Raj Jagdeep Bisht must have seen something in Misha's eyes or he just pitied them standing in the cold, because he moved aside with a grunt and let them pass from the entry gate in school.
Misha keeps dragging Aakash, as they walk from the entry gate to the gravel covered in snow, being crunched by their boots and Aakash wants her to remember, he wants to say so many things to her, ask her, he doesn't know where to start.
She heads in the direction of the basketball court, hand in hand and when they are a safe distance away Misha turns to Aakash with glittering doe eyes and beams at him, as if she is telling him a joke, she is, "What did the guard uncle think we were doing?" She laughs and rolls her eyes. "I mean I have a boyfriend for god's sake, of course Bisht uncle wouldn't know that, you know he is also coming for the entrance, I wonder where he is, I told him to be early."
Aakash stops in his tracks, without realising he clutches his arm away from hers so fast that she jolts in surprise with a gasp. He wants to say, stop this, stop joking, it's enough.
But he looks at her shocked face and decides that he needs to be away from her, that he needs to think, because his Misha was pathetic at acting.
He feels like someone is forcing down snow in his throat with a shovel. "I... I am sorry. I just... need to go to the... washroom."
A look of relief crosses in her eyes, and he hates himself when he realises that he scared her. "Oh okay, no problem," she gives him an uncertain smile, I am scaring her, I need to be away. "I know where the washrooms are, I have been to this school for a competition once, have you?" she asks him.
Shit. He shakes his head slightly. Been to the school? Since when she is in Manali! His heart is ridged by knife to the ground; he can almost feel it bleeding right now.
"Come on, I will show you, we have to cross this cricket and basketball field first. And what were you saying outside, so you don't remember thing?" she asks, her eyebrows knitted in a frown.
He freezes, no, no, no. If he will once start, he won't be able to stop then, the four years has been like a slow death to him. He [ro1] can't believe himself, is there a camera around him and she is playing a prank on him? He looks at the basketball field, at the trees with no leaves due to winter, its branches covered in snow, at the snow covered mountains surrounding the open school, and finds no cameras, his heart is splintering in his chest but he forces himself to say, "That you didn't remember to bring cap in this weather, here." He says putting out his Mack Weldon hat from his head and holding out to her, he never offered the cap to anyone not even to his sisters whom he almost never denied anything, how could he when Misha had gifted this to him when they were twelve.
"No, no, it's fine." Misha says flapping her hands, laughing awkwardly, her double braided plates moving with her head, he searches for any movement of her eyes that would stick extra minute on the cap or anything, it doesn't, all she says is, "It's totally fine, I can't take this."
You used to snatch away things from me and loved to announce them as yours.
Her ears were red, and she was shivering a little, he realised. He saw the snow on her jacket and hair, and forced the cap in her hands. "Please, I insist, now come on, show me the washroom."
She smiles at him, and puts the cap over her head; the image of something she had given to him that he kept on wearing for five years like a lunatic, on her was so overwhelming and personal, that it hurt him to breathe; it felt like pins were prickling inside of him. He remembered those times when they were little and she insisted on using his stationeries instead of hers, and said bossily all of your colours are mine, now sit and let me paint.
They hurry through the basketball field to two connected red brick building's corridor that occupies washroom, as she tells him, and he asks her very carefully, "Do you paint or something?"
She stops and turns to him, her hand goes to her bag, her doe eyes a little wide, as if protectively she clutches onto the tinsel and garland key ring, Aakash's heart speeds up, and then she says, her voice dry, "I used to, I don't anymore, why?"
Aakash stills and gulps dryly, he looks at the snow falling on the field and thinks, how much can change about a person you thought you knew so much. He turns towards her with a smile that sledgehammers his heart, "You looked like an Artist type."
She looks at him weirdly, almost warily, her eyes since they met goes up and down his body, almost speculating, and he feels a flare of hope in the corner of his chest again. Maybe she is just pretending.
She keeps looking at him like that, and his stomach keeps flipping to his heart, she looks like as if she wants to say something, he desperately wants her to. She is biting her lips, a thing she did when she was nervous, then all of a sudden, she shakes her head, her teeth freeing her full lips and she motions her hand towards a left corridor, his stomach falls to his legs.
He is on the verge of pleading to her on his knees, but he follows her, the click of their boots on the hallway, sounding loud, alive, and echoing.
"Here we are," she says pointing towards a brown panel door that says Men's Washroom, "I will wait for you outside."