The seventeenth arrived quietly.
No thunder.
No grey clouds.
No rain.
Just sunlight.
Aarya stood at the old bus stop, staring at the clear sky like it had betrayed her.
For the first time in two years…
it didn't rain on the seventeenth.
And for the second time…
Kabir wasn't there.
She checked her phone.
No message.
No call.
Nothing.
The last time they spoke, their conversation had ended in silence — not anger, not shouting — just exhaustion. The kind that comes when two people love each other but don't know how to stand in the same place anymore.
She sat on the bench where they once shared coffee under a broken roof.
"This was our thing," she whispered to herself. "You don't just disappear from our thing."
But maybe that was the problem.
Maybe she had turned a date into a destiny.
—
Kabir was exactly three kilometers away.
He knew what day it was.
He hadn't forgotten.
He could never forget.
But he didn't go.
Because this time, he needed to know something.
Did she love the tradition…
or did she love him?
Rain had always been their excuse.
Their shield.
Their poetic background.
Without rain, what were they?
He stared at his phone, her contact open. His thumb hovered over the call button.
He imagined her waiting.
And still… he didn't move.
—
Back at the bus stop, Aarya stood up slowly.
The sky remained painfully blue.
She laughed softly — a broken, breathless laugh.
"All this time," she murmured, "I thought rain meant something."
A tear slipped down her cheek.
Maybe rain was never a sign.
Maybe love wasn't about a date on the calendar.
Maybe it was about choosing each other — even when the sky was clear.
She took one last look at the empty road…
…and walked away.
—
An hour later, clouds gathered.
Unexpected.
Sudden.
And then it started to rain.
Kabir stepped out of his house at the same time.
His heart dropped.
He ran.
Three kilometers never felt so long.
When he reached the bus stop —
It was empty.
Rain poured harder.
For the first time on the seventeenth…
They had missed each other.
Not because of betrayal.
Not because of lies.
But because of pride.
Kabir stood there in the rain alone.
And somewhere across town, Aarya whispered,
"I'm tired of chasing storms."
—