2 | the conversation

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Shaam, raatein, din, sahar, saath beeta har peher
Hum to na bhulein hain, tumhe yaad ho, yaan na yaad ho

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The silence after hello stretched around the world. For a moment, neither of them said anything. All she heard was static, actually no, she heard a breath. His breath.

"Hey," he said eventually.  

Nikita closed her eyes for a second—long enough to remember the way he used to say it, like they'd spoken only yesterday. Not after years of silence, not after vanishing. Familiar, but out of place. Like hearing her favorite song playing from someone else's window.

"Hey," she repeated, tasting the word like it might break in her mouth.

He hesitated. "I wasn't sure you'd pick up."

"I almost didn't," she said, because there was no point filtering anything anymore.

Outside, the rain fell relentlessly—sheets of silver slicing through the night, as if the sky itself tried to remember something.

They sat in that truth for a moment—across cities, across years, across a call neither of them had planned properly.

Another pause followed. She couldn't decide if it felt comfortable or choking.

"How've you been?" he asked, and suddenly it felt absurd—how did one sum up three years in one polite question?

She didn't answer right away.

Instead, she watched a single raindrop slide down the windowpane, split at the halfway mark, and veer off course. It felt metaphorical, though she was too tired to chase the symbolism.

She wondered if he was tipsy. Not slurring, not obvious—but there was a looseness in him that night, a quiet wobble between his words. The kind of confidence people borrowed from a drink, not earned. Then again, maybe it was just emotion. Nostalgia wore similar shoes.

She imagined him wherever he was—maybe standing by his own window, staring out at a dark, clear night sky. Or rain. Or snow. Or maybe it was just a cozy evening and he was drinking mocha. She pictured him in that quiet, unsure space, wondering whether the call had been brave or foolish.

Maybe it was both.

She still remembered the warmth of that café they had gone to for their date—the way the golden lights puddled against wood-paneled walls, the way the barista smiled at them with a wide and knowing smile and the scent of coffee that floated in the air. A single evening. A single date. And somehow, enough emotional gravity lingered, years later.

"How've you been?" he had asked.

Her mind replied: Good but I think of you every time I sip a mocha alone and wonder if you think of that late evening, too. But she said none of that.

Over three years had passed since that date, and it still felt like a question with no expiry. No drama, no falling-out—just potential suspended in time. They liked each other. That much was clear. But no second date, no chase. Life stepped in like a bouncer and ushered them back to separate paths.

Three years had passed, and still she wondered what might have happened if one of them had asked for a second mocha date. Or if she'd said yes to his offer for dinner that night.

She barely noticed her hands still wrapped around the mug, now stone-cold against her skin. The mocha had lost its warmth a while ago—maybe around the moment he asked how she'd been. 

Mocha. It was his favorite drink. He'd introduced it to her with an enthusiasm that felt boyish and sincere, insisting it was "dessert pretending to be caffeine." She hadn't even liked it much at first. But somehow, she kept ordering it. Even now. She had also learnt to prepare it at home. It was now her go-to comfort drink.

She stared into the mug, its surface still rich but unmoving. Like memory—sweet, still, undrinkable.

How strange, she thought, that he lingered in things. In flavors. In weather. In questions.

She tugged at the sleeves of her fleece, grounding herself in its worn softness. It didn't feel like armor, but it helped—a quiet kind of comfort against the strange swell of emotion rising in her chest.

Her voice, when she spoke, was easy. Measured. She kept it light on purpose, careful not to let too much spill through.

This wasn't a scene from a well-thought book or a warm movie. It wasn't a reunion. Just a call. Just a voice she used to know, surfacing again after three long years.

She told herself not to dive too deep. Not to get tangled in tone or pause or the fact that he still had her number. She had practiced this kind of detachment before—the friendly kind, smooth and casual. No stakes.

Still, something in her resisted the script. Because even as she responded like it was no big deal, her thoughts kept straying back to that café and the way he had looked at her then, like she was a question he didn't mind never answering.

But that wasn't now.

Now was just a quiet conversation on a rainy night, and she refused to turn it into something more than it was.

"I've been good," she said, with a small nod even though he couldn't see it. The words felt neat, harmless. Like wrapping a messy year in gift paper and hoping no one asked to open it.

The pause that followed was awkward—not sharp, but shapeless. A gap filled only with the sound of rain against glass and thoughts she couldn't shut off. She shifted slightly, eyes flicking to the cold mocha beside her like it might offer a prompt. When he didn't speak, she filled the space.

"What about you?"

"I've been good," he replied, almost immediately.

Too quickly. The same answer, mirrored and meaningless. Too fast, almost reflexive. 

Another pause stretched out, thinner this time, like waiting for a train that might never come.

She felt the curiosity nudge at her again, quiet but insistent. Why now? Why tonight? She glanced at the window, traced the raindrops absently with her eyes. Maybe he saw something that reminded him of her. Or maybe he was just bored. Or drunk. Or lonely.

Or maybe she was none of those things—maybe she was just... unfinished.

She let the quiet gather, then asked softly, casually: "So... why'd you call?"Her voice carried it like a leaf in a stream. Easy. Breezy. Unbothered.

But inside, every part of her leaned toward the answer. She didn't expect a perfect answer. But she couldn't stop herself from wanting one.

Maybe he'd say something vague. Maybe he'd dodge the question. Like always.

There was a pause before his answer—long enough for her to hear the rain deepen, tapping more insistently against the window.

Then he spoke. Quietly, almost like he hoped she wouldn't really hear it.

"I got dared," he said. "To call you."

Her breath stilled.

A dare?

She blinked once, then again, as if the words had shape and she was trying to read between their curves.

Dared. Not remembered. Not missed. Dared.

Something shifted in her—small but definite. Not anger. Not heartbreak. Just that familiar tightening of something once soft, turning in on itself.

Her mind spun faster than she could control. Was this a joke? A game? Did someone tell him to call a random girl whose name started with N? Or did they dare him to reach out to an old crush? An almost something? Someone he liked and then forgot?

Was she a name on a list?

She tried to stay composed. Leaned back like it was any ordinary night and not one cracking open with quiet insult. Still, something in her chest felt sharper now. A subtle bitterness rising—not loud, just steady. Like coffee left out too long.

She had told herself, once, that they could be friends. That staying in touch after one promising date wasn't absurd. That they could build something slow, light, genuine. But then... the silence came. The vanishing. No texts. No reasons.

So now she sat across a phone line, faced with a voice she hadn't heard in three years—and the reason for it was a dare.

She swallowed her thoughts before they boiled over. Her tone stayed level. Controlled.

"Oh," she said simply. "That's... unexpected."

And beneath her fleece, the warmth she had once felt for him turned a few degrees colder.

There was silence. Then the faint sound of a breath caught mid-thought.

"I mean," he started, voice uncertain, "it wasn't... like that exactly."

She waited.

"It was a stupid game," he said. "One of those ask-me-anything nights that got out of hand. Someone asked who I'd call if I had one shot to check in with someone I no longer spoke to and..." He paused, then added, "And I said your name."

His words tumbled out unevenly, like he was trying to fix them as they fell. She could hear the edits—the self-corrections mid-sentence, the nervous pacing between phrases.

Her stomach tensed. Just slightly. It wasn't the worst thing he could've said, but it wasn't exactly comforting either. Not missed. Not thought about over time. Just someone he didn't speak to anymore—technically accurate, emotionally distant.

He didn't say why he disappeared after all that they had—after she'd offered her friendship sincerely, knowing full well that romance wasn't possible then. He hadn't tried to explain why the texts stopped, why the closeness evaporated into a polite distance and then nothing at all.

And she wasn't asking. Not yet. But the bitterness settled in her calmly, like fog over water. It wasn't about a dare, not really. It was about being remembered casually, on someone else's whim, after years of silence she hadn't chosen.

Her jaw stayed relaxed, but something behind it had clenched quietly. "Right," she said softly. And with that, the line between casual and complicated blurred, just a little more.

He didn't rush to fill the silence. Maybe he felt it too—the weight of words that didn't land quite right.

She leaned back slowly, her fleece catching at the elbows as her arms crossed gently. The air in the room felt different now, like something had shifted but not settled. Not yet.

"I said your name," he repeated, quieter this time. Not defensive. Just unsure.

She absorbed it without reacting, at least not outwardly. Inside, though, thoughts spiraled into familiar, uncomfortable places. There was something hollow in the idea of being summoned by a dare. Chosen not for presence, but absence. Not for connection, but curiosity.

She tried not to react, not to read into it, as she'd taught herself to do over the months. The first few months had been harder—every notification that wasn't him, every ache that felt too tender for something that had barely begun. But she'd gotten better at letting it go. At staying unaffected.

So she leaned into practicality, the shield she trusted most.

"Well," she said, tone light but not careless, "looks like you completed the dare. Shouldn't you head back to whoever put you up to it?"

He paused again. Then quietly: "I already left. I'm not with them anymore."

The words caught her off guard. Not just the answer, but the softness in it. Like maybe he'd stayed on the line longer than he planned. Maybe he hadn't expected her to pick up—but now that she had, he wasn't ready to let go just yet.

And just like that, her calm cracked a little. Not shattered. Just a hairline fracture along something she'd worked hard to seal.

She didn't respond right away. The silence gave her room to think—and maybe, to prepare.

She could hear the low murmur of something—traffic maybe, or wind slipping past his window. The line between them stayed quiet, stretched like dusk.

Then he spoke. "I wasn't planning on staying on the call this long."

She gave a soft laugh—not amused, but almost involuntary. "Right."

"I just thought you wouldn't pick up," he admitted. "And then... when you did... I didn't really know what I was going to say."

His honesty unsettled her more than a rehearsed excuse might have. There was no cleverness, no attempt to coat the awkwardness. Just truth, unpolished. Quite unlike him.

For a flickering moment, she thought about the time she had typed out a message to him two years ago, then deleted it. Just checking in, she'd written. Just hoping you're well. But she'd never sent it. And now here he was, with a dare in his pocket and memories she wasn't sure he remembered properly.

He had always been careful with his words—pausing mid-sentence, self-editing, looping through thoughts before committing to speech. But tonight, something was different. His voice felt looser, less measured. Like whatever guard he usually wore had slipped a little.

"You sound... different," she said, keeping her tone neutral.

He gave a soft laugh. "Yeah?"

"Less cautious," she added. "How drunk are you?"

There was a pause. Then: "Not really. At least not enough drinks to be called drunk"

She exhaled through her nose, almost amused. Almost.

"I remember you saying alcohol lowers your inhibitions. Helps you do what you actually want to do." She said it quietly, watching the words land with more weight than she'd intended. Not accusatory, not playful—just honest.

He gave a soft exhale, and then admitted, "Just two beers; doesn't make one drunk, Nikita!"

Her name.

He hadn't said it until now. And hearing it again, after all this time, unraveled something she didn't know she'd still tucked away.

It sounded the same. Slightly drawn out. Unpracticed, but familiar. Like he'd said it in his head more than out loud.

She blinked, once, slowly.

The memory rose easily—one of those late-night text threads, back when their conversations wandered everywhere and nowhere at once. She could still picture it, the way he typed with just enough honesty to feel real, just enough restraint to leave her guessing.

Utkarsh Mehra: 

Technically 4 beers = drunk. 

Her : 

Technically? 

Utkarsh Mehra: 

Yes, "technically". 

Two beers = just enough to feel good. 

Her: 

You mean tipsy kind?

Utkarsh Mehra: 

Exactly. Two or three and the filter goes. You say things you mean but wouldn't normally say out loud. 

Her: 

So you're saying you need two to three beers to follow your heart? 

  Utkarsh Mehra: 

Damn it. That's one way to put it. 

P.S. Seems like I gave you my secret. :)

She had laughed back then. It felt like flirtation wearing pajamas. Honest, but safe. Playful, but tender.

Now, with his voice on the line and two beers behind him again, the context twisted ever so slightly. He hadn't said much yet—but already it was more than he'd said in years.

She let her eyes drift to the window. Still raining. But quieter now. The kind of night where even old ghosts feel brave.

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Would love to ready your thoughts.

Is there someone you'd check-in on, if given the dare (and borrowed courage, of course)?

–Anami!♡