Hey all, the story that you are going to read is my first ever work that I have published here.
I hope you enjoy reading it just as much as I've enjoyed writing it.
Thank you.
RK.
...
"Got seated?" I asked, pulling the straps together to tighten my helmet.
"Yes, Let's go."
Tanu said as she settled herself behind me. It was late evening and we were returning home from a cafe on my scooter.
It had been a rainy day up till that point but luckily, the rain hadn't picked up again yet. However, it was still darker than it usually was at this time, and the air still carried the smell of petrichor.
This was one of those days where I had picked her up as the cafe was nearer to her residence. She sat behind me, dressed in a loose white shirt with simple white embroidery all over the shirt paired with her dark washed blue jeans and pastel-green sandals.
Even with her shirt being loosely fitted, I could see that she had grown in size and her face looked adorably fuller as well. Her arms also looked chubbier in a cute way.
From the rear-view mirror, I could see her fair skin turning a shade of pink with the wind blowing into her face and her hair flowing beautifully behind her, whenever we picked up speed. Looking at her reflection like this had always been my favourite way to be able to look at her without her awareness.
Tanu and I had been friends for more than a decade but we probably met each other once every season and so, we could always notice changes in each other whenever we met, and she had always seemed to grow prettier with time.
We had always been really close friends throughout this time, yet we had also been respectful towards our physical boundaries. So much so, that we had never even hugged each other properly to that day.
We had barely reached a few metres from the cafe when it began drizzling. I could see her squint her eyes as the drizzle began to hit her face, while she tied her hair in a bun and adjusted her shirt. I moved my focus from the rear-view mirror to the road ahead, realising I should pay more attention to what's in front of me rather than what's happening behind me if we were to reach home safely.
I tried to pick up speed despite the traffic so that I could at least avoid getting her drenched even if the rain got heavier. We were halfway through, when the rain started hammering on us as the clouds roared in the sky. The cold raindrops began to hit like bullets as the rain poured against us. To make things worse, the wind had picked up as well, making both of us jitter every now and then.
Drenched and cold, we finally reached her apartment. I could see her wet arms glistening in the nightlight as she got off from the vehicle and walked around it to stand in front of me.
Through the foggy visor of my helmet, I began waving at her, about to leave, when she put her hand on the front of my vehicle and came closer.
"Where are you going? We've already been riding through this heavy rain and you're all drenched. I think you should come up and wait for it to get lighter. Come up with me, no?"
she asked expectantly.
"Um.. I.. It's getting late already, I should better be going."
I said, not knowing if I stammered because I was hesitating or shivering or both. In all these years of friendship, I had never been to her house and I had certainly never imagined meeting her family for the first time in a situation like this.
"Come on! You're shivering already, you'll fall sick if you go home like this. And my family is out of town to attend a relative's wedding so you won't even feel awkward while you're here. Come, I'll make you some tea."
She said, almost as if she read my thoughts through my response.
I had forgotten that she had known me for years, it wouldn't have been difficult for her to see through me on this one.
"Okay okay. I'm coming."
I responded, as I parked my vehicle beside her apartment.
...
I was sitting on a small plastic chair in the corner of her living room in an attempt to not dampen the sofa as she moved to her bedroom to fetch both of us a towel. Even with the lights bright inside her house, it looked gloomy outside as the rain got stronger, with a flash of lightning every few minutes.
She came back and handed me a towel while drying out her hair. She had already undone her hair and a few droplets from her wet hair fell onto the sides of her neck and her cheeks as she rubbed them with the towel gently.
As she tilted her head to the left, the droplets that had fallen onto the side of her right cheek slid down to her neck innocently, becoming one with the drops that had fallen on her neck and the merged drop slid down to her collar bone, leaving behind a trail for my eyes to follow.
Her shirt got heavier with the water it had soaked and was now fitting her body like her skin, however the fabric was still thick enough to not expose anything under it. I noticed that she had indeed grown in size and the shirt didn't have to shrink much to contour along the curves of her upper body. The fabric fell comfortably along herself, accentuating her figure.
A faint sound of her calling out my name registered to me as I was brought back to reality.
Don't!,
I thought to myself, trying to avoid being a complete idiot having been called over for the first time ever in all these years.
"I've left the tea to boil over in the kitchen. Let me change and I'll be back with some clothes for you to change into."
She said, as she walked into her bedroom with her head tilted to the other side, as she dried out the ends of her hair.
I looked around, avoiding to look straight in her direction as I heard the sound of the door locking behind her back.
I strolled in the kitchen while I waited for her to be back. I had to pretend that I was paying attention to the boiling tea to prevent it from spilling over once she came back but I was actually intending to stay away from the living room as thoughts rushed through my mind and I didn't want her to come back and notice that I had only been thinking about her. As you would've noticed, she could read my thoughts well enough.
She came back wearing a loosely fitted purple V-neck tee and sky-blue pyjamas with little white clouds printed all over it. I could guess it was an old tee that had been used quite frequently as the collar had lost its tightness and ran in gentle frills around her neck, and the hem of the t-shirt crumbled up around her waistline.
"Here, take this."
She said, extending her arm outwards holding a bunch of clothes, with a playful smile on her face.
She handed me a t-shirt and a pyjama, which were apparently hers. I placed the pyjamas to the side and spread the white t-shirt out wide to find that it had,
Daddy's cutie!,
written over it in an oversized blue and pink font. They were definitely hers.
"Seriously Tanu?"
, I exclaimed, rolling my eyes at her. She pointed towards the bedroom as she giggled softly.
I came back to the living room, wearing a t-shirt that looked more like a crop top, which barely reached down to my navel. And for the bottoms, my pyjama, well technically not mine, was steel grey with yellow cats printed all over it.
As I had expected, she had been sitting on the sofa all this while anticipating how I'd look in her clothes, smiling and giggling throughout. I shrugged my shoulders, which eventually exposed my navel, as I sat beside her.
She hopped off to the kitchen to bring some tea and biscuits and I could tell she was still smiling. Her chocolate-brown hair was still undone and I noticed that her hair had grown longer, reaching almost up to her waist. I accompanied her to the kitchen.
We came back into the living room holding a teacup each as we now sat facing each other on the same couch. It was still pouring heavily as we both looked out the window and then looked back at each other briefly. We sat there for a while talking about various things and also being comfortable with silence in between those conversations. This had been one of the strengths of our friendship, we had always been comfortable being silent in each other's presence and have never felt awkward or uneasy about it.
As the rain didn't seem to be getting lighter anytime soon, she picked up the TV remote, switched it on and sat beside me. We started scrolling through the channels, and went past a few news channels. She then skipped to the movie channels, but none of them piqued our curiosity either. We skipped through a few more categories of channels and just as we were about to run out of things to watch, we ended up on a channel broadcasting KBC (the Indian version of
Who Wants to Be A Millionaire
). We looked at each other in agreement and decided to go on with it.
A newly selected contestant had just come on to the hot seat, and was now ready to answer the questions. She answered the first couple of questions without breaking a sweat and so did we, as we were guessing our answers out loud. A few more easy questions got answered by the contestant and us collectively. The questions started getting relatively difficult as the game progressed.
The contestant had now answered 5 questions correctly, and the show went into a break to air advertisements.
"Let's play a game!"
she said.
"Now that we both are guessing answers, for every answer that either of us gets wrong, he/she will have to do something interesting."
She continued with a childlike excitement on her face. I nodded while sipping on my tea.
"I'm just not sure what we could do that is fun without being silly. Do you have any ideas?"
she asked as she moved closer to me.
"We could um.. take an item of our clothing off for every wrong answer,"
I blurted out in reflex, instantly regretting what I just said.
"No.. I.. it just.."
She slapped my arm while I stammered to cover up.
I deserved that
, I said to myself.
The game began after the break as we both sat there looking at the TV screen. This time, the silence was certainly awkward, all thanks to me.
"Okay let's do it. I think this is going to be fun."
She finally responded after what felt like an eternity as she looked at me, but the response was much to my disbelief. Here I was, trying to prepare myself for getting kicked out of her house, wearing her clothes.
"Are you sure? I was just kidding, honestly."
I confirmed to be sure if I wasn't imagining this.
