Code name: Ishq

Two days had passed since Yamini Singh had declared war on the world by refusing to answer her phone. The device sat on her coffee table like an accusatory witness, vibrating intermittently with calls she had no intention of taking. Aditya had called seventeen times. Neha had left eight voicemails. Even Rishi and Priya, usually content to let others handle emotional crises, had tried reaching her multiple times. The three captains - Arjun, Vikram, and Rohan - had each called repeatedly, their concern bleeding through the silence she'd wrapped around herself like armor.

But Yamini Singh was done being everyone's problem to solve. Done being the complication that required management, the emotional hurricane that needed containing. She had perfected the art of wallowing, and she intended to excel at it with the same dedication she brought to emergency medicine.

Her apartment had become a fortress of solitude, defended by empty ice cream containers and the intellectual brilliance of Imran Khan's filmography. She had watched "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na" twice, finding comfort in the uncomplicated romance of college sweethearts who actually communicated with each other. "Gori Tere Pyaar Mein" had followed, with its themes of urban privilege meeting rural reality - though she'd fast-forwarded through the parts that reminded her too much of military duty versus personal desire. "I Hate Luv Storys" was currently paused on her laptop, frozen on a frame of the male lead looking devastatingly handsome in a way that made her chest ache.

"You know what your problem is, Buttercup?" she addressed her cat, who was perched on the windowsill with the regal indifference of someone who had never had her heart systematically demolished. "You don't fall for emotionally unavailable men with hero complexes and an inability to use their words like functional human beings."

Princess Buttercup flicked her tail dismissively, as if to say she had better things to do than listen to her human's romantic disasters. The cat had been restless for the past hour, ears perked toward sounds Yamini couldn't hear, pupils dilated with the hunter's focus that usually preceded epic battles with dust bunnies or imaginary enemies.

Yamini had been maintaining her dignity through a carefully curated diet of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream for breakfast, dramatic monologues delivered to her unimpressed feline audience, and increasingly creative ways to avoid human contact. She'd perfected seventeen different ways to complain about the inadequacies of Bollywood's male leads, most of which involved comparisons to certain real-life officers who shall remain nameless but who possessed an infuriating combination of tactical brilliance and emotional constipation.

"At least Imran Khan's characters eventually figure out how to grovel properly," she informed Buttercup, gesturing at the paused screen with her spoon. "They don't just transfer people to different cities and then pretend they don't exist. They write letters. They make grand gestures. They run through airports making passionate declarations instead of hiding behind military protocols and—"

A sharp knock at her door cut through her soliloquy. Yamini froze, spoon halfway to her mouth, as if staying perfectly still might make whoever was disturbing her methodical destruction of her cardiovascular system simply disappear.

Buttercup's head snapped toward the door, whiskers twitching with sudden alertness. The knock came again, firmer this time, with the kind of controlled patience that spoke of military discipline and infinite persistence.

Yamini's heart began hammering against her ribs with the erratic rhythm of someone who had spent two days convincing herself she was over certain storm-gray eyes and the man who wielded them like weapons. She set down her ice cream with hands that trembled slightly, muscle memory already recognizing something her mind refused to acknowledge.

"Go away," she called out, her voice hoarse from disuse and too many tearful rants delivered to an audience of one very judgmental cat. "I'm not home."

Silence stretched between the door and her defensive position on the couch, thick with unspoken words and five months of accumulated hurt. Then came a voice that turned her bones to water and her heart to fire simultaneously.