slightly. “Matlab, jaisa tumne socha tha — ek strategic move thi uski, kuch aur nahi.”

“Toh Aashish ko koi khatra nahi hai,” Tulsi said, something in her easing.

“Nahi. Aur usne yeh bhi kaha ki uske baad se Noina ne dobara contact hi nahi kiya.”

What he didn’t tell her — what he had no plan to tell her, not today, maybe not ever — was the moment near the end of the call when Aashish, in that easy, old-friend way of his, had asked, almost in passing, “Yaar, conclave mein tu Noina ke saath thoda gussa lag raha tha. Sab theek hai na?” And Mihir had laughed it off, some line about business stress, about the contract negotiations, anything that would close the question before it opened into something he had no intention of explaining to a man who still thought of Noina as simply an old, glamorous friend from college. It cost him nothing to lie to Aashish. It cost him something, still, to be a man who had to.

-----

That evening, Ritik was quieter than usual as he drove Tulsi home, his eyes fixed on the road with an intensity that had nothing to do with traffic.

“Kya hua?” Tulsi asked, after they’d gone several minutes without either of them speaking.

He didn’t answer right away. “Collector office ka kaam main dekh raha tha ab tak,” he said finally, his voice carefully even. “Aaj pata nahi kyun, Papa ne Angad bhai ko bhej diya wahan.”

Tulsi kept her face neutral. “Papa ne bheja hai toh koi wajah hogi.”

“Mujhe pata hai bhai mujhse kahin zyaada capable hain,” Ritik said, and something in the flatness of the sentence made it clear he’d rehearsed it, or at least thought it many times before saying it out loud. “Lekin mujhe laga main yeh kaam achhe se sambhal raha tha. Saara documentation mujhe pata tha — bhai ko toh samajhne mein hi time lagega.” He gripped the wheel a little tighter. “Phir yeh kyun kiya Papa ne? Agar koi galti ho rahi thi, koi problem thi, toh mujhe bata sakte the. Poora kaam hi Angad bhai ko transfer karne ki kya zaroorat thi?”

“Shayad tumhare Papa koi aur kaam dena chahte hon tumhe,” Tulsi offered, gently, though even as she said it she could hear how thin it sounded against the size of what he was actually asking.

Ritik didn’t answer that. He only nodded once, the kind of nod that closes a conversation rather than agrees with it, and drove the rest of the way home in silence.

-----

At home, Ritik tried Munni’s number twice before dinner. It rang once, unanswered, and the second time it didn’t ring at all — switched off, the flat mechanical voice informing him the number he was trying to reach was currently unavailable.

He didn’t come down for dinner. “Tabiyat theek nahi hai,” he said, when Vrinda knocked to call him, and didn’t open the door.

When Tulsi went up herself later, a plate balanced in her hands, she found him lying in the dark, one arm thrown over his eyes.

“Kuch kha le, beta.”

“Nahi chahiye, Maa,” he said, his voice muffled. “Sar mein bahut dard hai. Please, mujhe akela chhod do.”

She stood there a moment, the plate still warm in her hands, and then set it down quietly on the side table and left, because there was nothing else, right now, that she knew how to offer him.

-----

She came out to the balcony already carrying more than she meant to, and the sight of Mihir sitting there with the chamomile waiting, calm, unaware, undid whatever restraint she’d managed to hold onto through the evening.

“Tum kabhi kuch karne se pehle sochte kyun nahi?” she said, before she’d even sat down.

Mihir looked up, startled. “Arre — kya hua?”

“Tumne aaj collector office visit ke liye Ritik ki jagah Angad ko bhej diya?”

He was quiet for a long moment — long enough that she knew, before he even said it, that he wasn’t going to apologize for it.

“Haan,” he said finally, his voice sternly even. “Aur mujhe nahi lagta maine kuch galat kiya.”

-----

Author’s Note:

Thank you all for sticking with this one — it turned out fuller than I expected once Gautam and the pharmacy files walked in and refused to leave! 😄

A few things I’d love your thoughts on: Gautam getting handed something small but real, Mitali’s letter, and that Munni-Ritik backstory finally coming out. And that last line from Mihir — no, he’s not sorry, and I don’t think he’s wrong either. Curious what you all think.

Gayatri Chachi’s envelope didn’t make it in this time — it’s coming in 38, promise!

As always, your reviews mean the world to me — even a few lines let me know you’re still here with TuHir. See you next chapter.

Originally posted by: ElitePerfumer

What do you want? Because that’s the next subplot

If Rithik-Mitali is fine by you I would love to see how it would work out I kind of liked how they looked together with Timsy offscreen.

Originally posted by: ABC_1234

If Rithik-Mitali is fine by you I would love to see how it would work out I kind of liked how they looked together with Timsy offscreen.

Well all I can say is that I’m planning a very different track with these 3 - hopefully u will understand where it’s going from the next chapter.

This chapter is probably one of the most emotionally layered ones so far. On the surface, almost nothing dramatic happens, but by the end it feels like so many invisible threads have shifted.

The opening with Mihir waking up and instinctively reaching for the empty side of the bed hit especially hard. The recurring "Kab tak?" isn't loud or melodramatic—it just quietly captures the exhaustion of someone who's waited for years without demanding anything in return. His choice not to ask Tulsi to come back because he wants it to be her decision says more about how much he's changed than any grand speech could.

I also appreciate that the Gautam discussion wasn't treated as an easy problem with an easy solution. Both Mihir and Tulsi have valid concerns, and the conversation feels like two parents trying to protect a son while knowing they can't protect him from every difficult emotion. The medicine-file scene right after was such a subtle but beautiful way of showing Gautam slowly being included again without anyone making a big announcement about it.

Mitali's letter was another standout. It didn't read like an attempt to earn forgiveness—it read like someone finally being honest with herself. Tulsi's response was equally strong because she doesn't erase the damage Mitali caused, but she also refuses to let resentment become the only story. That balance made the conversation feel very real.

The Ritik-Munni thread has become one of the interesting parts of the story.

Instead of forcing drama, the chapter lets tiny reactions do the work—Ritik noticing Munni is gone, Mitali noticing Ritik's disappointment, Mihir noticing both of them, and Tulsi carrying the weight of knowing more than everyone else. Those small observations created more tension than a big confrontation would have.

And then the ending... after such a quiet chapter, Mihir calmly saying, "Aur mujhe nahi lagta maine kuch galat kiya," feels like the start of something much bigger. It's the kind of ending that doesn't rely on shock; it relies on knowing these characters well enough to realize that this disagreement is going to matter.

Overall I love reading your work.. Waiting for the next one after all the disappointment from the show this feels refreshing..