Agastya was a fairly practical person and was well aware of his strengths and shortcomings. Being the first born, he knew his duties and responsibilities from a young age. He knew that he was neither as flamboyant as his second brother nor as handsome and fiercely intelligent as his third sibling. Moreover, due to his stoic personality, the three years gap between him and the twins was more like a generation gap.
But his relation with both his younger brothers had always been good. He was genuinely fond of them and all of them shared a comfortable camaraderie. Even though Dushyant was a man of a few words, he had always been respectful and deferrent towards him. Dushyant's excellent accomplishments at an early age hadn't caused any alienation between the siblings.
Over the period of time, despite being posted at different places during most of the year, the warmth between the three of them hadn't been affected.
Most girls, during their growing years had chased after the twin brothers, Nakulesh and Dushyant while Agastya remained the sensible, older sibling who was the next Sirsa clan heir and wasn't open to such frivolous behaviour.
While Nakulesh said yes to almost all of the girls, Dushyant refused them all.
But that didn't deter the females from chasing after them!
All in all, there hadn't been any serious females around the three brothers during all these years.
The only exception to this fact was their fair cousin, Avantika, who had always treated all three of them with the same amount of affection… or so he used to believe.
The Sirsa clan wasn't bound by any rules to marry for prestige or connection, hence there hadn't been any undue pressure on Agastya. By the time he was twenty, Madam Kuntala started pestering Agastya to look at eligible girls. She wanted to choose the best, most perfect bride for her first-born.
But Agastya kept postponing the matter since the only girl he liked was still too young at the time. Secretly, he had made up his mind to marry his sweet, little cousin, Avantika, who had always kept a smile reserved for him, no matter what.
But that summer, the fourteen years old Avantika woke up to the charms of her seventeen years old cousin, Dushyant. Since then, everyone else seemed to stop existing in the eyes of the only girl whom Agastya had ever liked.
Picking up his slightly bruised heart, Agastya had sent out a silent prayer of thanks that he got to know about her liking for Dushyant before he made a fool of himself in front of her.
Even though he knew that it wasn't Dushyant's fault, their relationship became a little estranged after that.
Agastya knew that it was unfair on his part since Dushyant hadn't known about his feelings for Avantika nor had she openly expressed her liking for anyone before choosing Dushyant as her object of affection.
Unfortunately, he couldn't help it. Both Dushyant and he were known for measuring their words in gold before speaking. But in the past, there had been a comfortable silence between them.
Now, three years later, there was a palpable awkwardness.
Agastya didn't know if Dushyant was aware of the reason for this intangible alienation but he had never come and confronted him over it. Nor did Dushyant change his distantly affectionate behaviour towards their cousin.
This made Agastya feel guilty towards Dushyant but also slightly sour. He would have preferred had his brother openly expressed his liking for Avantika instead of tip-toeing around.
He knew… he knew that his younger brother also liked that girl.
He had seen Dushyant's gaze change when it rested on her as compared to the other girls. Agastya was sure of his conjecture because he had experienced the same fluctuation in his own eyes while looking at her.
"Damn it! Why am I thinking of this nonsense right now?" Agastya shook his head and scolded himself silently.
"Elder Cousin!" a sweet voice came in from outside.
The paper in Agastya's hand shook slightly before he composed himself.
"Come in," he said in a neutral voice.
A petite girl, no more than 5'1, entered the cabin. She was wearing a royal blue skirt with pale pink lilies embroidered all over it. The collar of her pink silk top was visible through the white fur cloak which she was wearing. Her jet-black hair was tied in a side bun and there were two crystal hairpins holding the sidelocks on her head, exposing the fair forehead.
Avantika was a cute looking girl with limpid black eyes holding an innocent expression and a rosebud mouth, which was currently stretched into a warm smile. Her cheeks were pale due to the cold and she was holding a small cup in her hand.
Agastya took in her appearance with a greediness which he wasn't even consciously aware of. Her gentleness, her demeanour, everything about her was so familiar.
"When did you arrive?"
"When did you arrive?"
Both of them looked at each other and broke into a gentle laugh.