Chapter 4

-doe-eyes-

@-doe-eyes-

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR COMMENTS!!! I am literally overwhelmed- I've been having an awful week workwise and you have no idea how much you have helped me to get through it! Love you!!

It's been raining REALLY HARD here for the past couple of days, and I couldn't resist this small piece. But once again, you are forewarned of the randomness :P

The piece is AU, and the title comes from the song of the same name by Eurithmatics. It's a pretty old song, but I absolutely adore it- I used to listen to it in my dad's study when I was younger, so I'm pretty attached to it :)

ArHi Drabbles |Here Comes the Rain Again|

"Dammit, Khushi!"

His rather mild expletive was met with a breathless giggle and light little splashes muffling the thuds of her feet as she bounded out of reach.

"Come on, Arnav!" she called out, twirling a safe distance away from him before stilling to face him, radiant and beaming in the grey-silver backdrop of a narrow road drenched in the afternoon downpour, "Where's the fun in rain if you don't walk in?"

"Oh, trust me," Arnav muttered not-so-quietly, safely sheltered beneath his sensible, charcoal-black umbrella, "You are doing everything but walking."

She seemed oblivious to his sarcasm, but demonstrated his point nonetheless by leaping over a small puddle with a high-pitched "Whoop" and breaking out into another fit of giggles as she did.

Rolling his eyes, Arnav sauntered pointedly around the puddle, raising an eyebrow at Khushi as he silently made his point.

This did nothing to dampen her spirits though, much as the rain failed to wash off the wide, giddy grin stretching her mouth to the point that it might have been a permanent fixture. Eyes glittering with glee and alive with her exuberance, she hopped away from him when he attempted, for the sixth time, to get her under his umbrella and out of the way of the thin, wispy needles of cold showering over them.

"It's more fun this way!" she retorted to his unspoken argument, swiping at her forehead to brush back the strands of her hair, darkened midnight black, plastered against her alabaster skin.

Her cheeks, though, were positively rosy, pinked against the pinch of the chilly breeze, and he knew they'd be cosily warm to the touch- if only she would get near enough to let it happen.

Taking one second to deliberate, Arnav took advantage of his longer limbs to abruptly breach the distance between them. Khushi squealed in surprise and alarm and made to spring off again, but Arnav had cuffed her wrist before she could move any further.

"Gotcha," he let a victorious smirk loose as the pouting, slightly peeved face of Khushi tipped upwards to frown at him. Even under the shadow of his umbrella, her eyes glimmered and shone like black diamonds, her ivory white skin, dusted with pink, iridescent. He could feel her warmth wrapping round him like a jacket warding off the cold, the scent of jasmine, light and breezy, alluring even over the aroma of wet earth and fresh grass.

His breath caught in his throat.

"No fair!" she whinged, her forehead wrinkling further, her expression growing increasingly more petulant as she tried to wring her wrist out of his grasp, "Arnav! Let go!"

"And what, get into trouble with Buaji when she sees you like this? I don't think so."

That was all it took- her frantic struggles simmered into half-hearted tugs at her firmly trapped wrist, before she stilled altogether, attempted to cross her arms, realised that was still impossible given his hold on her was unrelenting, glared at him, and then ducked her head and grumbled out, with no attempt to hide her displeasure, "Fine."

She might as well have seen the sense in his words, considering there had not been one single time she had not gone prancing in the rain and not managed to catch a cold.

But Arnav liked to believe, as the two of them bumped into each other, arms touching and little currents of heat and lightning passing between them as they negotiated the street crowded under the narrow cover of a single umbrella, that she had been thinking of him when she had yielded.

After all...Buaji was kind of scary when she was angry.

And maybe, he thought, his heart spiralling out of control as Khushi, slowly, shyly, slipped her tiny, slender hand into his as they shuffled awkwardly toward their shared neighbourhood, just maybe...she thought sharing an umbrella in the rain was just as romantic as he did.

Please leave your thoughts?