Bonus | the chance

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humne jo khoya, dikhta nahin hai aankhon se

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[Utkarsh Mehra]

The pub smelled like old wood and warm laughter. Outside, London played its usual tricks with the weather—patches of drizzle that teased a full downpour but never committed. Inside, the amber light softened everything: elbows on tables, half-finished drinks, eyes that glazed over after a long week of work and small wins.

The booth creaked slightly when Utkarsh shifted. It was one of those pub corners where time felt soft. The walls were lined with yellowing newspaper prints, the air a cocktail of roasted peanuts, damp jackets, and freshly poured ale.

Four of them huddled around the table: Ryan, loud and unfiltered, built for banter; Zayn, smooth as always, his heartbreaks layered like a Spotify playlist; Davis, the quiet one who rarely volunteered but always dropped the most devastating truths when he did; and Utkarsh, who felt more like a spectator tonight.

Their first round of after work week drinks had turned into a second, and somewhere in that transition, the game had began—"Ask Me Anything," fueled by the hazy bravery only beer can gift.

It started light: strange phobias (Davis once had a vendetta against garden gnomes), worst work buddy (Utkarsh, like everyone else in the team had answered Jake) and what they'd eat on a doomed flight's last meal (Ryan: "cheesy fries and regret").

Eventually, the game had taken a slow turn toward sentiment. The last question, had gotten out that Zayn was terrified of escalators as a kid because he thought they'd swallow his shoes, which had them howling.

Ryan, grinning, leaned across and said, "Alright, Zayn. Let's ask a serious question. You ever given a girl flowers?"

Zayn smirked. "Of course I have. Once. Tulips. She said no one had ever gotten her those. Felt like I'd hacked romance for a week."

Ryan raised an eyebrow. "Tulips, huh? Sophisticated. Not the usual roses-and-peonies bouquet."

Davis took a sip, then added, "Flowers are only for the ones who matter, though. I mean, you don't just hand roses to someone you're half-interested in."

They nodded. That idea, that flowers reserved for something sacred, for someone unforgettable, hung in the air like a quiet truth.

Utkarsh stared at the condensation sliding down his glass, silent. He'd bought flowers once too. Just once.

Sunflowers. He hadn't thought about that in years.

That bouquet, two sunflowers framed by baby's breath and tucked into pale pink paper, felt like something that had chosen him rather than the other way around. He hadn't agonized over it. He'd just walked past a corner florist on his way to the coffee place, glanced at the arrangement in the display, and thought: That's her.

And somehow, it was.

She had looked at the bouquet like it was a secret revealed. Her fingers traced the petals slowly, reverently. 

"Sunflowers?" she'd said with half a laugh, more surprised than skeptical.

"They reminded me of you," he'd replied, awkward in his honesty.

"Bright and stubborn?"

"Warm. And hard to look away from."

She'd loved them. It hadn't been dramatic, no sweeping gestures, no vows. Just a quiet moment soaked in meaning neither of them had the courage to unfold. That memory lived like an unopened letter—intact, undisturbed, but somehow always close.

Now, years later, beer in his blood and laughter surrounding him, the weight of that small moment pressed gently against him.

Davis had just finished saying to Zayn, "It's about whether she could bloom again in your memory without warning."

Strangely it fit for Utkarsh. She had bloomed into his memory, once again. Like she did in quiet moments of his life. He didn't speak about her. He didn't need to. 

That bouquet, those two sunflowers, bold and golden and slightly asymmetrical, were the last thing he gave someone with hope wrapped inside.

Utkarsh felt it first in his fingers, the way they tightened around the cool glass of beer. He hadn't thought about her in a long time. Not this intensely. Just traces, like smoke after a candle's been snuffed.

Was she happy? Did she think of him? Was she dating someone else? Had her parents convinced her to get into an arranged marriage?

Davis was saying something about meaning and gestures. Zayn had moved on to a new tale of disastrous first impressions. But Utkarsh barely heard them. The memory wasn't loud—but it nudged. And somewhere in the folds of beer and nostalgia, something softened in him.

The game had meandered past its halfway point, drifting between laughs and lingering truths. Their pints were down to lazy sips now, fingers trailing condensation.

Ryan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaned forward, and posed a curveball: "Okay, your turn, Utkarsh. If you had to check in with someone you've lost touch with—just one person, no context, no obligation—who would it be?"

Zayn chimed in, trying to keep the tone light. "Like, that name your brain brings up when no one's looking."

Davis didn't say anything. He just looked at Utkarsh. Carefully. Kindly.

Utkarsh shifted in his seat, eyes resting on the curve of his glass. He could've brushed it off. Made a joke. But the name had already surfaced before he could dodge it.

He saw the coffee place again, the way she laughed with her whole body, sunflowers cradled like they were rare and ridiculous. The pink paper softening in her hands. Her smile—bright and steady, like warmth framed in gold.

"Nikita!"

He hadn't spoken it in years, at least not aloud. But it still lived quietly inside him, tucked away like an unopened letter he kept forgetting to forget. They never fell out. Life just pulled them into different orbits.

"She was..." he began, then let the sentence trail. He wasn't sure what came after was. A moment? A maybe? A memory?

Utkarsh wasn't usually the one to offer stories. Especially not that story. 

He rarely spoke about her. Not because the memory hurt, but because it felt sacred. Too delicate for casual conversation. Like if he said her name too often, she might dissolve into the air like mist.

There was something he'd once read, or maybe just believed: that the real kind of love—the deep, soul-bending kind—is the kind you don't parade. You don't explain it. You guard it in silence, like a secret temple hidden from the world's noise.

He could feel her presence in fragments—a laugh remembered in the middle of someone else's story, a sunflower spotted in a windowbox, a cup of mocha that tasted just right. They'd only shared one date, but it had carved a shape into him he never learned to fill.

That evening, they'd sat across each other in a corner café, all warm lights and low chatter. She'd worn pretty floral dress, a peach or pink. He wasn't sure anymore. But the way she spoke, sharp, curious, quick; he remembered that clearly, like a spotlight on a stage only they occupied. He remembered the questions she asked. Not the usual ones. They came from a place that said: I see your soul, not just you.

That evening felt like a match struck in quiet—brief, golden, unforgettable. The kind of night that doesn't grow old in your mind, just softer around the edges.

He moved to London a few weeks later. She had roots too deep in India, and he hadn't asked her to pull them up. She hadn't offered. No fights, no promises. Just an understanding that was quiet and complete.

And yet, three years later, here he was. Pub lights flickering in memory, beer leaving his chest warm but hollow, her name still tucked into the folds of his evening.

He'd told the others it was time to head out while they dared him to call her maybe, if he hadn't forgotten her. He had said that had some early weekend plans and hurried out.

But the truth was simpler. He needed the night now—the cold air, the misted pavement, the unanswered question hanging between his pocket and his heart.

And while the rest of London moved around him like it always did, Utkarsh paused beneath a streetlamp and asked himself the only question that mattered:

Would she remember him?

Or had that evening bloomed, burned, and vanished in her world the way it never quite did in his?

His phone was already in his hand. He knew that her contact was still saved. He unlocked it almost absently, thumb tracing the smooth glass like muscle memory. Scrolled through his contacts until it landed on her name.

Nikita Desai.

The letters hadn't changed. Simple. Still untouched after all this time. No emojis. No custom ringtone. Just a name he hadn't had the nerve to remove, and hadn't had the courage to tap.

It felt surreal, seeing it there. Like finding an old letter you never mailed. The digital silence between them hadn't made her any less real.

His thumb hovered. Was it selfish to call now, after all this time?

Three years. No texts. No calls. No breadcrumbs of intention. Not even the courtesy of a "how have you been." Just silence. And now, out of nowhere, he was considering dialing? He wasn't drunk—just loose enough for longing to feel like logic.

He had told himself that distance would do the work. That silence would slowly erase her from memory, soften her outline until she blurred into anonymity. But it hadn't. If anything, the years had only made her more distinct. Like something etched instead of faded.

He thought about that absurdly perfect date—how they laughed like the jokes had been rehearsed in the same script. How she'd leaned in mid-conversation and made eye contacts like the space between them was magnetic. The smell of coffee. Her fingers resting on the coffee cup, slow and still, like they were trying to hold that moment in place.

Was it worth calling after all this time?

She might not even remember him with clarity. Just a face across a table, perhaps a name that now sounds like background noise.

Was it selfish to reach out just because the silence had started to ache more than he expected?

He imagined the worst, her cold surprise, a polite decline, or worse, no response at all. But there was something heavier than fear.

Regret.

Regret for not reaching out before the drift became a distance. Regret for not trying when the window was still open. Regret for believing that if he kept her tucked away like a secret, he'd never have to lose her.

The streetlamp flickered once, and he glanced at his reflection in a rain-speckled window. He didn't look like someone making a grand romantic gesture. He looked like someone revisiting a chapter he never finished reading.

He stared at the screen. His heart had drifted into questions that kept looping.

Would she pick up? Would she even remember him? Did reaching out now cheapen what they had? Did it rewrite their silence?

The screen glowed faintly in his hand, her name still there. Still untouched. Still waiting.

What if he had said yes to friendship?

She had offered it—back then, when possibilities flickered but neither dared feed the flame. Her voice had been gentle, as if she already knew they wouldn't continue but still wanted a thread to remain.

But he had chosen to disappear altogether, leave no trace, keep no connection. Because staying in touch felt too much like watching the most beautiful thing from behind glass—close enough to see, too far to feel.

If he'd agreed... maybe she'd know he hated the coffee at his office. Maybe he'd know how her career had unfolded, whether she still took chose cappuccino over mocha. Maybe she'd know he got promoted last year. Maybe he'd know which novel she'd last obsessed over, or what made her furious about the world lately.

Maybe she would've heard his voice in all seasons, and he hers. They could've sent each other memes, casual catch-ups, check-ins when their cities felt lonely.

But even imagining it now, it felt off. Utkarsh knew himself too well. He couldn't have been just friends.

Not with the way she once looked at him as if the world had made sense for a second. Not with how her laugh curled around his ribs. Not with the way that bouquet, felt like the truest thing he'd ever done.

Knowing her from far would've been like walking a tightrope he never wanted to balance on. Being around her without the hope of something more, would've stretched him thin. It wasn't distance that made it hard. It was proximity without possibility, that was the weight!

She wasn't just a person he had met. She was the kind of presence that didn't play background noise. She lingered. She bloomed. She waited quietly in thoughts no one else had access to.

So he chose silence. Distance. The art of not-knowing.

And now, years later, holding her name in his phone like a fragile relic, he felt the weight of that choice, the ache of wondering who she'd become and whether he'd recognize the way she spoke now, laughed now, lived now.

And tonight, even as the rain hummed around him and the streetlight flickered in quiet encouragement, he still wasn't sure if reaching out would offer something real... or simply rattle the silence they had protected for so long.

He could just close the screen. Let the moment pass. Return to the rhythm of forgetting. But it was right there, her name. 

He thumbed over the call button once. Then again. Pulled away. Tapped the edge of his phone like it might offer him advice.

This is insane, he thought.He looked up, exhaled, then hovered over the button again. He almost put the phone away. Almost.But then something anchored him—a small, stubborn part that wanted just one moment of truth instead of endless what-ifs.

He tapped "Call."

It rang.

He nearly hit end. Nearly bailed, nearly silenced it. But tonight, for once, he stayed.

Let it ring.

Let it reach her.

Because sometimes, some stories look complete until you realize even finished pages deserve a second glance, a second chance.

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I couldn't keep myself from exploring Utkarsh's pov.

Would love to read your thoughts.

–Anami!♡