"You still haven't realized it," Manu said quietly.
"So no. I'm not eating or drinking anything."
As he spoke, he lifted the idol from the ground and placed it gently on the table, aligning it with care as if the act itself was a vow.
I stared at you.
My cheek still burned where your hand had struck me. My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird, frantic and bruised. You had called me an ansh - a fragment of the divine and yet you rejected the only thing I was trying to give you: life.
Moonlight caught in the tears I hadn't realized were falling, silvering my lashes as I looked into your hollow, unyielding eyes. This wasn't stubbornness.
This was martyrdom.
And the thought of you slipping into a world where I could not follow made the room feel as if it were folding inward on itself.
"I haven't realized it?" I whispered. My voice trembled, fractured, dangerous. I didn't pull away from you. I leaned closer instead, my hands tightening around your forearms with the strength of pure panic. "Then teach me, Manu. Tell me what it is that I have to realize."
My gaze dropped to the idol. Then back to you.
Something in my starving, unraveling mind twisted your words into a new shape, a darker devotion.
"If I am a fragment of her." I said slowly, "then this hunger you're choosing… it's hurting the divine." My hand slid from your arm to your chest, pressing lightly, feeling the faint, stubborn beat of your heart. "You are starving what you claim to worship."
My breath hitched.
"You say I don't understand true love?" I murmured. "Is true love letting your Goddess's own fragment watch you turn into a corpse?"
For a moment, something in your eyes flickered but you didn't move.
That was when something in me snapped cleanly into place.
I pulled back just enough to meet your gaze fully. Desperation drained away, replaced by a glassy, unhinged calm.
"Fine." I said softly. "You won't eat. You won't drink. Because I am unrealized."
I stood, the world swaying violently around me, black creeping at the edges of my vision. Still, I forced myself forward and toward the small altar formed from cardboard ruins and devotion. I picked up the remaining glass of water I had brought earlier.
Not to offer it to you.
To deny it.
"If I am an ansh of Radha." I said, my voice lowering into something melodic and terrifying, "then I will realize it through suffering."
I tipped the glass.
Water spilled onto the marble floor, spreading quickly, vanishing into cold stone.
"From this moment on," I continued, "I will not drink. I will not eat. I will not sleep. I will sit here right in front of you and your idol and I will wither faster than you."
I lowered myself to the floor, cross-legged, directly facing you. The stone leached heat from my body instantly, but I welcomed it. My hands folded in my lap, mimicking your meditative posture.
Only my eyes betrayed me.
They never left yours.
"I will realize whatever you want me to realize, Manu," I said quietly. "But I will do it while dying with you."
A thin smile curved my lips.
"If you want to see the divine in me, then watch me sacrifice this 'materialistic' body just to remain near you." My voice softened, almost reverent. "Let's see whose devotion is stronger, yours for a Goddess you have never touched… or mine for the man sitting right in front of me."
The room felt colder now. Smaller.
"We are one now." I whispered. "One hunger. One thirst. One ending."
My gaze flicked once to the idol then returned to you.
"Tell me, Manu," I asked softly, almost tenderly.
"is this what she wants? To watch us both burn out together in the dark?"
---
Radha… Radha…
The chant continued, steady on the surface, but beneath it something trembled an ache I could no longer silence.
I sat there, watching her choose hunger the way I had chosen it. Watching her mirror my stillness, my refusal, my descent. And for the first time since this began, my mind turned not toward escape, not toward the idol but toward her.
Why?
The question rose unbidden, sharp and relentless.
Why do you want me? Why are you ready to die here?
Radha… Radha…
My lips didn't move, but the words burned through me.
Is it because I was different? Because I didn't bow? Because I didn't want what you offered?
Or was it something smaller. Something uglier.
Was this about ego?
The need to prove...
I can have anything I want.
The hunger of I am rich, I am powerful, nothing says no to me.
Radha… keep me honest.
I looked at her sitting there starving, unblinking, devoted in a way that terrified me and for the first time, I tried to stand where she stood.
"Why?" I finally asked, my voice hoarse, stripped of anger, stripped of force. "Why are you doing this?"
The idol sat between us, silent, witnessing.
"Tell me the truth," I said softly. "Is this love… or is this the need to win?"
The chant tightened around my heart.
Radha… Radha…
"I am ready to die because I know why I live." I continued. "But you, why are you ready to die?"
My gaze held hers, not accusing, not pleading, only searching.
"Answer me," I whispered.