𝑮𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝑩𝒐𝒚 ✓

Chapter 6

THE TWO GIRLS WALKED with their dogs following them halfway through Grand Street, happily chatting about random topics. Dash's name was brought up several times, but only because they discussed how important it was to find him. While the pair took confident steps towards Arjun's house, they stopped to look around the street.

"You're right, Beatrice! There are no posters here. Or anywhere for that matter."

"You don't think they took them off, do you?" Beatrice asked cautiously, stopping for a mere second.

"Who did?"

"The neighbours? I mean, everyone is so obsessed with having the perfect image. They wouldn't want their reputation to get tarnished because of Dash, or for this neighbourhood to be declared unsafe, would they?"

Mal thought deeply for a moment, stopping with her friend as well.

"I don't know... Maybe they would do something like that? I'm not sure anyway. Maybe Arjun saw them somewhere else?"

Beatrice nodded, trying to reassure herself. "Yeah, maybe. We're almost at his house anyway, we can ask him about it."

Soon enough, they stopped in front of a big gray colonial house with a light blue roof, that looked almost vintage when you really look at it. At the front, they were met by the sight of a marble driveway, and small bushes scattered neatly on each side of the house.

"There we are. That was fast."

Mal nodded as she took slow steps towards the entrance, ringing the doorbell while she felt Beatrice's figure standing next to her.

A few moments later, the door opened, revealing their friend. He had brown skin, jet black hair and a slim figure. His parents were Indian, so the interior looked almost as if they were in a famous Indian movie. It was fancy, to say the least.

The whole neighbourhood had the same house design, but the interior was never the same. Arjun's parents demonstrated that by putting patterns of Indian art around the walls and the living room, so that everyone who came into the house knew that they were proud of who they are.

Mal smiled to herself as she took long glances of the walls. She admired the parents' choice of colours.

"So, what brings me the honour of having two beautiful friends in my house at the same time?" He spoke, sitting down on one of the sofas. The two girls sat across from him, on another sofa, while the dogs lied obediently on the floor, snuggled to each other.

"Well, actually. We wanted to ask you something." Beatrice began, nervously playing with her fingers. Mal nodded, suddenly becoming more aware of her fast heartbeats.

"Where did you see Dash's missing posters?" Mal asked straightforwardly. Arjun gave them a baffled look, furrowing his eyebrows.

"What do you mean, the posters are right outside." he spoke, his voice small with confusion. Beatrice shook her head, giving him a small 'no' as she stared into his eyes.

Arjun furrowed his eyebrows again as he stood up, stepping towards the nearest window and pointing at the view outside.

"They are right outside." he muttered again, making the girls even more confused. They joined him by the window a few seconds later, staring at the beautiful view of green trees and bushes outside his house.

"Where?"

Arjun glanced at the window again, staring hard at one of the trees across the trees, his eyes widening in shock.

"W-What? They were right outside! On that tree right there. I got the poster from some random tree in the neighbourhood, and when I came back home there was another poster right there." He pointed at the same tree again, while the girls nodded in reassurance.

"I remember that, these posters were all over the neighbourhood. I know it doesn't look like that now, but..."

"It's okay, Arjun. We believe you. We'll just take another walk around the neighbourhood and see. Maybe we were just too distracted to see them or something..."

Mal gave Beatrice a look as she nudged her arm gently. Beatrice nodded towards their friend reassuringly, then the pair turned around to leave.

"Don't think about it much, okay? Maybe someone took some of them down because they ruined the view of the trees or something." The two girls spoke as they headed out, Arjun following them to the door.

"Yeah, maybe. It's just embarrassing, you know? It now looks like that I was hallucinating, and that Dash isn't missing after all."

Mal nodded while giving him a small side smile. "Yeah. But you weren't hallucinating, you showed us the poster."

"Yeah. That's pretty much the weirdest thing about it."

And it was the weirdest thing about it.

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