2509

"What's with this sudden meeting?"

"I know we haven't met since months, or we can say we have met just once. But I wanted to meet you today."

"I'm not complaining though. I was waiting for this moment since beginning. And you were constantly avoiding this." Adi rolled his eyes on her.

"Yeah." She chuckled. "But I wanted to meet you too. When I made up my mind to finally meet you, you started getting busy. We barely talked, once in a month. So, I decided not to disturb you. And that's why I never asked you to meet again."

"Uhm-" He cleared his throat. "I was busy in my work, you know. I wasn't purposely ignoring you."

"I never said that." They both sat beside the river on a warm summer day. The air around the river was cold. Ash felt the cold breeze hitting her warm hands.

"How have you been, Ash? It's been a long time since we talked."

"I'm doing okay. Was just busy with life. And that was the reason I forgot to text you or poke you." She laughed. But a fake one. She knew she was lying. She never forgot to text him, just didn't want to disturb him. She didn't want to be felt neglected. She didn't want to get ignored.

"I see. And you were blaming everything on me." He hit her jokingly.

"That's my work. You can't stop me from doing that." They both laughed and brushed the topic off. They sat in complete silence. Just admiring the sunset, feeling the cold breeze and sat beside eachother in complete silence.

Ash rested her hands on both of her sides. Adi slowly moved his hands towards her and grabbed her hand. She smiled to herself and continued looking at the setting sun. She was sad. She couldn't gathered courage to speak what she was supposed to. She called Adi for a reason. But she didn't know how to tell him.

"Did something happen, Ash?"

"Hmm?"

"I asked, did something happen to you? Something's bothering you?"

"How'd you know?"

"That means there's something." Adi questioned. Ash nodded. "Tell me."

"I want to, but I don't know how to."

"You know we were really comfortable around eachother. And you were the one who keeps telling me stories about you."

"You told me too." Ash mumbled. Adi laughed at her cuteness.

"Yes, I told you too. And that's what I'm saying. Just tell me what's the matter."

"You know how we started talking. It was totally unexpected. I was the least talkative in that group and yet we started talking."

"You were the least talkative one yet you speak everything with your eyes. And that attracted me." Ash plastered a smile on her face.

"Then we started hanging out." Ash started. "We started spending time with eachother. That night walk, the whole trekking, we did everything together. And you shared every little detail with me and you accepted our whole group. The way we all started spending time together. We all did every thing together." Adi chuckled while remembering the time and nodded.

"And then you guys changed your trip." His smile fell down. He remembered the time they parted their ways.

"But the time we spent together became a memory. An unforgettable one that'll go with us to our graves. And later, we started chatting." Adi wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "And then I thought that we'll going to meet someday. We'll going to spend that time again. But everything falls apart when we got busy with our lives. We barely contacted eachother. We both got busy and somewhere we lost eachother within ourselves." Ash turned towards him.

"Now you are thinking about why I repeated the things we literally did together." Adi nodded.

"We've lost eachother. When we had time we didn't respect. Or rather, I didn't respect that. And now when the time is over, I wanted to live that moment all over again." Ash chuckled. Her eyes became glossy.

"I had time to confess. I had time to speak what I felt. But I kept avoiding it. I kept avoiding my feelings for you. I've fallen for you since a long time. Maybe I don't love you, but the fact that I wanted to talk to you daily, I wanted to keep poking you, wanted to know about your daily life can't be changed. You know what-" Adi looked at her from behind his glasses. "I wanted to say these things when we actually had time. But I couldn't gathered courage. And when I finally decided to confess, our conversation started getting smaller and slowly it ends completely. But still I was hoping that maybe one day you'll message.." Adi was amazed. He didn't know that Ash was going to confess. "But that day never arrived."

"Wait. Y-you? You have feelings for me?" Ash nodded.

"Since beginning. I too didn't realise that until a friend of mine told me." The amazed look on Adi's face turned into a big smile. He couldn't hide his blush anymore. He screamed in happiness and hugged Ash tightly. Ash hugged him back. But she was not filled with excitement. She hugged him lightly. Adi broke the hug and looked at Ash. The tears rolled down her eyes. And those tears were of sorrow, the sadness. The sense of happiness wasn't long gone from Ash's face.

"Wha- what happened, Ash? You are not happy? You know I like you too. And we can actually make it work now. Why are you crying?" He asked worried.

"We don't have time, Adi."

"We don't have time? Our time has just started, Ash. What are you even saying?" He said. Half excited, half worried.

"I'm going out of town. We won't be able to meet. Won't be able to see. Won't be able to spend time with eachother. And you know that this will not going to work out due to our busy schedules."

"W-when are you leaving?"

"Tonight."

They both sat in silence. His hands were still draped around her neck. He kept her close to him. She put her hand on his knees. They saw the sun finally set and with that, their love story also ended. The darkness not only filled the sky, but also filled their hearts who were just bloomed.