Chapter Twenty-Six

For three days, Riyaan limits his communication with Ivan. If it's a question about what he wants to eat, it's whatever Ivan wants. He always has his phone on his hand doom scrolling, so his short responses fits into the situation. When Ivan asks if he needs help setting up the new laptop, he has already set it up. When Ivan asks him if he wants to go out for ice cream, his heart makes a funny attempt at flutter, but he ends up reminding Ivan that there's unopened ice cream packs in the refrigerator.

Ivan will be fine, because before this, he was the one who was ignoring him.

‘Leave him,’ Kris says, yawning. ‘People only realise when they don't have you anymore.’

On the fourth day, he ends up calling Kris. If he doesn't talk to anyone at this moment, he will start doing things. Like, starting a fight with Ivan — which would be ugly because he would be fighting alone. Or worse, crying and accepting that it has truly come to end.

‘I am looking for a way forward, not to break it off.’ He wants to believe that.

‘But he doesn't want you, Riyaan.’ The voice in Kris’ voice low-key offends him. What does Kris know about anything? He hasn't been here, he hasn't seen Ivan being affectionate to him. Riyaan is sure Ivan was beginning to like him, otherwise, why would he kiss him after all this while?

‘But you said he is the one to get attached. And, I know, he …doesn't dislike me. We kissed. He kissed me.’

‘Are you sure? Riyaan…you're going to make me say it, so, I'm sorry for the fact that I'm about to break your heart now.’

‘Why, what do you mean? And yes, I'm sure it's him who kissed me first.’

‘I don't know where and when this is from, but a few days ago, Preet and I were talking, and he told me that Ivan doesn't know how to say bye to you.’

He props himself up with his arms on the bed. This is something he wasn't expecting to hear. ‘Doesn’t know how? Because he wants to get rid of me or because he doesn't want to get rid of me?’

‘I think it's the first.’

‘Okay.’

‘Okay? Is it still okay for you?’

‘No’ I think I've heard enough.’

*               *               *

‘Just get in,' he yells as he forces his clothes into the duffel. Good thing that he hasn’t added much to his style and hasn't bought much clothes.

When his phone chimes a notification, he expects to hear good news from Plasi about his new rented place, but he doesn’t.

‘Are you sure, there’s nowhere else we can look?’

‘No, but take my advice. Share a place with my cousin, he’s a friendly dude, and no funny business going on, trust me. He just doesn’t have a meaningful job.’

‘But if I share it with him, how long after he can find me one for myself?’

‘Come out for a night out today, you will meet him and you can ask him.’

It’s Saturday, Ivan is still working, or maybe just a way to avoid him. And Riyaan is about to make things easier for him. ‘Fine, what time?’

‘Late. I have another party to attend.’

‘Fine.’

*             *               *

He wasn’t expecting to meet so many people, but here he is, sitting with loud music in a dimly lit restaurant-cum-bar.

‘C’mon. Lighten up. Don't say you have to leave soon,’ Plasi lands a pat on his back.

‘No. I can stay,’

‘Dinner’s on me.’

‘Uh, why?’ Has he finally made his poor and cheap condition known? To be honest, he has been talking to Plasi about renting cheap places for a while now, so he wouldn't be surprised.

‘I don't say this a lot, but today is my birthday.’

‘Really? I could have brought a gift or something.’

‘Don’t. Growing up, I didn't celebrate much. What about you?’

‘I used to have quite overwhelming birthdays. Always people around, and lots of stuff and activities.’ He did sometimes find it rather annoying. For his birthday, sometimes the orphanage would invite his teachers also. When he was younger, it was embarrassing for him. Thankfully, it wasn't the same growing up — though they still always celebrated the birthdays of everyone.

‘Your phone is ringing, I think,’ the guy next to him on the seat says.

He wasn't expecting to find Ivan on the screen, and his face falls immediately. What's important now that he is out, and he had nothing to say these two days.

The phone seems to vibrate and flicker quite aggressively for the second time in his hands. But this is Ivan. There's hardly any aggressiveness from him — usually anyway.

‘You know,’ Plasi’s cousin says with a loud voice, yet he hardly hears him through the equally loud music. ‘If that's your girlfriend, you should take the call. Mine's get real concerned if I don't.’

‘It’s actually his boyfriend,’ Plasi says, as if he finds all this very amusing.

‘Oh, I'm sorry.’

‘It’s okay, it's not my boyfriend. Someone …just..,’ what exactly is Ivan to him? They aren't even fuck buddies anymore. The thought makes him want to hit someone and cry holding them.

‘Someone non-issue?’

Riyaan shrugs.

*              *               *

The lights in the house are mostly gone, and Riyaan expected the same. Instead of the main entrance, he casually goes around to his room door. But what he doesn't expect is Ivan sitting on the bed. It's okay, Riyaan thinks. It's his house, he can be where he wants. His eyes nervously look for the duffel; thankfully, it's not out in the bed. Hopefully Ivan hasn't seen it, because he is realising that even he doesn't know how to say bye.

‘Where were you?’

‘With friends,’ he says, placing his keys on the table.

‘I called you, and I called Kris. He is at home.’ Ivan looks tensed, he wonders why.

‘Kris is not my only friend.’

‘You're drunk?’

‘No.’

‘I called you?’

‘I didn't take your call.’

‘Don’t play smart with me. Where were you? I was worried.’

Yet his voice is all calm, composed and soft. How does he do it? So well-mannered.

‘I was with Plasi.’

‘Who else?’

‘Other people.’

‘I waited for you, like three hours for dinner, you could at least tell me that you're not at home, and that you will not be here for dinner.’

‘If it's about dinner, why all the questions? Why did you wait for me at dinner?’

‘I wanted to talk, but clearly that’s so hard for you nowadays.’

‘I am here now. Let’s talk.’

‘No, you’re too agitated.’

Can he really blame Riyaan? Nothing is alright between them.

‘Do you want me to make it easier? You want me to leave, right? Say it.’

He doesn’t want to expose Kris like this so he tries not to bring it up.

‘No, I don’t.  I have said it before. This is quite a big house, you can stay as long as you want. But I guess, what I am saying is that I didn’t expect things to go this far. I am not saying I regret. It’s just that, I care about you. I don’t want to end things like this, or how I planned.’

So they are talking about ending, but how does one end something like this? Riyaan looks at Ivan, and all he can think of is how his lips are a little chapped and yet how soft it will be on his own. Why hasn't he kissed him more fiercely when he had the chance? Would a better kiss have changed his mind?

Ivan doesn't leave and Riyaan has a feeling there's more disastrous news to come.

‘Since you haven’t said anything, I guess I’ll move onto the next bit. Jai will probably come live here for sometime because he doesn't want to be with his parents right now. I thought you'd want to know.’

Of course.

Of course he will. He didn’t have a place for himself in Paris, and now he doesn’t have one here, but who is Riyaan to speak about it? Especially when he cannot seem to get a place either for himself.

It hurts. Riyaan realises that it hurts differently. Not like something when Ivan kept on rejecting his date invites or didn't want to kiss him. At least while rejecting him then, Ivan seemed like he actually believed when he said them. Right now, Ivan is not even looking at him all the way.

He knows. Riyaan knows, if someone doesn't want you, you cannot force them. He knows they had an agreement, it is so unfair for Ivan if Riyaan violates that. But how can he help himself after that kiss? After the conversations they had when Ivan was in Paris?

‘So, what, we pretend like nothing ever happened?’

‘No? Why would you say that? We had a good time, I'd remember that.’

Riyaan scoffs. ‘Are you serious right now? Will you keep thinking of me when fucking him? Were you thinking of him while fucking me?’

‘Don’t be rude, please.’

‘I hope you get cheated on again.’ His own bitterness makes him feel sick to his stomach.

‘Don’t be that person.’

‘What person?’

‘Who doesn't take rejection well.’

How dare he?

‘Fine. I won't be that person.’

*             *            *

He drags his sleepy body to the kitchen, his mouth so dry that it hurts when he tries to swallow.

It's his oversized shirt, which he was too tired to get out of before bed, open sleeves trails behind him fashionably. And when he passes Ivan's collection room, it's that oddly placed DIY wooden warship, that drops to the floor, right before Riyaan places his foot above it. When his bare foot feels the shape of some part of the ship quite aggressively, his heart drops to the floor too. That's a damaged crafted model now.

Hell, he is really going to make it hard for himself. Ivan wouldn't be too pleased with this, not in this mood.

And then there's light from Ivan's room. First, Riyaan checked his ex’s email.

And now, his ex’s memory.

Riyaan is on the roll.

‘Alright?’ Ivan asks with a sleepy voice opening the door.

‘What is it?’ Ivan asks, looking at Riyaan oddly sitting on the floor, the ship half under his feet. In that moment, Riyaan almost wishes time stops.

‘It’s the warship model, I think it's broken. I accidentally stepped on it. I'm sorry.’

‘Accidentally, how? I don't understand.’ Ivan carefully takes the multiple pieces in his hand. It's a DIY model, it could still be remade considering he hasn't damaged any parts but that's quite unlikely from the sound it makes under his feet.

‘I was going for water, and it accidentally dropped to the floor.’

He is stressing furiously over the fact that Ivan hasn't said anything. ‘It's DIY, I'll try to rebuild it. Give it here.’

He takes the ship in his hand but he is hardly confident because small wooden parts are damaged.

‘Go to sleep. Let it be. What happened, happened.’

Ivan takes off to his bedroom. Riyaan spends a few seconds looking at him, and thinking how it would be have so sweet to hear if he said “come to sleep” instead. And then he reprimands himself, because they just had a heated fight a few hours ago.

Suddenly the room felt cold — nobody has turned on the lights. A faint light from Ivan's bedroom's slightly closed door and the full moon from the night sky illuminates the room just enough.

He already feels the chill in his legs, the parts where the long shirt doesn't cover.

Once the lights from the bedroom are gone, he retrieves the broken pieces from the model shop, and sits on the table, trying to figure out a way to fix and restore them to their original shape.

Repeated watching of Pirates of the Caribbean and playing 300+ hours of Black Flag didn't seem to help. He knows nothing about warships, let alone a Man-O-war. The ship looks to be something of an exact replica of a real war ship, from the amount of detailing it has, except for its size. He wonders how many hours would one, or two, have to spend to build something like this.

He even almost falls asleep read a complete blog post about warships, and replaying the YouTube tutorial over and over again.

There has been some progress — he managed to understand which parts go where and which parts are missing — some are too tiny — he wonders if they are even usable even if he finds them in the dustbin. But the best part is — major parts were there. Only while rebuilding the ship does he realise what makes it so beloved to Ivan. A beautiful piece of model ship with such intricate details, alone shows so much love and devotion which he would never be able to show Ivan. At this point, he  cannot afford a ready made model for him, let alone something that Ivan would like to keep around his other important pieces and books —

‘Goodness, you scared me. What are you still doing?’ The door to the bedroom is open, Ivan holding the doorknob behind his body. They hold eye contact for a few seconds before Riyaan starts working on the ship again.

‘I think you should let it go. You are only going to ruin it further.’

Really? He cares about that ship more than him? He has made a mistake and he is trying to fix it, can't Ivan see that? His efforts?

So he stops. He is almost done glueing anyway. At least now it looks like a ship but with missing parts. But something in his heart doesn't settle down.

If earlier he was strong enough to excuse himself before tears moisten his eyes, this time he is too weak to move even his hand from the dining table to his lap before tears come rolling down. He doesn't even care anymore about hiding — at this moment, he is just a man losing the control battle to his emotions.

This is the second time Ivan has been angry with him, without apologising for the first one — he said sorry for the email incident, but Ivan never said sorry for being rude. Was he supposed to when it was Riyaan's fault? He doesn't know. But he feels there's a pending apology which never came.

He slowly places the ship on the table, and before any tear falls, he is looking down. It's this shame and embarrassment of living in someone's house and breaking their stuff, still expecting an apology. What does Ivan have to apologise to him for?

But he wishes direly for Ivan to go back to his room or go away. But Ivan walks towards him, saying slowly. ‘I didn't mean to say the last part about ruining. Go to sleep. It's a bit cold out here.’

He will not say another word to Ivan, never again. Tomorrow, the first thing he will do after coming back from work is leave even before Ivan is home. He will leave a note or whatever.

He takes a few steps towards his room before Ivan tugs at his elbow. ‘You all right?’

If he looks back at him, Ivan will see his pathetic tears. If he speaks, he will hear his voice. Ivan knows — either way.

‘You are mean and cruel,’ Riyaan says, as he turns to look at Ivan, hot flashing anger and sadness burns his soul and voice. He hates how pathetically small he sounds, but what he hates more is the tears.

‘Riyaan.’ Ivan is in his face now, looking at him with a slight alarm. He tightens his grip against Riyaan's elbow, all while he wants to leave and push Ivan. Ivan hands cups his chin. Riyaan moves his face to the other side, making Ivan lose his hold.

‘Look at me, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So sorry,’ Ivan whispers, bringing his face close to his lips. ‘Forgive me.’

The closeness and softness in Ivan's voice triggers a loud sob out of him, and he loses himself in Ivan’s arms. A moment later, they are crashing to the floor, him sobbing with loud sniffles, and Ivan whispering soft apologies over and over again.

He wishes Ivan would have known how much hurt he caused Riyaan — and he likes to think that if he had known, things would have been different. For one, he would understand how much Riyaan is crazy for him, how much he wants him to be his and with how surety he knows that they would fit right in.

Ivan's shirt, neck and his face are wet from his tears, and somewhere close to his ears, he feels Ivan's lips on him. ‘I’m sorry, baby.’

The endearment doesn’t escape his ears, no matter how inaudible it was. His sobs become lighter, and his tired eyes almost give in to Ivan's soothing rubs in his nape, and his warm hands on his naked legs. ‘I will fix this, sweetheart. Just give me some time.’

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