Right Here [Regular Updates]

Chapter 9

It was peak afternoon. "Look at the sun! Do you want some ice cream?"

"Yeah," Shreya responded with a little enthusiasm. It was the best response she had given him that day.

"What flavour?"

"Blueberry."

He nodded and walked back to the shops and went to the small Baskin Robbins store. He asked for a blueberry and a chocolate. Just when the man handed her lavender coloured ice cream to Lakshya, Shreya pointed to another colour.

"Can I have this one instead?"

The man looked at Lakshya.

"No chocolate," he said.

Shreya was stunned. "No, it's okay!"

"I'm not particular at all," Lakshya said.

The man smiled to himself seeing the couple. He did not need more confirmation. He scooped up the fluorescent blue ice cream.

As they walked, Shreya still felt troubled. "Sorry."

"This one is really good. Is that good?"

"It's fine." Shreya did not know what flavour she was eating. The cup said Splish-Splash. It was new, but that was all. Her favourite was still blueberry.

Seeing her attention back on the ice cream, Lakshya was relieved he did not have to hide the awkwardness he felt anymore.

∼•∽

The trees did lend them good shade and with the altitude the temperature was not very uncomfortable. Lakshya walked around taking some pictures. Shreya sat at the view point resting her elbows on the table enjoying the breeze and thinking about the daunting downhill trek that awaited her.

It was when Lakshya turned his lens in a certain direction that he caught Shreya squinting her eyes as she faced the breeze. Lakshya switched to video mode without much thought. He recorded her short hair flowing and eyes opening lesser and lesser with every squint.

Was she falling asleep?

As if to answer that, Shreya's face fell out of her palm and she jerked awake. Lakshya pointed his phone in a different direction, but had no intention to hide that he caught her actions. He wanted to make her flustered and uneasy, whatever to create more distance between them.

"Are you that sleepy?" he taunted.

She looked at him with a little frown. "Yeah." She leaned on the table and closed her eyes.

Lakshya was speechless. Technically, this was their first date. How! Just how could she fall asleep!

Lakshya sat before her heavily and knocked on the table. His face was unpleasant.

Shreya looked up with the same frown.

"Let's go. You can sleep all you want once you go back." His voice was strangely stern and this fact registered in Shreya's head.

"We're going to go down now?"

"Yeah!"

She sat up straight and asked, "Are we going down the hill... together?"

Lakshya almost flipped at her. Was she trying to mock his actions from earlier? But her tone did not match that. It made him uneasy. She seemed eager and nothing more.

He did not respond in the end. He did not know how to. He went and bought a couple of water bottles for each of them. Then he found Shreya back at the ice cream shop.

The moment he approached her, she gave him the chocolate ice cream as she smiled sweetly and took half the bottles from him.

"Can we sit until we finish the ice creams?" She nodded at the ice cream and the bottles in her hands.