****
"Oh my god! Your future daughter-in-law is seriously breathtaking!"
Saying this, his aunt jumped with joy and practically glued herself to the Demon in a tight hug. For a second, the eyes of the people passing by in the corridor stopped and stared at them.
Right then, from inside, his Mom’s cheerful voice came from right behind them.
"I told you, didn’t I? My daughter-in-law is so cute."
Himanshu was listening to all this standing far away, scared out of his mind. He was trying his absolute best to keep a forced smile on his face. He knew very well what the punishment was for hugging this terrifying Demon—getting thrown straight off a building!
Well, Himanshu had already expected this. Since he was a kid, everyone was annoyed by his aunt’s habit of hugging and clinging to people like this. Especially someone like the Demon, who absolutely hated human touch.
That’s exactly why Himanshu had spent the entire way begging and apologizing to the Demon. ’Please forgive her. You can beat me up instead.’
It looked like his begging actually worked. The Demon hadn’t strangled his aunt yet.
But a genuine smile finally appeared on Himanshu’s face when he saw Shyam standing to the side. Shyam’s jaw had literally dropped to the floor seeing the Demon. His eyes were so wide they looked like they’d pop out of their sockets. For the first time in his entire life, Himanshu felt like he didn’t just pass an exam, but straight-up topped it!
Seeing this, Himanshu took a deep breath of relief. Even though this whole thing was a massive lie, the feeling of peace he felt in that moment was one hundred percent real.
A little while later, the Demon finally pulled herself out of his aunt’s grip and looked a bit more comfortable.
’Who knows how she controlled her anger for so long,’ Himanshu thought to himself. ’But who cares how she did it... at least I survived!’
BAM!
A loud noise echoed the next second. The door slammed shut right in front of Himanshu’s eyes. Everyone went inside and completely forgot about him out here!
"Hey, I’m still out here! Open the door!" Himanshu yelled, banging on the door.
****
"So, how did you two meet?"
"We met at school."
Chewing on a huge bite of a chicken leg piece, Aunt said, "Oh, nice! So you guys are classmates."
Himanshu shrugged his shoulders and said, "No, we just met at the school."
"Dem—"
"Ouch!"
Himanshu quickly looked at the Demon with a scrunched-up face. His soul almost left his body from the pain, like someone had brutally crushed his foot under the table.
"I mean... Valeria came there to get admission." Himanshu scrambled to save the situation.
"Oh."
Aunt raised her eyebrows a bit and then attacked her food again. The Demon was slowly starting to understand why Aunt was so fat. Because in just a few seconds, she had eaten more food than the Demon had eaten in her entire demonic life combined.
A moment later, Aunt suddenly remembered something.
"Wait, so are you not eighteen yet?"
Hearing this, Himanshu literally choked. Coughing violently, he quickly grabbed his glass of water.
He hadn’t even thought about this! If he told them a younger age, keeping her in their house wouldn’t be legally right. And if he told them she was older, then why would a girl over eighteen go to a school for admission?
After taking a few gulps of water, Himanshu saw that everyone was staring at the Demon again. Like they were desperately waiting for her answer.
But the Demon knew very well—staying quiet was the best way to keep her secrets hidden. She just sat there silently.
Finally, breaking this scary silence, Himanshu answered.
"After becoming an orphan in her childhood, she was put into the foster care system. She was raised with the government’s help. But when she turned eighteen, she had to leave foster care. Since she was a year behind in her studies and couldn’t find a job, she had no choice but to come to this city. And that’s exactly why she came to my school to get admission."
Himanshu blurted all of this out in a single breath. Whatever came to his mind first, he just spit it out without thinking.
Everyone just stared at him for a second. Especially the Demon, she just kept glaring at him. Like she was thinking, ’When did he even come up with all this?’
Then everyone turned their faces toward the Demon.
The Demon saw that the eyes of everyone sitting in the room were watery. It looked like they were about to burst into tears just looking at her.
The Demon blinked three or four times, trying to understand this weird human situation. For her, the word ’orphan’ wasn’t a big deal at all. Because in her world, where bloody wars were constantly happening, most people were orphans anyway.
Just then, Mom wiped a tear from her eyes with her hand and said,
"From today, this is your home. And we are your family."
Mom slid her hand across the dining table and lovingly placed it on the Demon’s cold hand.
"From today, you are not an orphan."
And then Mom turned her neck, glared at Himanshu very strictly, and said,
"Don’t you dare call her an orphan ever again!"
Himanshu couldn’t believe it himself. His randomly thrown lie had made everyone so emotional.
’Looks like I overdid it a bit...’ he thought to himself.
Then he slowly looked at the Demon. Just like always, the Demon’s face was completely blank and emotionless. She didn’t give a single damn about this human melodrama.
Chewing her food, his aunt fired the question, looking straight into Himanshu’s eyes. Sitting across from her, Himanshu and the Demon were now forced and helpless to make up a brand new story.
While lying, sometimes their answers would end up being completely different from each other. But his mom’s previous questions had sort of trained the Demon to an extent.
The experience of an 8000-year-old Demon, and the experience of Himanshu lying to his mom since childhood to save himself from getting beaten—were seriously saving each other today. Whenever Himanshu went with the flow and exaggerated his own praises a bit too much, the Demon would immediately crush his foot under the table.
The whole vibe felt like a 15-minute job interview, with the only difference being that all the answers were white lies and the judges asking the questions weren’t judging them too harshly.
But there was one thing that was bothering both of them badly.
Ever since Shyam saw the Demon, he hadn’t spoken a single word. It felt like he had taken an oath of silence.
At first, Himanshu thought Shyam would dissect everything he said and throw a sarcastic comment at every lie, just like he always did. But he didn’t say anything to a single one of their fake answers. He just kept looking at them quietly the whole evening, or rather, kept staring at them.
For Himanshu, this was nothing short of a miracle. This was the first time Shyam was so quiet. There was zero emotion on his face. Who knows what he was cooking up in his cunning brain. But his changing attitude made it clear that something was stopping him from interrupting.
After a few moments of deep silence, Shyam finally opened his mouth.
"You finally proved your mom right after all."
Shyam said this without any sarcasm, with a completely deadpan and cold expression.
Hearing this, Himanshu’s eyes widened for a second.
That fake, superior smile on his face instantly got lost in some deep, dark ocean. For years, his mom had been trying to prove to the world that the ’loser’ tag on him was wrong through her hopeful words, and today, that became a reality for her. She felt like her son wasn’t a loser, that he had actually done something good with his life.
Seeing that bright, proud laugh on his mom’s face over this... Himanshu’s heart shattered like a house of cards.
A weird pain started rising in his chest—a pain that kept growing without any physical wound. His own existence started feeling like sand slipping through his fingers. His mom’s smiling face was crushing him from the inside under the heavy pressure of guilt.
He slowly realized that lying doesn’t save a person from trouble... it just saves the other person’s trust for a little while. And when the truth finally comes out, it doesn’t break the person, it straight up shatters their trust.
Seeing Himanshu’s fallen face and the moisture in his eyes, the Demon pretty much understood what was going on. But that 8000-year-old entity thought it was best not to react to this fragile human situation. She just kept looking at him quietly.
’I can’t break that mother’s trust... no, no, no, how can you do this? You have no right to break her trust!’
These thoughts started driving Himanshu crazy inside. His breathing got heavy. He couldn’t handle this acting anymore.
"I need to say something."
Screech!
With the loud sound of the chair scraping against the floor, Himanshu suddenly stood up from his seat.
Everyone’s eyes locked onto him. A dead silence fell over the dining table for a second. A completely heavy, terrifying silence.
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