Vaibhav's Pov-

Later, At Home

She went to the cupboard to take out clothes while I attended an urgent call.

“Can you get the blue hospital file?” I called out. “It’s in the drawer.”

“Yes,” she replied.

Moments passed.

When I turned around, the call had ended—and she was standing there.

Frozen.

Her gaze wasn’t on me.

It was on her hand.

I followed it.

A pair of jhumkas.

My heart dropped.

She held them up slowly. “Vaibhav… how is this here?”

My breath caught.

Memory flooded back—the orphanage, the ground, picking them up absentmindedly… forgetting.

I looked at her.
Then at the jhumkas.

Shock. Realization. Silence.

And in that moment, I knew—

Some truths were about to surface.

Samriddhi's POV

The moment my fingers brushed against cold metal, my heart skipped.

No—
It stopped.

I looked down slowly, breath hitching, and there it was.

My jhumka.

My jhumka.

For a second, the world blurred. My hands trembled as I stared at it, disbelief crashing into shock, shock melting into something dangerously close to tears.

How… how is this here?

“Samriddhi ?” his voice called out again from the room, distant but familiar.

I flinched—as if I had been caught doing something wrong.

Quickly, almost instinctively, I closed the cupboard. My fingers curled around the jhumka tightly, as if it might disappear again if I loosened my grip. I picked up the file, took a deep breath, and walked out.

He had ended his call.

The moment his eyes landed on my face, his expression changed.

Concern. Immediate. Undeniable.

“What happened?” he asked, standing up slightly. “Why do you look like that?”

I didn’t speak.

I simply opened my palm.

The jhumka rested there, glinting softly under the room’s light.

He froze.

For a heartbeat, neither of us moved.

Then he walked toward me—slowly, carefully, as if afraid the moment might shatter.

“Where… did you get this?” he asked quietly.

I swallowed. “It was in your drawer,” I replied, voice barely above a whisper. “Vaibhav… how does my jhumka end up in your cupboard?”