So obviously, today’s episode really fucking irritated me. Because of that, I wrote this... which is how their exchange should have gone. Really!
“All women do is ruin everything.”
“All you women know how to do is manipulate people. Destroy families.”
His words seemed to echo in her ears as she stared at the man in front of her, someone she had considered to be her closest friend. He was saying this? Was this kind of vitriol, this kind of misogynistic garbage really coming from someone she loved?
“Women ruin everything? Women destroy families? Women hurt people?” She asked, hoping beyond belief that he would hear the error of his words and retract his statements, admit that he had spoken in haste and they could go back to normal.
“Yes!” Shravan snarled over his shoulder and she felt her heart sink even further. Even so, she could feel her blood beginning to heat up, a deep seated rage firing up within her.
“All women?” Suman prodded again, waiting for him to give her the ammunition she needed.
“What part of ye-”
“WOMEN SAY ONE THING AND ALL OF YOU FOOLS JUMP ON THE ‘NOT ALL MEN,’ BANDWAGON!” She roared, striding forwards to stare at him, willing him to see that today he would either concede to her or she would never be able to look at him again. She was furious. As a woman. As a human.
“But somehow you all get free passes to generalize us in any way you please?! In what world is that alright?!”
“Suman-” He began, looking slightly taken aback at her sudden fury.
“I am not done talking!” she hissed, baring her teeth at him in warning, “do not ever presume you are allowed to talk over me.”
If he wasn’t shocked before, he definitely was now.
“The women in your life have let you down, I know that, I acknowledge that. I’m at fault in that too. It was me who acted like I had some kind of right to use you and then throw you away when it suited me. But you know what - UNIVERSALLY women are being attacked, and slaughtered, and assaulted, and tortured because MEN couldn’t take no for answer. You are afraid of being abandoned… we are afraid of being murdered.” She snapped, throwing her hands into the air.
“We are blamed for our own murders, our own torture, our own assault and yet god forbid we ever have a negative thing to say about a man?” Suman growled, her hands balling into fists as they began to shake with her anger.
“Suman - listen to me -” His earlier anger seemed to have dissipated, replaced by growing alarm as he watched her rage bubble.
“What?! Shravan you’re my friend, that doesn’t mean I will tolerate blatant misogyny in the name of your own pain manifesting itself as harmful, aggressive remarks.” She snarled, pointing her finger at him.
There was silence, only the sound of her own heavy breathing. She could feel her heart thundering in her chest, and she pressed her eyes shut, willing herself to calm down.
“I can understand that you’re upset about this whole marriage thing. But that does not give you the right to take the anger you have at me or at anyone else,” she said, placing a deliberate emphasis on the words, “out on all of the women in the world. I’ll never understand people like you, Shravan. On one hand you claim that women ruin everything, and then you come crawling to Devi Maiya for help. If it was a woman who destroyed you, remember that it was her who made you too.”
He opened his mouth to respond to her but something had changed within her. She wasn’t going to stand here and listen to him try to defend himself. She wasn’t in the mood to listen. Without another word, she turned and left, leaving the door ajar in her wake.
“That’s not the way it works, Suman! What the fuck do you think this is? One second you’re publicly humiliating me,” he snarled and she flinched when he placed a deliberate emphasis on the word, “and now that you feel like it, you’re suddenly in love with me?!”
“I know, Shravan!” She cried, throwing her hands up in frustration. This wasn’t what she had intended. He was supposed to read her letter when she was good and far away where he couldn’t come after her. She had only written it to free herself of the burden she was shouldering.
“That’s why I wrote you a letter and left it for you! I didn’t want you to feel like there was any pressure-”
“You wrote a letter?!” He snapped, cutting her off with a growl as he whirled to face her. “Oh yeah, cause this is something you write in a letter, of course.”
“Why not?! Are you the only one allowed to write love letters?!” Suman demanded, taking a step forwards so she stood so close to him that she could feel the heat radiating from him as he towered over her.
“How the hell do you know about that?”
@ishqaanadil
So basically this would be after Shravan has read the letter Suman left for him, detailing her feelings and has now come after her before she can leave for Lucknow in order to confront her about it
She hated him. More than anything in the world. If there was any explanation for the knot in her stomach, the erratic racing of her heart, the thin sheen of sweat she could feel breaking out over her, that had to be it. It had to be because of just how much she hated him. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was standing shirtless in front of her, the muscles in his back rippling in a way that had to be illegal as he stooped to retrieve the dumbbells at his feet. Dumbbells that looked like they were the size of her entire arm.
She could see his biceps flexing as he brought the weight up his chest before lowering it again, see the trail of sweat that disappeared into the waistband of his sweatpants. His hair was mussed, as if he had run many an errant hand through the dark locks, a day’s worth of stubble covering his cheeks - it had been a while since he had trimmed it, it looked like. Her gaze continued downwards to the ridges of muscle on his abdomen, the sharp v-line that drew her attention somewhere else entirely.
She forced her gaze away from … THAT part of him, swallowing as her mouth suddenly went extremely dry. Stupid - zaroorat se zyaada lamba - Shravan and his stupid - zaroorat se zyaada bade - muscles.
She kept her eyes trained on the floor a good distance away from him, figuring she would just come back later, it had been a foolish idea to come to his house anyways. It didn’t matter how big her pareshaanian were - ultimately, he was only her lawyer. The crude remarks Varma had made to her on the street earlier that day had nothing to do with her case, therefore she had no reason to trouble Shravan with them. His job was to solve this Khosla issue - not to come to her rescue against insolent men. Besides - she could do that all on her own. It was so easy to delude herself into thinking that he was still her Shravan, she would forget that now he was Shravan Malhotra, not the boy she’d grown up with. He was a man now, although after what she had just seen - she didn’t think she could ever forget that again.
She found herself thanking her lucky stars that his attention had been elsewhere and that he hadn’t seen her gaping at him like a fool, the last thing she needed was for him to think more of himself than he already did. She began to back cautiously out of the room, fully intending to act as if she had never been here in the first place, when it happened.
And by it - she meant that she had bumped into the bench behind her, causing the weights set upon to roll off of it and make a dull thud as they hit the ground. A dull thud that caused Shravan to turn around suddenly and fix his gaze directly on her.
If she had thought that having a view of his back and his side had been bad - she thought she might die when faced with the full view of his naked torso. He definitely wasn’t the beanpole type boy she had studied with anymore. The sheen of sweat that covered him caused his skin to gleam in the light and a sudden tightness gripped her muscles, a slow flame starting to burn somewhere within her.
“Sumo? Tum yahan?”
His voice washed over and she had to repress the urge to shudder at the sudden stifling nature of the room.
“Shravan - voh main - you’re busy, I’m sorry, main baad mein tumse baat karti hoon.” She just wanted out of here, out of this house, and AWAY from this man.
“Ruko - what happened? Tum yahan kaise? Ghar pe toh sab teekh hai na?”
She had just turned away to scurry out when his words pinned her where she stood. Did he have to show her concern? Care about her family? Then what - he would run back to London - back to his grand scale life there, back to some woman probably waiting for him and she would be left alone … all over again.
Just the thought of some Shravan and some other woman was enough to set her blood boiling. Some faceless horrid witch getting to see what she just had - except with his knowledge. Getting to trail her eyes leisurely over him, touch him, kiss him - she thought she might die.
“Haan voh - bas aise hi - it’s nothing. Sorry, main yun hi andar aa gayi - I’ll go.”
She was thanking whatever higher power existed that her back was to him and he couldn’t see how red her face was. She was positive that she was still wearing her emotions on her face, and nothing would be more embarrassing than having to explain herself to Shravan.
“Suman! Ruko!”
Suddenly he was standing there before her, his eyes boring into hers with an intensity that unnerved her.
“Suman, kya hua hai? Tum itni pareshaan lag rahi ho - tell me right now!”
Was that - was he worried? About her?
“Kuch nahin hai, Shravan!” she snapped angrily, her embarrassment at her own emotions for him causing her to lash out.
“Oh? Toh tum bass mujhe ghoorne aayi thi? All you wanted was an eyeful?”
Was her face on fire? It had to have been - there was no way that her current state could be healthy? He had known?! How - he didn’t - how dare he? He was probably thinking that she had just stood there and drooled over him… which she had… but he didn’t need to know that!
“Kya?! Main - aur tumhe ghoor rahi thi? Why would I do that? Apni shakal dekhi hai?”
So perhaps that had been a low blow? She couldn’t help the smugness that filled her though - that should teach him.
In retrospect, she should have known better - really, she should have. There was no way that Shravan Malhotra was going to just let her get away with that.
“Meri shakal?” He asked incredulously, giving a small mocking laugh as he crossed his arms over his broad chest, causing her eyes to flicker downwards momentarily, “tum meri shakal toh nahin dekh rahi thi?”
N.O.
This could not be happening to her.
“Dekho Shravan,” she began warningly, her voice quivering slightly as she pointed an accusing finger in his direction, “main bass yahan uss Varma ke baare mein baat karne aayi thi! Usse lagta hai ki voh mujhse kuch bhi bol sakhta hai -” somewhere along the way she had forgotten about her embarrassment and was once again overcome with her irritation at Varma’s audacity.
“What?! Varma!? Voh kahan mila tumhe? What did he say? Saaf saaf batao Sumo.”
“What do you think, Shravan?” she growled mockingly, craning her neck backwards slightly in order to look at him properly when he drew himself up to his full height with an angry growl.
“Sumo - voh dobara mile na toh kuch mat karna - I’ll handle him.” he snarled, his voice promising certain death to Varma.
“Excuse me?!” She gasped, trying to fight the butterflies rising in her stomach at Shravan’s words. “Aur tum hote kaun ho, exactly?!”
He had just grabbed his discarded towel and begun to make his way out of the room when she spoke. Freezing immediately, he turned and made his way back towards her, stopping directly in front of her and stooping until he could look her directly in the eye.
