Days went slow after that. Arjun started liking Miss. D more than before. He would just sit with her, looking at her in silence, with an unknown affection in his gaze. He would eagerly wait for her to talk and listen to anything and everything she said. He loved her laugh, loved the way she would start smiling when he asked her a random question, loved the way her eyes reflected all the expressions of her thoughts, love how animatedly she would say out her stories . He couldn't turn away his glance from her face.
Maybe Miss. D sensed the change in him. She would remain silent for a long time before she could say something, unable to live in the absence of words. She wouldn't look directly into his eyes. She would say something unimportant or share some of her weird ideologies.
The more she talked, the more he liked her. It wasn't just how she was that drew him to her. She was the only positive influence he had in his life. She would encourage him everyday, advice him only when he asked for it, was a good listener when he needed someone to hear his thoughts, and she was always welcoming without any asking any questions.
Arjun felt he could survive no matter what if Miss. D held him steady with her mere presence. He loved the one hour he spent with her every morning. And he would look forward to that time. Every night, he would close his eyes with a refreshing thought, that he would wake up to see her again.
Almost a month passed in the same fashion. Then his cousins arrived from Delhi. His uncle's daughters- Nihita and Chaitra and their brother Abhinav. They arrived by the morning flight and so, Arjun didn't go to the airport to receive them. He was too absorbed by Miss. D and couldn't bear to sacrifice the time he spent with her to pick up his incessantly annoying cousins.
He went home after his morning jog to find the three of them sitting with angry faces.
"Hey, when did you all arrive?" Arjun asked them, more as a customary question. It triggered three sets of irritated responses from them in quick succession.
"Great bro! You even forgot that we were coming this morning? That's too bad," Chaitra said angrily.
"Since two days I have been telling you about our plans and you forgot everything," Abhinav started.
"Where were you till now bro?" Nihita asked.
Arjun stared at his cousins who were standing around him, left, right and abreast in confusion, surprised by their combined anger. "Hey, easy guys," he managed. "I didn't forget you were coming. I was merely asking what time you arrived home, if your flight wasn't delayed, etcetera, etcetera."
"Look at you being all formal with us," Chaitra muttered. "Where the hell were you?"
"I... I went jogging," Arjun tried to be honest.
"You went jogging? When you were supposed to pick us up at the airport?" the three of them shouted together in unison. Arjun closed his ears with hands, frightened by the volume of their voices.
"Oh, come on! It's not a big deal. It's just this one time, okay?" Arjun retorted.
"Why weren't you answering your phone?" Nihita asked.
"I don't take my mobile with me when I go jogging. It's a quiet time for me."
"What would do if there was an emergency?" Abhinav enquired.
"There's hardly an emergency at six in the morning, an no, I am not in medical services to have an emergency case to look at. If something happens my driver knows where to find me. Can we please stop this discussion?" Arjun was losing it.
Another barrage of statements reverberated around him as his three cousins spoke at the same time. Arjun could make out one common complaint from them, "At least you could have told us that you wouldn't be coming over to receive us. It would have saved us from looking like a bunch of stranded fools at the airport as we tried reaching you."
"Okay, I am sorry! I am really sorry I forgot to tell you that. My mind was somewhere else..." he tried to pacify them.
"Where?" they asked, again in unison.
"Please stop shouting guys," Arjun protested.
It took him half-an hour to pacify them and ask them to forgive him. He was careful enough not to tell them about Miss. D. As the day progressed, they celebrated Arjun's newfound success as an entrepreneur, accompanied him to his office, went out together for dinner and to hang out at the sea beach. And that reminded Arjun of his girl. Unintentionally, he became silent again and tried looking around in all directions, searching for her. He knew he wouldn't see her there at that time of the evening, yet, he just couldn't help looking for her, hoping for some sort of a miracle wherein she would be walking by the road or sitting at their usual place. In that silent search of his, his cousins observed that he was distracted.
"What happened?" Nihita asked.
"Nothing," Arjun replied and tried to keep track with his cousins.
The next morning as he woke up, dressed and started for his jog, Abhinav, who had been sleeping in his room, woke up with all the commotion.
"Hey bro, what are you doing at 5 in the morning?" Abhinav groaned sleepily, getting up from the bed.
"Going for a jog," Arjun replied, slipping his t-shirt on.
"So early?" Abhinav almost complained.
"Yeah."
"Wait, I'll come with you. Need a good jog myself," Abhinav flexed his muscles and got up.
Arjun was caught off-guard. "Hey, no no," he said it in a snap, sharply discouraging Abhinav. "You go back to sleep. I will come back by 7:15."
"No problem Arjun. I too love jogging. Anyways, I need some fresh, morning air." Abhinav started dressing up.
"Please Abhi, please. For this once. I love jogging alone. Please brother. Don't mind it. I will go now. You go jogging with Nihi and Chaitra later. Please, Abhi," Arjun pleaded.
Abhinav was really confused as to why his best brother was turning him down. Unable to say anything else, he let Arjun go.
"You are late," Miss. D remarked as Arjun sat down beside her, at the beach.
"Yeah. I was warding off my cousins from accompanying me to the jog here. It took some time," Mr. J explained.
"Why didn't you tag them along with you?" Miss. D asked.
"Because they can be an annoying bunch. Plus, I thought you might not like it. They would want to know your name and details. But you would not be comfortable with revealing identities. They are not the type to just accept anything, and are a curious lot. In any case, if they come, it will lead to a totally new confusion," Arjun explained.
She understood the complexity his cousins would have caused. She smiled, thinking how correctly Mr. J had thought and did. She felt a strange warmth rising in her as she realized how much he had respected her idea, her space and her wish, how much he had thought about her and valued her comfort zone.
"Thank you," she said softly.
"Oh come on, you said we will leave all these things for the judgement day. Meanwhile, lets delete such words in our relationhip," he suggested.
She laughed and playfully punched his arm. He looked at her, absorbing her laugh, getting lost in it.
Two days passed in much the same fashion. Arjun dodged his cousins while going for the jog and hoped they might not take it seriously.
Unknown to him, his cousins had observed other strange things about him. The distraction, the sudden smiles on his face when he sat deep in thought, the new energy in him, the way he arrived home after the jog, all ecstatic and lively, the way his thinking had changed, the way he was dodging them every morning, almost every minute change in him.
"Something is wrong with him," Abhinav observed.
"Yeah," Nihita seconded.
The three of them were sitting together in the lawn. It was evening time and Arjun wasn't back home from office.
"What must have happened?" Chaitra asked thoughtfully.
"No idea at all. It's like something has flipped entirely inside his brain. Or maybe someone has brainwashed him into getting an altered personality. We should find out what's happened to him," Abhinav said.
"Why is he going so alone for jogging? Doesn't even take his phone or iPod or anything with him. He is being so secretive lately. I have never seen him behave so strange and so discrete," Nihita observed.
"Must be something with his morning jog," Chaitra pondered. "Hey, lets follow him tomorrow and see what he is doing," she suggested suddenly.
"Sure. That's a good idea." Abhinav and Nihita obviously liked the idea. The three of them excitedly planned everything. They were careful enough not to raise any suspicions in Arjun when they had dinner with him that night.
The next morning as Arjun got dressed for his jog, Abhinav observed him quietly lying on the bed and pretending that he is fast asleep. But under the covers of his quilt, he gave a ring to Nihita's phone. The sound woke up Nihita and Chaitra, who were staying in the guest room. Silently, they got up and dressed to go out.
As soon as Arjun stepped out of the house, Abhinav, Chaitra and Nihita started following him silently, keeping themselves at a good distance.
They watched him jog at the beach pavement, as they themselves started jogging at a distance, following him. After a half-an hour of jog, when the three of them started grumbling with each other that nothing was going to happen, Arjun stopped. The three of them came to a halt and watched him sit on the wall facing the sea, beside a girl. Then their mouths dropped.
Arjun and that girl were talking like some old friends, joking and laughing aloud. She playfully punched his arm and then started writing something in a journal. Arjun was watching her intently.
It wasn't the conversation between Arjun and the girl that surprised the trio, but the way Arjun's whole demeanour changed while talking to the girl. The way he looked at her was definitely not how a man would look at his friend. There was so much adoration and brightness in his gaze, the way his body was slightly angled towards her, the way he looked at her silently as she wrote, that his cousins couldn't help but gasp.
"Who is she?" Abhinav asked his sisters as they watched them from a distance.
"New girl-friend I suppose," Chaitra answered. "Although, I must say, she doesn't seem to be just a "girlfriend" to him. It feels different."
"But he would have told us if it was true," Nihita said.
"We will find it out soon," Abhinav stated.
They watched Arjun and that girl get up from the wall at 7, the girl fetching her bicycle and walking together with Arjun while pulling her cycle along. They both stood at the junction and talked for a minute, then they waved to each other and the girl went off on her bicycle in a different direction. Arjun watched her till she disappeared and then started back home.
He reached home to find his cousins missing. After shouting out their names half a dozen times all around the house, his man-servant answered him, "They all went out after you left sir."
Arjun assumed that they must have gone jogging. But somewhere a doubt lingered.
"Good morning brother," Abhinav called from behind. Arjun turned to see his cousins standing behind him with their arms folded and crooked smiles.
"Hey, where did you all go?" he asked them.
"Jogging," Nihita replied sarcastically.
"That's cool," Arjun remarked, trying to hide his suspicions and fear.
"The girl you talked were talking to was also really cool," Chaitra said, raising her eyebrows in sarcasm.
Arjun's heart skipped a beat.
"Who is she?" Abhinav asked.
"Your girlfriend?" Nihita was next.
Arjun stood there, facing his cousins.