'Why does it hurt? It feels like someone is hitting me.' I rubbed the hurting arm. 'Oh, wait! I have to hop on the bike. Prakash is waiting.'
"Sita!!!" I was wide awake with a loud thud he made on the desk beside, while Prakash was yelling at me.
"For God's sake!.." he paused seeing me awake. "Finally, you're up!" he said and I was still laying on the bed, not ready to go anywhere. He was sitting beside me on the bed. My hands reached my forehead in disappointment with a slap on it, 'Why did you sleep, Sita?' I questioned myself in my mind.
"I'm sorry." I just messed up everyone's plan. "Where are the others?" I asked bending forward, looking for Swara and Tom.
"I told them that we are not going anywhere today."
"WHY? Why would you do that?" I was eagerly looking forward to that trip and he just cancelled it.
"I can't let you make any mistakes. What if you suddenly disappear like you did last night?" he continued "Others can't know this, Sita. They are going to get panic. It's more like burdening them with an absurd theory."
He had a point though. After last night's uproar, how could we even think of going anywhere? I was dizzy and was not thinking straight, I laid by my back again with a pout. "It's gonna be another boring day, uh?"
"Do you wanna make it a bit interesting?", he smirked at me and I didn't feel so good when he made that face. He asked me to get ready and said that we were going to a good place. I rushed into the bathroom and shut the door with a 'bang!'. Although his face was scary, I was excited and eager to go out and play. I quickly brushed and showered. I was so confused, so he just chose a salwar among the clothes that Swara had lent me.
I stepped out of the room with the beige salwar, my hair braided in plaits. I was looking naive, at least I wanna believe that. At first, I thought Prakash would tease me, but he was weirdly quiet. And it made some sense. The one who always talked was me, he had always been the one who lent his ears to my nonsensical talks. But I had never felt guilty, he deserved that for shutting me out. Yes, he seemed to be an open book. In reality, he was a huge jerk, who wouldn't even tell if something went wrong. He shut everyone out, even his friends.
The sky was as blue as the ocean, so I thought maybe the ocean is the one that reflects the sky. If Prakash and I were like Ocean and the sky, who would be the ocean and who would be the sky? I looked at Prakash, he seemed to be thoughtless. That very thing stressed me out. Had he ever felt flustered by my presence? I'm the ocean that reflects Prakash, the Sky. Everything he said and did affect my mood. But it has never been the otherwise.
"I'm bored.", I pouted.
"So? That's why we're out."
"It's boring to walk in silence."
"What should we do?", he sounded as if he was dealing with a kid.
"Let's talk!", I suggested.
"Say."
"Hmmm... Lemme ask a few questions.", I knew he wouldn't agree. I was sure that he would rather walk in silence.
"Cool!", I stared at him in surprise.
"Umm... "
"What do you wanna ask?"
My mind went blank, I had no questions, to begin with. I simply wanted to talk something and blurted out about asking questions. So I came up with random stuff.
"Stars or Flowers?"
"Stars!"
I demanded him to give a reason why he chose stars. For which he said, "Stars, they are far away and it feels surreal since we have never seen them up closer." I had always thought that he was more of a flower person who liked reality. Maybe I did not know the real Prakash.
"Next?", he asked nonchalantly.
"What?", I needed to come up with the next question. I started to think about what I should ask him next. Then, I saw a kid escaping a dog's gaze, maybe he was afraid of dogs, I thought.
"Ah! Fear?", the next one should be this. "What's your biggest fear? And why?"
"What do you mean by 'why'???"
"Like, I am afraid of darkness. And the reason is... It blinds my sight. You can't see anything in darkness and it gives you the opportunity to be creative. You can imagine anything in the darkness. It creeps me out. My brain creates the worst monsters in the darkness. So I fear the darkness."
"Woah! That's a huge reason.", he did not take long and answered, "These questions."
"Hmm??"
"I fear being questioned.", he slowed down his pace of the walk. I wondered if it was because he was not okay opening up to other people. He said that it was partly yes, and also he didn't like making him think about himself. And it's useless.
Maybe I should stop there, he didn't like being questioned like this. We started to sweat striding for a while. I did not bother him after that question. We took a shared auto-rickshaw and dropped by the park nearby.
We had some food and soft drinks, wandered around by the market for a while. The sun went down and he suggested evening was the good time to visit parks. So we ended up getting into the park and taking a rest in the chair.
"Next question?", he asked and I asked myself, 'Why???? Don't you hate this?'