The fragrance he couldn't capture

The years after first seeing Ira stretch into a torment Arnav carried alone. His nights were sleepless, his hands restless, his body aching for a touch that had never been his. He had built empire's, conquered boardrooms, and inherited a dynasty of wealth and power, but none of it quenched the fire that burned inside him. By day, the world saw a painter - eccentric reclusive, lost in colors the Arnav veer suryavanshi. By night, he was a man enslaved to longing chained to the memory of a girl ten years younger, whose smile had undone him.

He investigated her quietly, never showing himself. Through whisper, shadows, and carefully placed eyes, he come to know her world.

He knew the street she walked to school, the way she held her books against her chest the food she loved, the clothes she preferred. He was not merely watching, he was studying, devouring every detail like an addict. Likewise, he justified it with patience: she was too young, too delicate now one day when she was older when she had ripened into her own womanhood..... Then he would claim her. Until then, he would suffer.

He painted her endlessly - her eyes, her lips, her nose canvas after canvas lined his studio, but none satisfied him. Each stroke mocked him: the real Ira was always beyond reach. Sometimes in rage he tore through the canvas, splattering colors like blood.

" Tumhari ankho mai jo nasha hai, vo main kisi rang mai utar nhi sakta ".( "The intoxication in your eyes, I cannot capture it in any color").

His whisper bled into the silence. Even in his most intimate moments, when his body betrayed him in desperate release, her name fell from his lips.

"kaha ho tum, Ira....?"

"where are you, Ira..?"

" kab tum mujhe milogi...?

" when will you come to me..?"

He had everything - wealth, power, respect, yet even triumph felt hollow before her absence.

" Mere pass sab kuch hai... Par tumhari ek muskan ke samne sab bekar hai..."

" I have everything.. But before one smile of yours, all of it is worthless..."

Arnav lived in shadows of desire. Waiting for the day when she would step into the light as a woman, he could finally make her his.

Meanwhile, Ira Mehra,

Bloomed unaware of the storm she had left in another heart. She lived like spring itself - soft but restless, her laughter carrying warmth into every room. Her favorite colors were alive and bright: the reds of marigolds, the yellow of festival, the peace of white she adored chai over coffee, loved to hum under her breath while reading, and often wrote little secrets in her diary. Her friends teased her for her dreamy nature, for the way her eyes seemed lost in thoughts of a world no one else could see.

She was young, yes but not naive. There were glimmers of something older in her spirit-flashes of maturity in the way she listened, in the depth of her silence. People admired her without the knowing. To them, she was gently curious, untouched by life's heaviness. To herself, she was just a girl growing into her own skin, with quiet dreams of freedom and adventure.

Arnav could paint her a thousand times, but he would never capture the true fragrance of her life. Only Ira carried thel secret - and she lived it without knowing she was already haunting the heart of a man, who waited in fire for her.

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