The room was warm with laughter and stories, but in the middle of the conversation, Mukul's phone buzzed. The familiar ringtone softened his expression. He excused himself quietly, slipping out into the balcony.
"Yes, Maa…" his voice lowered, warm and steady, carrying across the evening air.
Inside, Aralyn's eyes followed him until the glass door slid shut. When she turned back, she noticed something—the sudden shift in atmosphere. Liya, Rishika, Diya, and Rhea had fallen silent, their smiles dimmed like candles caught in the wind.
The Question
Aralyn leaned closer, her voice gentle but persistent."I couldn't help but notice… in all the pictures, there is no Mukul. No photographs of him or his parents. Why?"
The four cousins exchanged uneasy glances. A silence stretched between them, heavy, almost sacred.
For a moment, Aralyn thought they might dismiss her curiosity. But then, Rishika's eyes softened with something between pain and pride.
The Silence Breaks
Rishika spoke first, her tone low."It's not that we don't want him in our albums. It's that his story… is not like ours."
Liya's hands twisted in her lap before she added, "Mukul was born into shadows, not the golden halls you saw in those pictures. His mother—our aunt, Avni Raichand—was cast out long before we were old enough to understand why."
Diya's voice trembled slightly, but she continued:"When she was just two months pregnant with Mukul, she and her brothers and sisters were thrown out of the Raichand estate. No one told our fathers or uncles… no one knew the truth. It was like they were erased."
Rhea's gaze turned to the balcony, where Mukul's silhouette still lingered against the night sky."He was born away from the family's protection. He grew up with nothing but his mother's strength. By the time we cousins met him… he was already carrying a world of scars none of us could see."
The Weight of Truth
Aralyn's chest tightened. "So that's why… he isn't in the pictures."
Liya nodded, her eyes shimmering."Yes. There was never a family portrait with him. Not with Avni, not with us. To the outside world, they didn't exist."
Rishika added softly, "But to us… now, he is more than a cousin. He is the brother we would have chosen in every lifetime."
The words hung in the air, filling the silence with a fragile truth Aralyn hadn't expected.
The Watching Figure
On the balcony, Mukul finished his call. His voice was calm, but his eyes carried the quiet burden of someone who already knew his absence was noticed.
When he stepped back into the room, the laughter quickly returned, but Aralyn could no longer unsee the missing space in every family photograph—a space shaped exactly like Mukul.
And for the first time, her curiosity transformed into something deeper: a vow to understand the boy who carried the story no one else dared to tell aloud.