"It was never grand gestures, only gentle consistencies, that made their world feel safe."

That’s how it started. An arranged marriage not sudden, not forced, but not exactly love either.

You learned each other in fragments. Small, awkward attempts that slowly stitched a new rhythm.

You learned he liked his tea without sugar. But you made it too sweet the first week. Arnav drank it anyway.

He learned you are afraid of dark in the bathroom. So he never turned it off. Not once.

One morning, you folded his shirts creased and uneven. He wore them anyway.

Some days, you forgot to drink water, busy setting the house right. He noticed and Started keeping a glass by your side with a soft whisper, "Mishti, Water."

That's what Arnav calls you.

At night, when he worked late, you waited draped in soft cotton, eyes half-closing. And somehow, he always shut his laptop the moment you yawned.

But the gentlest thing he did was this,

Every morning, without fail, he filled the parting of your hair with vermillion.

Just routine wrapped in devotion.

Even when he was late. Even when he was tired. Even when the world outside knocked at the door this moment was never skipped.

And at 3 AM, when the world was asleep, you turned in your sleep and your hand found his—not perfectly, not tightly, but near enough.

And Arnav didn’t move away.