PART 3


A perfect landscape

Adhi parked his car quickly, threw the sweets on the table, ran to his bedroom and shut the door. He then called Aziza. She picked up.

“are you serious??” Adhi anxiously asked her.

“hi Adhi” she replied.

“If you are messing with me then I swear I am going to be really mad at you!”

“no. I would never mess about such a thing. It is true”

“but HOW? WHY? We need to meet today at our usual spot at 7pm” he said. They used to meet daily near a park and used to walk. A lot of times Ikrit also joined them.

Three hours until Adhi had to wait to meet Aziza. He was completely flabbergasted. He had a lot of questions but he had no clue which ones to ask. So, he sat down and wrote all the questions down and kept the paper in his pocket. Adhi never had a serious relationship before. And Aziza (her biggest crush in school) confessing about her feelings to him was a big deal. Bigger than he could handle.
Adhi reached the park on time. He was so restless that he called Aziza twice asking where she was. She was running late by 5 minutes. Adhi’s phone rang. It was Ikrit. He answered the call.

“are we meeting today?” she asked.

“no I can’t today. Have some work. we’ll meet tomorrow” Adhi said. It was probably the first time that he lied to Ikrit so he felt really bad about it. He also wanted to tell her the complete situation. But first he needed his answers.

Then he saw Aziza coming from a distance. He turned around, took the paper out and glanced at all the questions again and turned back around.

“hi” Aziza said while she failed to maintain an eye contact.

“hi” Adhi said with a faint voice. He could barely speak. Adhi has a deep voice so he is very audible normally but today he just couldn’t speak. They both started walking in the park. Adhi was gathering courage to ask all the questions. But he was so afraid somehow and felt choked up to speak anything.

“ so, how did it….?”

Before Adhi could finish that sentence, Aziza held his hand and he fell silent. Suddenly, just by a simple gesture he got answers to all his questions. When two people truly love each other, that feeling of love flows between them whenever they touch each other or sometimes even they are near each other. Adhi felt that flow and it was the first time he felt that way. Both of them walked, holding hands, for half an hour. They looked at each other the whole time trying to have a silent conversation with their eyes.

They both then went back home. Adhi was clueless. He didn’t know what happened to him but he was extremely quiet. Even his parents asked him over dinner if he was okay or not. But Adhi was lost in his thoughts. He didn’t know that he had started loving Aziza because he had no clue what love was. Later that night, he texted Aziza.

“let’s go watch a movie tomorrow. If we are quiet then lets be quiet while watching a movie :P” Adhi tried to end the awkwardness by a lame joke.

“sounds good. See you at 10” Aziza texted back.

The following morning, both met a metro station and took an auto for the mall in which they were supposed to go for the movie.

“hi. How are you?” Adhi asked. He was trying to have a normal conversation.

“hi. I am good. How are you?” Aziza replied.

“Great. Excited to watch the movie. I’ve been waiting for this movie since forever!” Adhi was obsessed with movies. It was one of the topic he could anytime talk about.

yeah me too. Its trailer looked intense” Aziza replied. They were sitting close together so Adhi’s hand grazed on the Aziza’s palm and she held his hand again.

“so, I guess I will have to get used to it. Never done this before.” He said.

“hehe. You are so cute, you know that!” she said.

“yeah I know. everyone says that and I am sick of it. I want to be hot!” he said with a big smirk on his face.

“you are crazy” she replied.

And they both fell silent again. Just before the mall the road was being renovated. So the auto ride was getting a little bumpy. So, Adhi put one arm around her and put his palm on the head so she doesn’t hurt her head. When he did that, Aziza was very close to Adhi, who had no clue about it. She grabbed him by his chin and kissed him on the cheek.

Adhi just froze. A current passed through his entire body and he got Goosebumps by that. It was the first time a girl had kissed Adhi. He just held her hand even tighter now. And just before they were about to get out of the auto, he kissed her hand. She smiled at that. And then they both went to the theatre holding hands the whole time.

The movie started. They got popcorns and Pepsi for themselves. The theatre was pretty empty as it was a weekday and they got a decent pair of seats. Adhi kept his tray of popcorn aside and held her hand. He pushed her close and kissed her cheek. Before he could lean back she kissed him back on his cheek. They both smiled and resumed watching the movie again.

Adhi’s heart was racing. Somehow he had lost control over his body. He was nervous but yet couldn’t control his instincts. He then again grabbed Aziza by her hand, pulled her even more close than the last time, and kissed her cheek again. And again. And again. As he kept kissing her cheek he kept moving towards her lips. Then he just brushed his lips against hers for just a second. They both stopped and looked at each other. At this moment, they could hear nothing and see nothing except themselves.

AND Then they kissed. Adhi grabbed Aziza’s hair by both his hands and just kissed her. Even though it was his first kiss, he was doing it nicely and he could feel that by the way Aziza was involved in it too. They continued kissing for good 5-7 minutes before they stopped. After that the first half of the movie got over and then just sat back on their seats smiling at each other and still holding hands. As soon as the second half started, they started kissing again. Adhi pushed her hair back from her shoulder and started kissing her neck and shoulder and she moaned a little when he did that. He then kissed on her lips the entire time in second half. As they walked out of the theatre, he knew that he is in love.

But he had forgotten the basic problems in his little love story. He had no clue whether Aziza felt the same or not. He had no clue about her relationship status. There were so many unanswered questions but he somehow never gave them a thought because he was so consumed by the passion of his love towards her.

Then came the endless days of kissing, they kissed at every place, in buses, autos, theatres (sometimes watching movies back to back for it), in restaurants, sneaking kisses while hanging around with Ikrit also. She had no clue. Adhi still used to talk to Ikrit everyday but never could tell her about it. Because he was so in love and totally lost in this feeling.

All this kept going on for a while, but when one fine day he texted Aziza the usual morning message but there was no reply. He waited till afternoon and texted her again but again there was no reply. He finally called her in the evening and she didn’t pick up. He got a little worried, so he called Ikrit and asked her to meet.

“hi, how are you? did you find a guy yet? Adhi’s usual question to Ikrit everytime they met.

“shut up. How have you been? You look a little restless” Ikrit asked.

“no. its just that exams are coming up and I am not studying at all. Did you talk to Aziza lately?” he replied.

“yes. I had a word with her this morning itself. And you better study. This semester you promised you will study properly” she said firmly.

“yes yes I will. Gotta go study now. See you tomorrow” he replied with his eyes closed. He started thinking as to why Aziza was avoiding him.

“bye Adhi” Ikrit could sense that he was tensed about something he wasn’t telling.

Adhi kept texting her. His texts became sorry texts because he started thinking that he had made some mistake because of which Aziza wasn’t replying to him.
After three days of continuous texting and calling, Aziza finally texted back.

“Hi Adhi”

“don’t hi Adhi me. I have been worried sick. Why have you been avoiding me? Did I do something wrong? You were talking to everyone but me!” Adhi replied furiously.

“no. I am sorry. I couldn’t reply to your texts. Actually, Kunal was in town. So I was with him since last four days” she replied.

“who the fuck is kunal?” Adhi wrote this text but he soon realised who Kunal. Kunal was Aziza’s boyfriend. Adhi had assumed that they had broken up because the way the things were happening between him and Aziza.

“oh ok. Sorry, If I had known I wouldn’t called or texted this much” Adhi replied and his eyes were filled with tears. Adhi used to cry very  very rarely. But he was so heartbroken that the tears came flooding out. He didn’t make a sound but sat in his room while tears kept running down his cheeks. He kept staring at the wall in front him and didn’t move for two hours until his mother banged on his door to call him for dinner.

After that day Adhi became quiet. He started going out less, talked and met Ikrit also very less. He was dealing with his first heartbreak like most of the people do by alienating himself from everyone.

However, after a month or two, things did get back to normal. He started meeting Ikrit again everyday and even Aziza used to join them. Adhi and Aziza somehow managed to stay friends. Adhi still had feelings for Aziza but he had learnt to live with them. They never discussed or met alone after the day when her boyfriend came in town. But life was back to normal for Adhi.

The next day Adhi was getting ready for a party. It was Ikrit’s birthday and Adhi had the perfect surprise for her. She always wanted a T-shirt which said” a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”. Ikrit was a feminist partly by choice and partly due to her subjects in college. So Adhi got that T-shirt made for her.

The party was in a club and everyone was drinking. And everyone was dancing. When it was the time for gifts, Adhi made sure she opened his gift just before the party was about to end. Eventually everyone left and only Aziza, Ikrit and Adhi were left. All three of them were drunk but not wasted.

“did you not get me anything? why the hell are you my best friend then, fucker!” Ikrit asked Adhi. Aziza was laughing at Adhi.

“wow. You are drunk. Of course, I did idiot. Here’s your t-shirt. The one that you always wanted” he replied with a big smile on his face.

“OMG! YOU DID NOT!” Ikrit tore the wrapping on the gift and wrapped the t-shirt around her neck.

“I LOVE IT. I LOVE IT. I LOVE IT SO MUCH! THANK YOU. AND I NEVER SAID IT BUT I LOVE YOU A LOT!” she shouted and hugged and kissed Adhi on his cheek.

“Man, you’re really drunk” he replied. He could see Aziza’s smile disappearing when Ikrit hugged him.

After a few days, all three of them met for a movie. It was a superhero movie, and since Adhi was a big superhero movies fan he just forced both of them to watch it. Adhi was sitting in the middle while Ikrit and Aziza were sitting on the either side of him.

20 minutes into the movie, Aziza held Adhi’s hand like she used to before. Adhi looked at her puzzled but she didn’t withdraw her hand. Adhi felt weird for a while but then chose to ignore it and put his sweatshirt on their hands so that no one can see it. 5 minutes later, he felt Ikrit reaching out for his hand and eventually got hold of his hand. She put a jacket on their hand so Aziza couldn’t look. So Adhi was holding hands of both of them at the same time.

Adhi closed his eyes and thought “FUCK!!!”

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