Rain.
That was the first thing Mukesh remembered.
Not the sound of people talking.
Not the sound of vehicles.
Not even the sound of his family moving around the house.
Only the rain.
It was falling steadily outside the window, covering the world in a gray curtain.
And somewhere inside that sound, a memory was playing.
A very old memory.
One Mukesh hadn't thought about properly in years.
---
He was standing in the balcony of the old house in Kerala.
The same house.
The same huge garden.
The same familiar surroundings that had been buried somewhere deep inside his childhood.
Across from him was another room.
Its window was open.
And standing there was her.
The girl who had once been one of the most familiar people in his childhood.
The girl who used to bring toys for him.
The girl who would call him outside to play.
The girl Mukesh had once thought of almost like an older sister.
She looked toward him through the window.
Then she started singing.
It was some romantic song she had heard somewhere.
Mukesh couldn't understand most of the words.
He only understood the feeling of the song.
Something about two people whose love story remained incomplete.
Something about two hearts that couldn't meet.
She sang casually, as if it meant nothing.
But little Mukesh simply stood there, confused.
What is she even singing about?
At that age, he didn't understand love songs.
He didn't understand relationships.
He didn't understand why she sometimes sang those songs while looking in his direction.
He just thought she was singing.
That was all.
Or at least, that's what he believed back then.
The memory shifted.
---
One day, Mukesh was walking toward her house.
The door was open.
That wasn't unusual.
His family worked there, so he had entered and left that house many times.
Usually, he would simply walk past the doorway.
She would notice him.
Then she would call him.
And somehow, without saying much, they would end up playing together.
Mukesh was extremely shy back then.
He didn't know how to start conversations.
He didn't even know how to properly look someone in the eyes when he was embarrassed.
But that day was different.
He was walking toward the door when he suddenly turned his head.
And stopped.
She was there with her mother.
They seemed to be having some kind of argument.
From the little Malayalam Mukesh understood at that age, he could only make out something about her not wanting to bathe because she wanted to go outside and play.
Mukesh didn't understand everything.
He wasn't supposed to understand everything.
He only understood enough to realize that he had walked into an incredibly awkward moment.
She noticed him.
Her expression changed instantly.
Her eyes widened.
Her mouth opened in complete surprise.
Mukesh froze.
For a few seconds, neither of them moved.
And somehow, by pure luck, her mother didn't notice him.
She was facing her daughter.
Mukesh's brain immediately screamed:
RUN.
He turned around and walked away as quickly as he could without actually running.
His face was burning with embarrassment.
He didn't know where to look.
He didn't know what to say.
He didn't even know whether he should ever return to that doorway again.
It was probably one of the most embarrassing moments of his childhood.
And somehow...
His brain decided to preserve it forever.
---
Present day.
Mukesh suddenly opened his eyes.
He stared at the ceiling.
For several seconds, he didn't move.
Rain continued falling outside.
He slowly sat up.
Then he rubbed his face.
"What a weird dream…"
He looked toward the window.
The room was quiet.
Nobody had said anything.
Nobody had reminded him of that day.
It had simply appeared in his sleep after all these years.
A memory from a time when he was too young to understand what was happening around him.
Mukesh sighed.
"Why did I even remember that?"
He leaned against the wall.
But then another thought came back.
That memory wasn't only embarrassing.
It was also the beginning of something he hadn't understood as a child.
Back then, she had been someone who brought him toys.
Someone who wanted him to play.
Someone who made his lonely childhood a little brighter.
And perhaps that was why, as he grew older, his feelings toward that memory became complicated.
He remembered the songs.
The games.
The house.
The garden.
The window.
Her calling him.
And that one unbelievably embarrassing day.
Little Mukesh had never understood what any of it meant.
He only knew that whenever she was around, the world felt a little less lonely.
He looked outside at the rain.
A faint smile appeared on his face.
Then he shook his head.
"Still… that was seriously embarrassing."
He laughed quietly at himself.
The memory was embarrassing.
But it was also precious.
Because sometimes childhood memories weren't important because of what actually happened.
They were important because of how we felt before we understood what those feelings were.
And for Mukesh...
That girl was one of the first people who made him feel that kind of warmth.
He just didn't have the words for it back then.
Not yet.
The rain continued falling.
And somewhere inside that sound, the little boy he used to be was still standing in front of that open doorway—
completely confused,
completely embarrassed,
and completely unaware that one day...
he would remember that moment as one of the strangest memories of his childhood.
😂 Author's Note
Okay guys, I need to clarify something about Chapter 20 because I intentionally kept one detail out of the main narration.
The childhood memory Mukesh remembered was about the girl wearing a blue swimming outfit. That was the reason both of them became extremely embarrassed when they suddenly noticed each other.
And honestly…
This might be one of the most embarrassing accidental moments of my entire life. 😭
I can probably survive remembering a lot of embarrassing things from childhood, but this one? Nope. Absolutely not.
Even today, I still don't know whether that moment was simply an unfortunate accident or whether life itself decided to create the most awkward scene possible. 😂
But there is one important thing about this memory.
This was probably around the point where Mukesh's feelings toward her started changing.
At the time, he didn't understand what those feelings were. She had always been someone like an older-sister figure to him—the person who brought him toys, played with him, and made his childhood happier.
But somewhere around that age, something began to change.
And by the time Mukesh was old enough to understand what those feelings actually meant…
she was already gone.
Maybe that's why this memory stayed buried so deeply.
Sometimes we don't understand the importance of a person while they're still standing in front of us.
We understand it only after they're no longer there.
Anyway…
😂 Thank you, guys, for helping World Martial Art reach 100K!
Seriously, thank you so much for all the love and support.
I hope you'll give Invisible Writer and my other stories the same kind of love too.
There are still many stories I want to tell.
And some of them are much closer to my real life than you might expect.
— MK