The Reverter

A Red Sky

"Where is Akriti? It's already 5:22! The movie starts at 5:30!" Rohit asked.

"Don't worry she will be here soon."

"I think I need to call her. She probably forgot that she needs to be here."

Rohit removed the phone from his pocket and called Akriti. She picked up the phone and shouted, "I'm coming in a minute!" And immediately hung up.

"...I guess she's coming?" Rohit said, rubbing his ear to soothe the pain of Akriti's verbal assault.

it was 26th April. We were at the cinema hall to watch the premiere of the movie-'Avengers: Endgame'. But it was mainly a cover for us to secretly discuss our next video, or at least that's why I had agreed to go and watch the movie. Starting with just 103 views before the fire on 15th April, the first video had gained 4 million views, and the views were increasing along with our subscriber count. We no longer needed the tv channels and could simply operate using the YouTube channel. Not everyone believed us, but enough people were following this for the world to be interested. Now, all we had to do was wait for Akriti to arrive.

But then I remembered something that I had to talk about with Rohit; About Akriti. I liked her, but I didn't know what I should do with my feelings. Now felt like a good time to talk about it with Rohit as no one we knew was around in the lobby of the cinema hall.

"So…Rohit?"

"Yeah?"

"I wanted to talk to you about Akriti."

"I'm listening," he said, his eyes wide with curiosity.

"I…like her."

Rohit's face instantly went into shock. After scratching his head a bit he blurted out, "Woah! OMG dude! Since when?"

"Since 9th standard."

"That is…wow! I mean I had a feeling you did…"

"But you know the problem is that technically I am a 21-year-old?"

"Oh yeah, I didn't think about that. But is that really a problem?"

"Doesn't that make me a paedophile?"

Rohit laughed.

"I wouldn't say that dude. When you started liking her, you were her age, right?  Although I can't believe you didn't find anyone else all those years, I won't call you a paedophile. Yes, if you were 40 years old and then travelled back in time? Yeah, you need to move on, grandpa. But you're not. Your body right now is 15 years old anyway! So don’t worry too much about it. But she does know that you are from the future. My point is that liking her isn't a problem, but she might not like you romantically. 7 years is a huge gap like you said."

"Ok, I guess. You know in my future past I never managed to find the courage to talk to her and now I am her friend. I mean can you believe that she actually lived this close to me? I will get plenty of chances to impress her."

"Look, don't actively try to impress her or anything. She doesn't seem to be that kind of girl. For now, just be a good friend. I'll tell you if you need to do something. And also she is smart. She will probably figure it out herself."

"That I like her?"

"That you like her. But you are a decent guy, so the worst-case scenario is that she friend-zones you. At Least you are not like me.”

Rohit used to be a playboy. In 9th standard, he had 3 girlfriends: one at school, one at tuition and one online. They didn't do anything obscene besides hugging (if you consider that obscene), but he eventually got caught and his 'reputation' went down, so no girl wanted to be with him after that.