Long hair love

Chapter 15 - What He Chose and What He Did Not

For three days, Ishan looked for the right moment to speak.

He found reasons to delay each one.

Ritika was leaving for work. He had an evening call. The cook was in the kitchen. A serious conversation should not begin when the pressure cooker was making more noise than both people.

By Wednesday night, Ishan understood that a perfect moment would never arrive.

They finished dinner and cleared the table together. Ritika carried the plates to the kitchen while Ishan wiped the surface.

He was wearing his ordinary grey T-shirt with the navy leggings. His hair was loose except for one black tic-tac clip holding the longer front section away from his right eye.

Nothing about his appearance required an explanation anymore.

What he had been doing in secret did.

"Didi."

Ritika looked up from the sink.

"What?"

"Can we sit for a minute?"

She dried her hands and came to the dining table.

Ishan sat opposite her but did not begin.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"Please let me finish before you say anything."

Ritika nodded.

"Okay."

Ishan looked at his hands.

"I have been wearing your kurtis when you are not at home."

The sentence sounded both smaller and larger than it had inside his head.

Ritika remained quiet.

"Not only the maroon one," he continued. "Sometimes I took the ones waiting for washing because I could put them back without changing anything."

He glanced at her face.

She was listening without looking shocked.

That made the next part slightly easier.

"At first, I thought it was because the leggings were comfortable and the kurti also felt soft. But that was not the whole reason."

Ishan touched the clip in his hair.

"I liked how they looked with my hair. I started trying different hairstyles. Last Saturday, when you went to the function, I also used your lipstick, bangles, and perfume."

His voice became quieter.

"I am sorry I took everything without asking."

Ritika still did not interrupt.

Ishan forced himself to continue.

"I liked that too. Not as a joke. Not only because I was curious."

He finally looked at her directly.

"I liked seeing myself look feminine."

The flat became very quiet.

Ishan had imagined many possible reactions. Laughter. Anger. Questions he could not answer.

Ritika only asked, "Do you want to stop?"

He had not prepared for that question.

"No."

The answer came immediately.

Ishan looked down again.

"I do not know what it means. I do not know what I am supposed to call it. But I do not want to stop."

Ritika reached across the table and rested her hand near his without covering it.

"Then you do not have to decide what to call it tonight."

Ishan studied her expression.

"You are not surprised."

Ritika took a slow breath.

"I knew about the kurtis."

Ishan became still.

"How?"

"The day my interviews were cancelled, I came home early."

He stared at her.

"You saw me?"

"You were asleep on the sofa in the pale green kurti."

Ishan's face became hot.

"Why didn't you wake me?"

"Because you believed you were alone."

"You left again."

"Yes. I went downstairs and messaged before coming back."

Ishan remembered waking to her message and hiding the kurti inside the laundry basket.

"You knew all this time."

"I knew that you wore a kurti when you thought nobody could see you. I did not know what it meant to you."

"I thought I had hidden everything."

"You had, except for one early return."

Ishan covered his face briefly with both hands.

"This is so embarrassing."

"I am not laughing."

He lowered his hands.

Ritika continued gently.

"Seeing you in one outfit did not give me the right to decide anything about you. I waited because I wanted you to tell me when you were ready."

Ishan looked towards her room.

"The engagement preparation at the dining table—was that because you knew?"

"Partly."

Ritika did not pretend otherwise.

"I wanted you to see that getting ready did not need to be shameful. But what you did after that remained your choice."

Ishan remembered her building the formal look piece by piece. At the time, he had envied how freely she enjoyed it.

"You left everything where I could reach it."

"Yes."

"You knew I might use it."

"I thought you might. I also knew you could leave it untouched."

For the first time since beginning the conversation, Ishan smiled slightly.

"I did not leave it untouched."

"I noticed."

"The lipstick?"

"And the bangles. Also two crossed bobby pins beside the mirror."

Ishan closed his eyes.

"I thought I had returned everything."

"You did well for a beginner."

He opened his eyes and saw the small smile on her face.

"Now you are teasing me."

"Only a little."

The tension between them softened.

Ritika became serious again.

"You should have your own clothes and basic things if you want to continue. Then you will not need to hide my used kurtis in the laundry basket."

Ishan looked at her.

"You would help me?"

"If you want help."

The condition mattered.

"I think I do," he said.

"Then we will take one step at a time."

Ishan sat quietly for several seconds.

The confession had not answered everything. He still did not know whether the feminine reflection was only a private way of dressing or the beginning of something larger.

But the secret no longer belonged only to him.

That relief allowed another worry to surface.

"Didi, there is something else."

Ritika waited.

"My body has also changed."

"I know you have lost weight."

"It is not only weight."

Ishan placed one hand near his waist.

"My waist became smaller, but my chest, hips, and thighs became softer. My skin also feels different. I thought yoga and food explained it, but sometimes it does not feel like ordinary weight loss."

Ritika looked at him more carefully.

She had noticed the changes separately and accepted the simple explanations available to her. Hearing them together made the pattern harder to ignore.

"When did you first notice?"

"Gradually. After I started the hair tablets."

"You have been taking them every morning since then?"

"Yes. I told you I would remember."

"I knew you were taking what we thought was the hair supplement." Ritika looked at his softened shape again. "Show me the packet once."

The request came only after Ishan had completed his confession. Until that moment, Ritika had believed he was taking the supplement she had bought.

He went to his room and opened the right-hand drawer of his computer table. The mostly white carton was still there with the remaining strips.

Ishan brought one strip and the carton to the dining table.

"I have taken one every morning," he said.

Ritika picked up the strip.

Her expression changed before she spoke.

"Ishu, this is not your hair supplement."

He thought he had misunderstood.

"What?"

"This is mine."

Ritika turned the carton towards him and pointed to the printed name he had never read.

"These are hormone tablets left from my old treatment. They were in one of my medical-store bags."

Ishan looked from the name to her face.

"But this was the white packet in the drawer."

"Which drawer?"

"The outside drawer. The night you brought the medicine."

Ritika stood immediately.

They went to the crowded drawer beside the hall cupboard. She moved the old receipts, cables, and paper bags.

Near the back lay another medical-store bag.

Inside it was an unopened white carton.

Ritika checked the label and then handed it to Ishan.

"This is the hair supplement I bought from your link."

The carton felt heavy in his hand.

"Then I have been taking the wrong tablets for months."

"Yes."

Ritika did not soften the truth.

"Do not take another one."

Ishan looked towards his bedroom, where the morning reminder would appear again.

"Could these tablets have caused the body changes?"

"They may have. We should not guess how much. We need a proper medical check."

Ishan sat down.

The relief from his confession disappeared beneath a different shock.

"I only wanted help with my hair."

"I know."

"I did not choose this happening to my body."

"No," Ritika said. "You did not."

She placed the wrong carton and remaining strips together in a small bag so they could show them during the check.

Ishan touched the long hair resting on his shoulder.

Ritika looked at the bag.

"Ishan, there is another possibility we should consider."

He waited.

"Maybe these tablets did not affect only your body. Maybe they are also part of why you started feeling this way about looking feminine."

Ishan did not reject the idea immediately.

"Maybe," he said. "I cannot honestly say they had nothing to do with it."

Then he touched the hair near his temple.

"But I remember the first tiny growth here. I had taken the tablets for only a few weeks."

Ritika remembered the enlarged photograph he had shown her in the kitchen.

"My body had hardly changed then," Ishan continued. "I was still the same shape. But when I saw those tiny hairs, I wanted all of my hair to grow long. I never thought about cutting it."

He drew one shoulder-length section forward.

"Even before the tablets, I told you I wanted longer hair. At that time, I only thought I was protecting the crown. Maybe I did not understand the rest."

His voice became steadier as the timeline became clearer.

"The clips, kurtis, lipstick, and bangles came later. The tablets may have affected my body, and maybe they affected some feelings too. I do not know."

Ishan looked at Ritika.

"But maybe I wanted this from that first day. Before my body changed enough to explain it."

Ritika sat beside him.

"We may never be able to divide every feeling perfectly," she said. "But the timeline matters."

He looked at her.

"You confessed before you knew about the error," she continued. "You chose to grow your hair. You chose the clips, the kurtis, the lipstick, and the bangles. The accident did not speak those words for you."

Ishan remembered the plum kurti, the rose lipstick, and the sound of bangles following his hands.

The memory did not disappear because the carton had the wrong name.

"What if the changes stop?" he asked.

"We will first find out what is happening safely."

Ritika kept her voice calm.

"After that, you decide what you want. With correct information this time."

Ishan nodded slowly.

He opened his phone and found the daily reminder marked **Hair**.

For months, that single word had sent him to the wrong carton without another thought.

He deleted the reminder.

The next morning, he would not take the tablet.

Ritika kept both cartons together for the medical check.

The confession and the discovery had happened in the same conversation, but they were not the same truth.

The medicine error explained changes Ishan had never knowingly chosen.

It did not erase the feminine choices he had made before learning about it.