"Teri aankhon se na jaane kyon
Teri duniya mein sama jaata hoon
Tujhe chodke yahan se jaana nahi chahta
Dil tera ho jaata hoon"
~ Tum Se Hi – Mohit Chauhan

~Day 7~

Halfway through the visit, something changed.

Not in any way that could be pointed to and named. No single moment announced it. It was more like the way seasons turn—a gradual, undeniable shift in the quality of the air.

The family had found their rhythms. The penthouse had found its capacity for noise and warmth and a dozen different personalities existing in the same square footage. And Kashvi had found—not a role, exactly. Not a performance.

Just her place.

~

It was six in the morning when I came out of my room, unable to sleep, and found Devika Aunty in the kitchen.

She was making chai. Already dressed, already composed, the kitchen lit softly in the pre-dawn grey.

She looked up when I appeared in the doorway. "Couldn't sleep?"

"I'm always up early." I hesitated. "I can go back to my room—"

"Please don't." She nodded at the stool across from her. "Come sit.

I sat. She didn't ask questions. Just moved around the kitchen with quiet efficiency, the chai beginning to fill the space with cardamom and warmth.

"You're a morning person," she observed after a while.

"I am. I used to hate it. Now I like the quiet before everything starts.

"Aadyant is not a morning person. You know this already, I'm sure."

I smiled. "He has strong opinions about alarms."

"He gets that from his father. Aadhir once threw an alarm clock. Not a dramatic throw—just a resigned, over-the-shoulder throw. It shattered against the wall. He looked at it for a moment, and then he went back to sleep."

I laughed, surprised out of it.

She smiled, pouring the chai. "Aadya is also not a morning person, but she will never admit it. Aadyant at least accepts his limitations."

"He really does."

She set a cup in front of me. Sat across the island. For a moment we were quiet, both of us with our hands around warm cups.

"Kashvi," she said, "I want to say something to you, and I want you to simply receive it without arguing."

I tensed slightly. "Okay.

"My son has always been—" She paused, considering. "He has always been capable of love. He is full of it. But he has never let himself be vulnerable to it. He has always kept something back. A distance."

"Yes." I knew this about him. I'd watched him figure it out in real time.

"Since he met you, he doesn't." Her voice was steady and very warm. "He sends us photos sometimes. Of the group of you, of the penthouse, of ordinary moments. And in every photo, he looks—" She stopped. "He looks the way his father looked when we were young. Like someone who has found where they belong."

My throat closed.

"I'm not telling you this to put pressure on you," she continued. "I know your situation. I know what you've been through. I know this is—complex. What I'm telling you is simply: you have made my son happy in a way I didn't know if he'd ever let himself be. And for that I am grateful. In a way that goes well past words."

I stared at my chai for a long moment.

"He makes me happy too," I said finally. "I didn't think I was allowed to be happy like this."

"You were always allowed. You just needed the right conditions."

"Devika aunty—"

"Don't." Her voice was gently firm. "Don't thank me. I haven't done anything except show up and see what was already there. You did the hard work, beta. You. Don't let anyone take credit for your healing. Not me, not even Aadyant."

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

The kitchen was quiet. The city was waking up outside.

"Now," Devika aunty said, topping up both our cups, "tell me about the collection you're working on. Ziva has given me a partial briefing, but she mostly just said, and I quote, 'Kashvi bhabhi is a genius, Maa,' which was useful but not technically specific."

I laughed. Really laughed.

Kashvi bhabhi.

Ziva had been calling me that since day two. It shouldn't feel like anything. It felt like everything.

I started talking about the collection. And Devika Rathore listened like I was the most interesting person in the room.

~

~ Later That Morning ~

I came into the kitchen at eight-thirty to find my mother and Kashvi deep in conversation, chai cups empty, three of Kashvi's sketchbooks open on the island between them.

Neither of them noticed me.

Maa was leaning forward, pointing at something in the sketchbook. "But if you did the underlayer in a lighter fabric, the movement would be different—"

"That's exactly what I was thinking," Kashvi said, animated in the way she only got when she was talking about design. "But I keep second-guessing it because the client brief specified structure—"

"Show the client both. Give them the choice. The version with structure, and the version with drape. Let them understand the difference."

"That's—actually brilliant."

"I have my moments." Maa's smile was very pleased.

I went to the coffee machine without interrupting. Made coffee. Leaned against the far counter and drank it in silence, watching two of the people I loved most have a conversation about fabric weight at eight-thirty in the morning.

At some point Maa glanced up and caught me watching.

Her expression was very eloquent.

I raised my coffee cup at her, once, and she went back to the sketchbooks.

~

~ Day 8 – Afternoon ~

"Bhabhi. Bhabhi. BHABHI."

I looked up from my sketchbook. Ivaan was in my doorway, holding a camera and wearing the expression of someone with a terrible idea they were very excited about.

"What are you doing?"

"We're doing a photoshoot. The whole family. Maa wants a picture for the wall in the Udaipur house. Ziva is directing it. You have to come."

"You want me in the family—"

"Obviously." He said it like the alternative had never crossed his mind. "Also, Ziva says you have to help her with the styling because apparently everyone is dressed wrong and she's 'losing her mind' and I quote.

I closed the sketchbook.

What followed was the most chaotic thirty minutes of my entire time at the penthouse, and that was saying something.

Ziva had opinions.

Strong opinions. About colour coordination. About who should stand where. About whether Dadu's kurta clashed with the light from the window (it did not, but Ziva had feelings about grey tones). About whether Ivaan's hair needed fixing (it did—I fixed it while he stood very still with the long-suffering expression of a younger brother who had lost the ability to protest).

"You," Ziva said to me, pointing with director energy. "Stand here, between Aadya and Bhaiya."

Between Aadya and Bhaiya.

In the center of the family picture.

I opened my mouth.

"Don't argue," Ziva said, reading my face. "This is where you go. I've already decided.

Aadya materialized at my elbow. "Just go with it. She's been planning this in her head since the flight."

I went.

It took fifteen minutes and approximately forty-five attempts to get a picture everyone was satisfied with—because Ivaan kept doing something different with his face at the last second, because Dadu didn't smile for the first several shots and then smiled for one in a way that startled everyone, because Dadi kept laughing and then apologizing for laughing which made everyone else laugh, because Rishvik gave a deadpan expression for the first twelve shots and then suddenly smiled for the thirteenth in a way that made Ziva declare it "the one."

In the photo, I am standing between Aadyant and Aadya. His hand is at my back. Her shoulder is touching mine. Around us: the whole Rathore family.

I am smiling.

Not politely. Not performatively. Just smiling, the way you smile when you don't remember that you're doing it.

Ziva texted me a copy of the photo that evening.

Ziva: This is my favourite thing ever. Also, I told Maa this should be on the house wall and she agreed.

Me: Ziva.

Ziva: You're IN the family now bhabhi. The wall is just confirmation.

I stared at the photo for a long time.

There I was.

In the middle of the frame.

Looking like I belonged there.

~

~ Day 9 – Evening ~

Ivaan found me on the balcony.

He didn't say anything immediately, just stood beside me with his arms on the railing, looking out at the city lights below. Sixteen years old and already learning when to wait in silence. I wondered when that had happened.

"She's good," he said eventually.

"Yeah.

"Like—really good. For you." He paused. "You're different with her. I don't mean that weirdly. I mean—you're still you. But there's more of you, somehow. Like you're not editing yourself."

I looked at him.

He shrugged, slightly self-conscious. "Aadya said I was perceptive once and I've been trying to live up to it.

"Aadya tells you things?"

"She says you've never let yourself be this honest before. That Kashvi is the first person you've been completely yourself with."

I was quiet for a moment.

"She's right," I said.

Ivaan nodded slowly. "Then I like her. For real. Not just because Aadya likes her or because Maa likes her." He glanced at me. "She makes you better, Bhai. That's the only thing that matters in the end."

I looked at my younger brother for a moment.

"When did you grow up?"

He grinned. "Tuesday. Somewhere between losing three Bluff games to Kashvi bhabhi and Dadi telling me I had her eyes."

I laughed. Really laughed.

From inside, I could hear the sounds of the apartment: Maa and Kashvi's voices in the kitchen again, Ziva excitedly telling Rishvik something, Dadi and Dadu in the living room, the sounds of a family that had settled into a place and made it temporary home.

Kashvi's voice rose above the rest for a moment, telling a story, and then Maa laughed.

That sound.

My mother's laugh, drawn out by the person I loved.

"Yeah," I said quietly to no one in particular.

"She makes everything better."

~

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