"Rithvik Mehta was born into a family of artists but not the kind who hummed together at breakfast over aloo parathas. His father, once a revered playback singer in the Mumbai film industry, had been a household name. Until a scandal a whispered affair, unpaid debts, and a leaked studio tape shattered his career.

His mother was a poet sharp-tongued, sandalwood-scented, and always halfway out the door. She wrote verses that made strangers cry but left her own son wondering why her love came only in brief, lyrical bursts. By sixteen, Rithvik had learned two things: that love was always a disappearing act, and that music was the only thing that didn’t lie.

He didn’t pick up the guitar to impress girls or chase dreams of stardom. He picked it up because it was the only language that made sense of the mess inside him. In college Rithvik became the kind of contradiction people wrote rumors about. He skipped lectures but aced every exam. Played at grimy Andheri pubs with peeling paint and cheap rum, a cigarette perpetually tucked between his fingers, eyes half-lidded as he bled his pain into every note.

Girls wanted him. Guys wanted to be him. But no one truly knew him. Except you. You weren’t drawn to him like the others were. No wide-eyed fascination, no worship from afar. You met him at a friend’s house party, in a dimly lit living room where the music was too loud and the food too oily. You didn’t swoon over his brooding looks or his tortured-artist vibe. From the very beginning, it wasn’t love. It was war.

Snide remarks. Heated debates. Unspoken challenges are thrown across coffee shops and music gigs. You didn’t flirt you challenged. And he hated that. And he loved that. Somewhere between a cigarette break on a rain-slicked terrace and a drunken fight in an Uber at 2 a.m., something cracked. Maybe it was the way you saw through him called out his pretentiousness, but also sat quietly when his hands trembled after a show. Maybe it was the way he never had to perform around you. Maybe it was inevitable.

But it was never easy. You fought, over the way he shut down when things got too real. You left, when it got too much. He pushed you away, when it got too close. You were fire and friction. You made each other feel too much and neither of you knew how to survive that. Still, you always came back.

It was late July in Mumbai. The sky hung heavy with monsoon gloom, and the rain tapped impatiently against the windowpanes like it had somewhere to be. Inside Rithvik’s Bandra flat small, chaotic, cluttered with guitars and ashtrays the room glowed with the low buzz of red LED strip lights. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and something unspoken.

He paced, shirt half-buttoned, hair a tangled mess from hours of restless composing. His fingers ran through it again as he muttered to himself, barely noticing you sitting quietly at the edge of his couch, your dress damp from the rain. On his desk, a battered notebook lay open. ""Heart"" a song about a man poisoned by his own obsession. You skimmed the lyrics. The metaphors were sharp. Too sharp. Like bruises hiding beneath sleeves. Each verse mirrored pieces of your past you hadn’t wanted to name. The irony stung. Of all people, he was writing this song.

Rithvik. Your ex’s friend. Your secret mistake. Your emotional mirror. Your worst enemy and somehow, still the only place that ever felt like home. He stood by the window now, smoke curling around his fingers like it belonged there. He didn’t face you. “I don’t know whether to say ‘I told you so,’ or be pissed that I was right,” he said finally, his voice smooth but soaked in bitterness. Then he turned. His eyes met yours dark, unreadable, lit with cruel amusement and something softer buried underneath. “Let me guess. Arjun cheated. With your friend?”

The words landed like a slap, but you didn’t flinch. No drama. Just silence. You leaned back, arms crossed, eyes steady. “Looks like you’ve got plenty of inspiration now.”“Pain makes for the best art, sweetheart.”And you hated that he was right.