Tasin
As a breeze blew into the room from the monotonous window, I put a frown on my face to try to hide my awkward shyness because I'm sitting on the floor now and Imon's pleasant soft fingers are resting on my palm as I began to apply hexanol on them with the soft cotton on my other hand and he groans a little because it was burning his fingers as his fingers were already injured and his skin is too sensitive I could tell just by touching and the Imon who once was afraid of letting anyone touch him trusts me now and it brings joys inside me that I hold that special part of his life.
"Don't tell anyone about this, please." The words escape his mouth flatly but he becomes more serious when he says please as If it took a lot in him to even pronounce it. He said it as his eyes were on the cotton with which I was rubbing the injured part slowly and he felt every second of it.
I can see the embarrassment in his hormones.
I can see the fragility in his eyes.
I see the numbness, the emptiness & the immature kid once again and that completes something inside me.
My brow was drawn to his wounds and the cotton that has been almost painted red by the color of his blood, and it moved from his hands to his eyes just as he said the word please again while glancing at his scars, and I understood. I understand what he's saying, and I'm irritated that he needs to hide it. Why is he being courteous and clueless about this when I know it will lead to a huge problem in the future? What if something terrible happens to him? It's not like his stepdad would stop at this. He can even go further than this. Even though he knows it, he can't stop himself. I can't even blame his mother. His mother only wants the best for her son, but who imagined something like this would happen? Even when she knows she can't change anything. Being a single mother is extremely difficult. And at the end, all of this makes sense to me.
I started with an apologetic nod and then he lifts his lips with a relieved sigh.
"Don't worry about this. Just stop thinking about it. It's gonna be fine. I won't tell anyone, I swear."
My phrases leave him completely amused and mentally at ease, as his brows separate and I can finally see him breathing quietly. Most of the time, he is indifferent, and his aloofness exaggerates all of the infantile things within me. A peek at the cloudy sky outside the window tells me what's to come.
"What color is the sky you see?" He asks, and I wonder if he's asking because I'm looking at the sky right now, or because I stare at it most of the time at night with him on the balcony, sipping a cup of coffee he's made for me and sharing our thoughts.
"It must be blue, high, and clear."
'I have a feeling that something is about to change,
and I blame you since you're the one calling out to my heart'.
I release his fingers gently and instantly he lies on the bed rolling on his back and urging himself forward without looking at him I just put his shoes down from his feet with my hands slowly as always cause he goes to bed without taking off his shoes and I have to remind him about this every day and he shuts his eyes tightly just when the sunlight falls into it and I noticed that while my knees are still touching the ground and it's so cold in here. I don't know why the floor is too cold even when the sunlight is too bright today. My eyes are on him now again or maybe they were always on him. Whenever he smiled, when he called me, by my name. And my name sounds even more beautiful in his mouth.
I look at his legs that are wide open as he was lying on the bed and I could see him relaxed, peaceful & nonchalantly ruffling his hair but within a second I realized what the fuck am I looking at?
And then I stood up as fast as I could and turned around with my back to him. A single drop of sweat falls from my hair to my neck and Imon sits comfortably again when he saw me freaking he is somewhat confused while grabbing my hands and pulling me, forcing me to sit on the bed beside him, but I don't look at him because he was glaring at me with confused eyes, as if he wanted to know why I was so nervous a few moments ago, just as I'm getting more nervous now.
"Is everything okay? You don't look good." His eyes are comforting although we are not having eye contact I feel his gaze on me. His lips are formed in a pout now which slips my heart for a bit as I glance away from him.
Is-everything-okay?
I'm asking myself the same question since I met him. What's happening to me? How can everything be okay when I feel my heart racing almost all the time when he's near? I feel uncomfortable. I just wanna be okay so badly. I believe I am the only one who thinks this way. I'm the type of person that finds comfort in any uncomfortable scenario, which may seem strange to others, but it's just how I feel.
Is the Sun ever aware that its proximity might be as destructive to humans as it is hot? Does that sound too creepy when I say it like that? My thoughts crush over me as disappears through the wind when his left-hand slides from my back to my shoulder and then I look at his hands as they get closer to my neck and wipe off the tiny drops of sweat with the back of his hands smoothly and so so smoothly that I got chills on that part of my body which makes his hand go far and beyond the reach of me. So far but yet too close that I feel like his hands are still on my neck and pressed carefully. The feeling is so natural, so real, and like dandelions.
"Nah, I'm totally good since you're alright after all that mess." The sentence leaves dissatisfaction in his eyes since I remind him of the horrific things once again and I curse at myself for doing that which makes him laugh. He just saw me cursing myself silently and gave a dry laugh almost soundless but noticeable to me which makes me laugh at first but I started to go too deep into thinking, 'How-Can-A-Person-Look-So-Cute-When-They-Laugh?' We are both laughing now.
But suddenly we both stop laughing. We are staring into each other's eyes now, real deep. We are not talking, not even smiling. Just two souls fake smiling and staying close and hands wrapped around us like blankets on a winter's morning. It feels like 'We're Us. Together, Close Alone...Silence.' I feel so many things collapsing on me, crushing on me in just a few seconds and it's everything for me.
And the words repeat inside my head again and again until I get annoyed but guess what It doesn't annoy me rather it made me happy. I can imagine myself thinking about it every day, every hour, every minute, and every second.
"Can I ask why you asked me about the sky's color?" My lips get separated a little as my eyes fell on his messy hair. As is my habit, I stretch my hand to smooth down his hair, but he moves back teasingly, eliciting a sarcastic laugh from me, and I close my eyes while lifting my eyebrow and shaking my head, letting him know that he's just getting on my nerves.
"Because when you keep looking at it, you look hysterical." Imon's voice plays like a radio from the '90s which follows all the details I contain inside my heart. He's classic just like black and white movies not knowing or getting a taste of what color is. His voice is still playing perfectly and this is the most absorbing part of him.
"Do I?" A slight smirk on my face as I talk.
" You do." He doesn't react much. His expression is almost closer to normal or indifferent.
His eyes flicker with the words 'you-do'. His entire existence affects me differently today. Then as we sit separately, the space between the breath coming out of his mouth and mine fills the room like flowers blooming and dropping on us. I find myself breathless when he releases his hands from me. As If it captivated me or was stealing the oxygen that I was denying because I preferred to be breathless for a thousand times with him than not feeling his hands on my shoulder. I wanted that again.
...........................................................
"Dude, Stop touching my stuff. Okay?" I gritted my teeth in anger.
"What If I don't stop?"
"Aishh, Forget it. Talking with you is like wasting my precious time, Dude." I look away from him. Imon is way better than him. At least Imon is an introvert. He's nothing like this guy.
He is constantly touching my books, copies, and everything. I have to remove my belongings away from him, just as we do when children touch our belongings, which is very juvenile of him.
"Hey, Come On. Why are you always so rude? Just relax."
"Oh really? You're telling me to relax while I'm worried about Exams. Can't you see I'm trying to focus in class? Your annoying me."
I hate this dude. Why is he always acting like a kid? The first day I met him was another disaster. He's just a nightmare. I still remember when I met him at the canteen and I was pushed and fell on the floor. That was insulting. And now he's acting cool as If we're friends. But we are not. He gave me such a bad impression in the first place. Now I'm getting so mad at him because why the heck is he sitting next to me in biochemistry class?
I wanted Imon to sit with me. Because of him, I couldn't sit with Imon. Shit, Mannn... But just look at him, He's sitting there alone at the first bench as If he doesn't give a Fuck. He wouldn't even look at me. Does he even know who I'm sitting with? He's sitting with Iffat. Of course, they are more like besties I guess. That's cute though. I don't know how many times I just thought about what he was thinking right now in his mind. And honestly, I have no clue.
"What's wrong?"
That's when I shift my eyes from Imon to the sheets on my table and moved the pen in my hand constantly because I got nervous somehow.
"Jeez, Are you panicking?"
"Even If I'm. You don't have to know." I say while I bit my pen and look at the teacher.
" Why can't I know? Aren't we friends?"
"Is that an excuse? I don't even know your name then how can we be friends? Tell me?" I rolled my eyes while keeping my bag in the middle of us to create a distance and he was a little bit pissed by my attitude towards him. He didn't express his thoughts but It's just what I can see through his face.
"Shahriar."
"What?"
"My name. It's Shahriar." His voice was calm and quiet almost like a silent whisper.
" Oh- " I gasp.
"Now you know my name." He said and immediately took his stuff and went to the last sit which made me feel so worse that I felt like I was the most badass person in the class. I was being so rude. He was right. The feeling of doing something bad and realizing it feels worse than accepting it. I don't turn my face or look at him to stop him from going. I just think of a way how to apologize after the end of the class. I can't think of anyway. That's when I saw Imon watching me with a three-dimensional view and I acted as If I don't know that he was watching me. I don't know why he's looking in this direction. Maybe because he saw Shahriar going away.
" Dude, Do you know how many minutes are left for this class? I'm super bored." I asked the guy in front of me. Even know I don't know most of their names but I recognize all of their faces.
"25 minutes, I suppose." He sighs.
"That's a lot. Mannn..." I ruffled my hair.
Suddenly Imon stands up and asks the teacher, "May I go to the bathroom?"
"Sure, you may go. So okay students. Let's go to the next chapter." He pointed at Imon and then looked at the whiteboard again.
And I don't know why he left the class but isn't coming back. What is taking him so long? Should I go and check? What If he thinks that I'm treating him like a child and gets mad? Oh, No way that I'm going now. But I can't just sit here and keep on thinking about what's gonna happen to him or something. I should go. Okay, fine. I'm going. It feels like I'm having an intense debate with myself about whether I should go or I shouldn't.
"Sir?" I said that so loudly and stood up fast.
"Yes? What is it?" He stopped writing on the board and just looked from left to right to make sure that everything is fine or not because I spoke so loud that he seemed more like someone is in danger and the entire class laughed at me except for one and it was Shahriar. Meanwhile, Iffat gave me a thumbs-up with a slight wink on her face. She was practically laughing.
"Never mind. It's nothing." I say with a low voice since I'm embarrassed.
" You sure? " He said while raising his eyebrow.
" I think I need to go to the bathroom," I say with a flat face.
"Ook, I mean...yeah, of course. You can." He let out a sarcastic laugh while his eyes were pointed at the files in his hands along with a marker.
"Thanks." I immediately regretted saying that. I shouldn't have said that. This is so weird, I swear.
//// "Let the guy go to the bathroom or he might pee on his pants."
//// "Yeah. Let him go. Pfft."
"Silence, students. I don't want any more discussions."
I saw Shahriar's friends commenting like that. And I also saw Shahriar avoiding everything. He wasn't even supporting them nor was he stopping them from saying it. He just looked at me with a black face when I was leaving.
After leaving the class when I finally reached the bathroom I saw Imon senseless on the ground. He seemed as If he knew he was having a migraine pain so he sat there for a while to relax but it seemed like he was senseless right now. I held his chin and cheeks while I constantly told him to wake up but he wasn't waking up which worried me. His face was gloomy so I thought of cupping my hands and taking some water from the bottle which was already in Imon's hands. I seriously don't know how he got it but I pour it on my hands and then throw some of the water drops on his eyes. He finally woke up while coughing and he saw me as he opened his eyes. And before that, I was patting his cheeks with my hands so that he would wake up. And then he did the unexpected thing that made me somewhat speechless, I guess.
He took that hand of mine which was already on his cheeks and placed it on his forehead slowly. And at the time he was moving my hand, I felt the slightest but also the sweetest touch of his nose and his beautiful eyelashes that tickled my fingers a bit. But then my hands feel his hands pressing my hands at his forehead. It gave me chills. He was so hot. No, no, no...That's not what I meant. What I meant was he's feeling hot right now. Like really sick. And it's because his forehead is so warm and for sure he's dying with a major headache.
"I think I'm gonna die. It's hurting." He said it as he left my hands because he was too tired to even hold it.
" Just wait here for me okay?"
I went straight to the class and told the teacher that Imon is fucking sick and he needs rest. And I also mentioned that I need to be there to take him back to his room as I'm his roommate and he can't move so I have to go. He got finally convinced so I went to the bathroom and saw Imon trying to stand while holding the door. I somehow managed to hold him and we used the lift instead of the stairs to make it real quick. After we entered the room, I just told him to take off his shoes and to take rest while I gave him the pills and he sits comfortably. I saw that he wasn't taking off his shoes as usual. He gets up in bed every time while wearing a shoe and it makes me so angry but I just can't help and get his shoes off slowly. And the next thing I experienced is him laughing while he was looking above his head as If he didn't want me to notice it but I did.
"What the fuck is so funny about it?"
"Your face..."
"My face what?"
"You look like this whenever you take my shoes off."
"So you knew then why don't you listen to me ?"
"It's because I wanted you to do it." He says it so genuinely that I almost forgot how to speak. For real~~
I -Just- Forgot- How- To -Speak.
Sometimes I get so speechless around him because I don't know whether should I get mad at him or should I just want this moment to last forever. I couldn't answer him anything while he pointed at his left leg and puts his left leg on my lap like a baby who wants me to remove that shoes too and I do. I do remove it. I removed his socks while putting my two fingers inside his sock as my eyes were working out their way from his feet to his tiny toes and he looks back and forth as he rubs his shoulder once with his chin. I take his other foot and then again I'm removing the socks and now it feels like I'm not just taking his socks off because there is one more thing that I'm taking from him and he knows it. But this time my eyes are on his cheeks and then moves to his puzzled confusing eyes and he lets out a sigh as I remove it completely. And the entire time what we felt was some kind of tension between us. The way he exhales makes me think that he's been keeping that breath inside him for a while and now he finally gets out of his anxious zone and I gave a dry laugh.
"Hey, What happened?" I act Innocent and he clicks his upper two teeth with his tongue.
"Playing dumb, huh?!" He's smiling now but I can't even call it a smile because the look he's giving me right now is somewhere between a smirk or a laugh.
"You are free to say so." I offered him a phony grin and walked over to the table to hand him a drink of water. He sipped it, and I moved closer to the table, grabbing my book and beginning to underline the important passages as usual.
After three or four hours, I just feel dizzy since I've been studying for a long time and I also find Imon awake. Wasn't he asleep?
"What happened to you today?" Imon says just when he positioned his pillow and puts his head on it while looking in the opposite direction. And we both talking but aren't facing one another. He looks out the window and starts a conversation with me.
"Like what? I don't understand. What do you mean?" I said as I was bouncing my left leg which is a bad habit I assume. And I was flicking the papers of my book with my hands.
"I mean you and Shahriar?"
"You saw that?"
"Saw what?!"
"You had your eyes on us?" I burst out with laughter and even though I can't see his face but I suppose that he's probably fucking embarrassed right now and I don't know why.
"Forget it. I'd rather not talk with you." He shuts his other ear tightly with another big pillow. I find it so adorable.
"That's what I said to him and he got mad and so on."
"So on....?" He repeats it. Sometimes some words fit his lips like a perfection of nature. I think what I would be If he's the perfection then I'm the imperfection of nature.
"Yeah. What else?"
"Dude, Do you have any Idea about him?" Imon said it so specifically that I almost felt a thousand times worse than what I felt in the classroom while misbehaving with Shahriar.
"I'd rather not. Now don't tell me that he's some kind of a rich Kid who's gonna sue me for avoiding him.Hehehe."
"No, not that;"
"Then what?!" I close my book and finally pay attention to our chats. When he hears the sound of my book closed he immediately turns around and stares at the wall. I somehow realized that all my dizziness and gloomy face is gone within a minute since I started gossiping with Imon. As we all know that interesting moments make us more cheerful and excited. Imon was that interesting person in my life.
"At first will you stop bouncing your leg? It's kinda annoying."
"Oh-That? I'm sorry for that. I was just doing it unknowingly because it's my habit." I exhale and wipe my forehead.
"So what were we talking about? "
"Shahriar?"
"Yeah, Lol. So he's not a freak. He's nice when you get to know him, You know? Just look at us."
"What do you mean by that when you said us?" I say as I covered my mouth with my hand while concentrating on him.
"I mean we used to argue about silly things right? We sort of didn't like each other but now we're friends."
"That was you. Not me. I was always polite. You're the one who kept messing with me." I gave a sarcastic smile.
"Fine sir, Fine. My bad. I gave up. You win, Okay?"
"My pleasure." That was super hilarious indeed.
"But you see my point, don't you?" Imon lifted his brows and hands to reassure me that Shahriar is merely a good person, which could be true. I don't know but maybe my communication with Shahriar might go further than this. I'm just planning how should I apologize for how I behaved with him. And I will apologize directly when I'll meet him since it was my mistake in the first place. He must be thinking that I'm a jerk.
But right now, at this point, I'm just so worried sick about Imon. Is he feeling weak because of what happened between him and his Stepdad? Is this the reason why he is stressed out and senseless?