The formalities in the living room had ended, but the heavy air of momentous decision lingered. As Arjun's family made their way out, exchanging strained but polite farewells with Priya's parents, he felt the surreal weight of it all pressing down. Three days. The number echoed in his skull, a frantic drumbeat against the calm he was trying to project.
He was halfway to the car when her voice cut through the evening haze.
"Arjun!"
He turned. Priya stood in the doorway, a silhouette against the warm light of her home. Then she was moving, her silk saree a whisper of urgency as she hurried down the path. She glanced back at the house, then grasped his wrist, her fingers cool and firm, pulling him toward the shadowed side of the compound wall, away from the departing car.
"Priya?" he asked, his voice low.
She didn't answer immediately. Her eyes were wide, a tumult of determination and vulnerability. With another furtive look toward the house, she lifted the pallu of her saree. Nestled in her palm was a small, rectangular wooden box. It was old, the dark teak worn smooth in places, carved with an intricate pattern of lotus flowers along the edges. It had the weight of generations in its simple form.
She pressed it into his hands, closing his fingers around it. The wood was warm from her skin.
"This is for the wedding," she said, her words rushed, barely above a whisper. "Prepare well. This is all I can contribute right now."
The box felt suddenly heavy, a tangible piece of her history, her self. He tried to push it back, his throat tight. "Priya, no—I can't take this. This is your—"
"Listen to me." Her voice was steel wrapped in silk. She curled his fingers more tightly around the box, her own hand trembling slightly over his. "This isn't about you being the man or me being the woman. This is my wedding, and I want to contribute. I need to. For me, you're my husband already, okay?" Her gaze held his, fierce and unyielding. "Just… listen to me."
Before he could form another protest, she stepped back, her eyes softening for a fleeting second. "I'll see you in three days."
Then she was gone, melting back into the light of the house, leaving him standing in the deepening twilight with the weight of her trust and her history solid in his hands.
The car hummed with a different kind of energy on the drive home—a buzzing, familial anxiety that was almost a relief after the icy politeness of the Iyer household. Arjun sat in the front passenger seat, the wooden box a silent, potent presence on his lap.
His mother's sharp eyes noticed it immediately. "Arjun, what's that? Who gave it to you?"
He looked down at the carvings, tracing a lotus petal with his thumb. "Priya," he said, a small, involuntary smile touching his lips. "She said it's for the wedding."
From the driver's seat, his father let out a soft, appreciative chuckle. "This girl… she's really trying to own it, huh?" He glanced at Arjun through the rearview mirror, his expression turning serious. "Son, don't you dare take anything out of that. Just keep it as it is. We've got enough saved up for your marriage. We've even been putting aside for a new house's down payment, for… for after."
His mother nodded vigorously, the earlier tension in her shoulders easing into proud determination. "Hum hum. Don't you worry, beta. Your parents have got it covered."
I'm damn lucky… right? The thought was a quiet wonder amidst the chaos.
"Yes, you are," his father said, as if reading his mind.
"And you better not let her down," his mother added, her tone stern but layered with a fierce, protective affection.
From the backseat, Ria chimed in with a giggle. "Hum hum."
Arjun didn't reply. He just looked out the window at the streaking lights of the city, the box warm on his lap, and felt the fragile, incredible architecture of this new life solidifying around him.
Later, in the sanctuary of his room, he placed the wooden box carefully on the small wardrobe beside his bed. It sat there, an elegant enigma, beside the chaotic sprawl of his future—the open notebook and loose pages covered in his frantic scrawl.
He glanced from the box to the notes. Let's get changed first, then clean this mess up.
Shedding the formal clothes felt like shedding a skin. In comfortable shorts and a faded t-shirt, he turned to his desk. The pages were a map of a world yet to unfold: 'NVIDIA – AI chips, 2020 boom'; 'OpenAI – watch for GPT-3 launch'; 'TSMC – semiconductor monopoly'; 'Stripe – digital payments explosion'; names like Musk, Bezos; Indian giants-in-waiting like Flipkart, Swiggy, Zomato. He had dates, rumors remembered from tech forums, headlines from a future that was now a premonition.
If I'm going to build something, he thought, the analytical part of his mind, the 'Void' part, clicking seamlessly into gear, I need to know where the world is headed. And I've got a head start. A massive, terrifying head start.
He sank into the chair, the glow of the laptop screen bathing his face. For a while, the wedding, the box, the overwhelming reality of Priya, all receded. There was only the data, the patterns, the silent, colossal opportunity ticking like a time bomb in his mind.
Dinner was a symphony of mundane planning, a comforting anchor. The clatter of plates, the rich aroma of sambar and poriyal, the easy, overlapping chatter of his family.
"Tomorrow, first thing, we go see the community hall near the temple," his father said around a mouthful of rice. "I've already called the contractor. Your mother will handle the invitations and the food menu."
"Since it's on such short notice," his mother added, ladling more curry onto Ria's plate, "we'll only invite the most important people and the closest ones. No time for distant cousins now."
Ria groaned. "But Ma, my school project submission is the day after tomorrow! I have to finish my model!"
Arjun ate quietly, absorbing it all. The domestic logistics, the panic, the love driving it. Three days. That's all we've got. The thought was no longer terrifying. It was a challenge. A mission parameter.
Sleep, when it came, offered no escape into emptiness. He fell into a world of machinery. Not clean, digital data streams this time, but physical, grinding, industrial machines. Massive gears spun in opposition, pistons fired out of sync, elevator shafts ran horizontally. Everything was inverted, dislocated, a colossal engine assembled wrongly. The dream was less a nightmare and more a profound, wrenching disorientation, as if the very blueprint of his reality—the wiring of his two lives—was being forcefully, painfully reconfigured.
He awoke with a gasp, the phantom sound of grinding metal fading in his ears. His t-shirt was stuck to his chest with sweat. The room was still, predawn grey seeping through the curtains. His eyes went immediately to the silhouette on the wardrobe. The wooden box sat there, silent and solid, a touchstone of the real, of the path he had chosen.
Morning exploded into the house with chaotic energy. Sunlight sliced through the windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the frenzy. His father, already dressed in a fresh kurta, was pacing near the door with his car keys. His mother's voice carried from the kitchen, a rapid-fire list of groceries and errands. Ria dashed through the hall, one shoe on, wrestling with her backpack.
Arjun stumbled out of his room, rubbing the grit from his eyes.
"Arjun! Jaldi!" his father called, spotting him. "Get ready, fast! We need to finalize the venue. The pandit is coming again at noon. Time is running out!"
Arjun blinked, the remnants of the machine-dream still clinging to him. His gaze swept the room—the notes on his desk, the map of a future fortune; the simple wooden box on the wardrobe, the anchor of a present promise.
Three days to forever, he thought, a new kind of clarity cutting through the sleep fog. Let's make them count.
He turned and moved toward the bathroom, the countdown ticking not just in the household's frantic preparations, but in the quiet, determined chambers of his own heart.
And just like that, the countdown began—not just to a wedding, but to a life he never dared to dream of.