Zameer: No Man's Land

11.

"and that's how I ended up being Vedant the coward boy."
He said taking a sip of his cappuccino leading to the froth getting stuck to his lips. I laughed at his choice of words and his tragic story.
I had ordered black coffee for myself as I seriously needed strong caffeine to re-fix my mind into a better state but his constant chit chatter was doing a better job than the coffee.

"Alright stop laughing and tell me something about yourself now" he said putting the cup down and precisely positioning his neck to watch me undisturbed. I held my eye down and instantly held it up as I realised I was feeling shy which was not my thing.

"You know it already" I said absentmind-ly as I had no idea what in particular I had to tell him. I could go with stories as well but most of them consisted baaji in it and I didn't want my mind to trail back there again. It was too much since past thirteen days already.

"Alright so let's play a game called 5 questions. Very basic game, we will ask each other 5 questions and we have to answer honestly. Mark my words when I say, I'll catch your lie." He said and I looked at him shifting my eyes from the outer windows. He seemed pretty serious about it but I was not.

"A game seems quite silly for a Pandit." I said giggling a little and then engaging my mouth in sipping the strong black half cup of caffein poured out for me working as a medicine.

"Oh don't go there. Just forget I'm a Pandit, for now at least" he said with a pissed off tone and I tried to read his face but he instantly transformed and the constant glint of excitement I have been seeing on his face since day one, was back.

"Let's play. I'll start." He said straightening his back and sitting up right. We had completed our coffees by now.
"Alright fine. Shoot" I said giving in his idea for I had no choice.

"Okay! First question. Why black coffee?" He asked and I almost gave him 'thats what you wanna know??' look but stopped in tracks and cleared my throat to avoid it. It felt so absurd.

"Well...I wanted something refreshing so." I said and shrugged my shoulder as a completion to my sentence.

"And that leads to my next question which is, what made you so tired up to seek refreshment outside?"

I wasn't getting the trail of his questions. He suddenly sounded like a shrink to me trying to unfold my mind and it's miseries.

"Um...why....(nervous chuckle surpassed my mouth) why would you ask?" I said and felt really weird for being not able to understand why I couldn't lie to him.

"Question to a question is not acceptable!" He said airing his hands up. I whined inside. What was I doing here, it started to annoy me suddenly.

"I think its late...I should head home" I said trying to get myself together and move outta there. He immediately held my hand and looked so serious and seemingly scared as if I was driving off after robbing his properties.

"What.. ?" I asked giggling casually.

"Did I upset you? I'm sorry if I did. But you can't escape" he said and the innocence in his eyes and ungranted authority in his words actually became my lease and I stopped there.

"No it's not like that. It's just....why would you ask that? Are you trying your pandit-cum-psychologist tricks on me?" I blurted out and even though my tone was perfectly normal, I felt really guilty for saying those words to him.
He softened his grip on my hand.

"No I'm not tricking you but I want to know you and the best way of knowing someone is to understand their reaction and situation. That's all a human mind is about."