AbhiMaan SS : Flames of Fate Chapter 8 Updated - Page 12

OH DAMN!! Armaan sa sudhar jao. Jab yeh bomb phatega na bohot mushkil hone wali hai!! I'm also very interested in knowing if you'll go down the canon route with charu drama or something else will happen!! Extremely well written as you already know pls such a gifted author you are!! Loveeee <3

Armaan really needs to realize what's going on and cut Ruhi to size. He's gonna lose Abhira very soon at this rate.. she's tolerated enough already. I feel for Abhira.

Please update more soon..aap anticipation build karke phirse mahinon ke liye gayab mat hojao please

Originally posted by: Nivedita_SS

Chapter 8

Time skip - Evening before Gangaur

A cup of half-finished coffee sat beside her desk, one that lost its warmth long ago and lay forgotten. The soft glow from the laptop screen illuminated Abhira’s face, her eyes fixed on the document in front of her. Her fingers danced across the keyboard, pausing every now and then to refer to the stack of notes lying beside her.

She was trying her best to focus. With a devil-like professor breathing down her neck, demanding the assignment a day early, Abhira pushed herself to block out the distractions around her. But Armaan's meeting, with his team’s loud chatter, was starting to grate on her nerves.

She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes for a brief moment, trying to gather herself. She didn’t want to snap at him—after all, he was working, and it wasn’t like he could completely control the volume of his voice. But this had been going on for over an hour, and she had already warned him once.

She opened her eyes and glanced sideways at him. Armaan was seated on the bed cross-legged, fully absorbed in his call, gesturing animatedly at the screen. His attention was entirely on his team members, oblivious to her growing frustration.

Taking a deep breath, Abhira turned toward him, her tone calm but edged with irritation. “Armaan,” she called softly at first, hoping not to interrupt his flow. When he didn’t respond, she raised her voice slightly. “Armaan?”

He finally looked her way, a small frown appearing on his face as he muted his microphone. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his expression shifting to mild concern.

“Can you lower your voice a bit? I’m trying to finish my assignment, and it’s hard to concentrate,” she explained, trying to keep the irritation from creeping into her voice.

Armaan gave her a quick nod, his frown easing into an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I didn’t realise,” he murmured. “I’ll keep it down.”

Satisfied for the moment, Abhira turned back to her screen, hoping she could finally settle back into her work.

But barely a minute passed before Armaan unmuted his microphone, diving straight back into the meeting with the same booming enthusiasm. His voice seemed even louder this time, each word punctuated by the back-and-forth chatter of his colleagues.

Abhira’s fingers twitched on the keyboard, her patience running thin. She stole another glance at him, watching as he laughed at something one of his team members said. His volume remained the same, if not worse.

She tried, she really did. She gritted her teeth, swallowed her annoyance, and attempted to push through the noise. But after another minute of their conversation filled the air, the last thread of her composure snapped.

That was it. She wasn’t going to endure another second of this.

Slamming her laptop shut with a little more force than intended, she began gathering her things—her notebooks, her pens, and her laptop charger and stuffed them into her bag. Armaan noticed her sudden movement and glanced up, confusion flashing in his eyes.

“I’m going to work somewhere else,” she muttered, slinging her bag over her shoulder and walking toward the door without looking back.

“Abhira, wait—” Armaan started, but she cut him off with a shake of her head.

“I can’t concentrate here,” she said flatly, her voice strained as she opened the door and stepped out of the room, leaving Armaan to stare after her with guilt.

“Armaan sir, is everything okay?”

The voice from Armaan’s laptop pulled him back into the meeting, cutting short his attempt to call after Abhira. He rubbed his forehead, glancing between the now-closed door and the concerned faces of his colleagues on the screen. For a moment, he just sat there, feeling the weight of her frustration settling over him.

“Yeah,” he muttered, forcing a small smile. “Everything’s fine. Let’s continue.”

But his heart wasn’t in it anymore. His mind kept drifting to Abhira. He hadn’t meant to frustrate her. She had asked him nicely—twice. And he had promised to keep it down, but in his excitement, he hadn’t even realised how loud he was being.

After another half hour, Armaan finally wrapped up his meeting. He closed his laptop and ran a hand through his hair, staring at the empty space where Abhira had been sitting earlier. Guilt gnawed at him, and he sighed deeply, wishing he’d been more mindful of her situation. It just seemed like his work and her assignment clashed in the worst way possible.

He stood up, stretching his legs, before glancing toward the closed door. An idea sparked in his mind. Ice cream. If anything could ease the tension between them, it was the stash of ice cream in the fridge. A peace offering—something sweet to show her he hadn’t meant to upset her.

With a quick decision that brought a wide smile on his face, Armaan made his way downstairs to the kitchen. He rummaged through the freezer, frowning at the absence of both chocolate and butterscotch ice cream boxes inside. “Yeh pakka chorus gang ka hi kaam hoga.” He muttered under his breath in exasperation, annoyed with his cousins.

Armaan stood there for a moment, staring at the empty freezer, wondering how his cousins always managed to finish the ice cream before anyone else. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. This was supposed to be his peace offering to Abhira, but now he had nothing.

"Think, Armaan. Think." He whispered to himself, pacing the kitchen. He knew he had to do something. Ice cream was the easy way out, but now, with that option gone, he needed a backup plan.

“Noodles?” He wondered aloud, smiling to himself the next moment, “noodles, it is.”

Gathering the ingredients required for preparing her favourite noodles, he quickly set to work. He chopped the vegetables with precise measurement, just the way she liked. He heated a splash of oil in a pan, adding minced garlic and ginger first, the aroma quickly filling the kitchen and mingling with the faint scent of frustration from earlier. As the garlic sizzled, Armaan added the vegetables, stirring them with a wooden spoon until they began to soften and their colours brightened.

While the vegetables cooked, he filled a pot with water and brought it to a boil for the noodles. He added a generous pinch of salt to the water, then dropped in the noodles, watching them swirl and soften. He made sure to stir occasionally, keeping an eye on the clock to avoid overcooking.

The sauce was the final touch. He mixed soy sauce, a splash of rice vinegar, a bit of sesame oil, and a dash of chilli flakes in a small bowl, combining them to create the perfect balance of salty, tangy, and spicy. He added the sauce to the cooked vegetables and then tossed in the noodles, making sure everything was evenly coated and heated through.

Armaan plated the noodles with a flourish, garnishing them with chopped scallions and sesame seeds. He took a moment to admire his work, pleased with the way it turned out, before deciding to clean the counter. Just as he finished cleaning up, he felt the presence of someone behind him. A faint shadow stretched across the counter, and he instinctively turned, slightly startled.

“Tum?” He looked puzzled, and slightly spooked, to find Ruhi standing behind him.

She showed the empty water bottle in her hand, her eyes slightly narrowed at the plate of noodles resting on the counter. Armaan followed her gaze and instinctively stepped to cover it.

Ruhi grimaced, the noodles adding to her annoyance of Armaan rejecting the fruit custard during the dinner. She had prepared it so lovingly for him, knowing it was his favourite, yet he rejected it like it meant nothing to him. And now this. “Agar bhook lagi thi toh fridge mein custard tha ya kisi ko utha lete kuch banane ke liye.” He could sense the bitterness in her tone, though she tried to mask it with casualness, but he had neither the energy nor the inclination to indulge in her passive-aggressive remarks that she had been directing towards him since the day he told her to leave his office after a sound warning.

“It’s none of your business,” he said, “aur yeh mere liye nahi, Abhira ke liye hai. Move aside, I need to go to her.”

“Abhira ke liye, of course,” she chuckled with no trace of humour in it, stepping aside to give him way. Armaan shook his head, before taking the plate and turning to leave, but Ruhi’s voice stopped him just as he took a few steps.

Abhira stretched her limbs, the satisfaction of completing her work lighting up her face. “Finally done,” she murmured to herself, rubbing the back of her neck. Her stomach growled softly, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten in a while. “Let me eat something, kal phir sara din bhooke rehna hoga.” she muttered with a pout, heading towards the kitchen.

As she descended the stairs, her thoughts were still on her assignment. The sense of achievement was refreshing after the long hours she had spent on it. But as she neared the kitchen, her steps faltered at the sound of familiar voices—Armaan’s and Ruhi’s. She hesitated for a moment, unsure to interrupt them, but then moved ahead with a false sense of nonchalance. They don’t affect you, Abhira! They dont’t!

"Mujhe lagta hai, Abhira ke saath tumhe babysitter ka contract mil gaya hai. Kitni baar... tumhare uske tantrums ko handle karna, uski man-maani sehna—aur tum bas yeh sab karte jaate ho."

Armaan's jaw clenched at the word 'tantrum.' He wanted to snap back, to set her straight, but he knew better than to get caught in a pointless argument with her. He took a deep breath, his voice firm yet calm. "Mujhe jo karna hai, main karunga. Tum apna kaam karo, Ruhi. Aur yeh mere aur Abhira ke beech ki baat hai. Tum usmein dakhal mat do."

Ruhi's eyes flashed with a mix of frustration and something else, Armaan didn’t care to delve into it. He was done with this pointless conversation with her.

“Tum dekh bhi nahi paate ke kaise she’s just taking advantage of your guilt, your—”

Before she could complete her statement, the sound of soft steps caused them to turn.

Abhira entered the kitchen quietly, her gaze moving between Armaan and Ruhi. There was a brief flicker of something in her eyes—annoyance, perhaps—but she masked it well.

Without a word, she walked over to the shelves and took a packet of cookies, her movements brisk, as if she couldn’t stand being in the same room with them any longer than necessary. The tension in the kitchen was unbearable, thick enough to cut with a knife.

As she turned to leave, her eyes briefly met Armaan's, and he could see she was holding back. But she didn’t say anything. She left the kitchen as quickly as she had entered, her silence louder than any words she could have spoken.

Ruhi watched her go, a faint smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Well, looks like I’ll leave you to clean up this mess," she said, gesturing to the untouched plate of noodles before turning on her heel and walking out of the kitchen.

-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-

Damn! You are back!❤️ And the update like always is awesome.😁

Amazing

Please continue soon

Awesome update

Please update soon