Another City Of Lights.

Chapter 1.

My feet make weird squishy sounds as I try to push my way through the crowd on the street. I'm in a hurry. And I should be because I'm pretty late. But this crowd isn't helping at all.
I don't have to look around to see the cause of this gathering. It's pretty obvious, to be honest. It's the middle of June, 17th to be exact, and summers mean only one thing in this city. Mango season.
Mangoes. Those absolutely delicious yellow-tan fruits people in my city adore.
All my life, every summer I have seen this haphazard situation taking place. The street vendors are always surrounded by a flock of people, their business taking off at a remarkable speed.
In summers, nearly every street in Karachi becomes lined by many street vendors, all of them having many different varieties of the fruit. When I was little, I used to think it looked pretty, all that yellow in one place. I never had any interest in fruits myself, but I admired everyone's enthusiasm. Even though they did create a huge mess on the roads. After devouring it, almost everyone would leave their trash lying around. That was the one thing about Karachi, nobody ever cleaned up after themselves.

But today, I didn't have time to stand and watch the epic mango facade, I had somewhere I needed to be.
I pushed passed countless women, who had their toddlers perched high up on their hips as they negotiated with the vendors, and millions of men with heavy moustaches who were waiting rather impatiently for their wives to get back already.

I picked up speed and I ran, holding on to the straps of my old, brown backpack on to my shoulders. The keychains at the end of the zipper all got jumbled together as I ran and jingled loudly. I was always afraid that one day they would fall off, and I'll lose my precious treasure. My favourite was the one that was in the shape of Captain America's shield. Aaron had gotten lucky one day, when his dad suddenly gave him some cash, and he gotten four of those, one for each of us. I had instantly loved it of course, but even Hailey had it on her shoulder bag, even though she had no idea who Captain America even was.

By the time I turned around the corner, my lungs felt as if they were on fire. They hurt so bad, and I couldn't fill them with enough air, as usual. My anemia was worse than before, I had started noticing it only recently, but it wasn't that bad still, I guess.
I stood outside for a few minutes, trying to catch my breath, before pushing the door open and letting myself in. The rusty wind chimes on top of the door jingled, and I looked around, and made my way to our table in the far corner of the room.

The tea house was probably one of the oldest little cafe's in this part of town. I don't think it could even classify as a café actually. It was just a tiny, worn out place, with faded mint green walls, with the paint chipping at the edges, and almost completely gone at other parts, which served lunch and tea for the working laborers. The door was green too, almost completely coming off at the hinges, but it was still standing strong. Unlike the owner of the place, who had passed away when we had been in fifth grade. After that, we befriended his son, who took over the job of serving diluted tea after his father. I suppose we chose this place because out of the others, there was no chance of any of our parents finding us here.

I dropped in to my seat, still breathing heavily, and pushed my backpack off my shoulders so that it landed on the ground next to Aaron's.
"Well it's about time! Where were you?", Dash asked, he looked annoyed but I knew him better than that. He couldn't be annoyed at anyone. Ever.
"I ran all the way", I explained, after taking a deep breath.
"You probably took the wrong street. It's always busier around this time, you know that", Hailey said, never looking up from her phone.
"Well, forget that. Look what I got today", Dash smiled wickedly, before pulling out a squished up brown paper bag from his bag.
He hurriedly opened it up, revealing four slices of cold, squished pizza. He took one for himself, before passing the rest to each one of us.
I handed one to Hailey and then to Aaron, who had a cigeratte dangling from the corner of his mouth. I scrunched up my nose im disgust. He knew we all hated it, but he never seemed bothered by it. He only recently developed this habit, probably from his weird friends at school. And he couldn't do it in school, or at home, so this is the only time he got absolute freedom.
"Shit, this is cold. Why were you hiding this?", Hailey asked Dash.
"Well, I could've eaten it all at lunch today, but I couldn't find anyone of you at that time so I saved it", He explained with his mouth full, chewing loudly.
Hailey and I both smiled at him. He was always the caring little kid. Even though not so little now. He had gotten a new haircut, cutting his long blonde locks and turning them in to some sort of a spikey thing on top of his head, and his voice had gotten deeper as well. But he still had those baby eyes, so we could never take him seriously.
"I may not be able to meet here tomorrow. My mom's making me stay at home and watch over the little kids", Hailey sighed.
Her family was huge. Seven siblings, and five of them younger than her. I felt sorry for her almost all the time.
"Have fun", I smiled sympathetically at her, which only made her scowl.

It was almost five when we left The Tea House. We all had to be home before 7pm, and hence we always managed our time accordingly.
Dash and Hailey went the other way, sharing a cab on the way home. They lived close to each other so that was always more suitable. Plus, Dash would never let her go home alone. The fear of getting robbed or kidnapped was always strong in the citizens of this city.
Aaron and I prefered to walk home. He lived two streets away from mine, and he would walk me halfway , just far enough for my family to not see.
The sun was still out and was burning on to my back as we slowly walked. I was tired, and the weight of my bag was killing my shoulders.
"What's with your hair, goldie?", He smirked, throwing his cigeratte on the ground and crushing it with his shoe.
"It's just frizzy, you know how it gets", I tiredly explained.
My hair wasn't golden, it was brown. But in the sun it managed to turn in to red somedays, and also yellow. Hence the nickname.
"Didn't sleep last night?", He asked.
"Just a little", I told him.
He probably knew everything anyway. I didn't know if he spied on me or not, but he seemed to know all these things that I sometimes tried to hide from Dash and Hailey.
"My brother's back home", He said, and was news.
His brother, Harry, had been studying in Canada all alone for the last couple of months. He was a real ass, that one. And I knew Aaron hated having him around.
"It'll be fine. Just ignore it all. That's what I do", I didn't know how to comfort people and I sucked at it.

We reached the end of the street, where we had to part ways. Aaron pushed his messy hair from his forehead and chewing gum out from his pocket. He offered me one, but I declined. I hated chewing gum.
"Well, go on", He said.
"Yeah, don't stand there like a creep", I laughed at him and started walking him.
When I got halfway, I looked back and saw him still standing there. He never left until I actually made it to my house.
Him and Dash were always so overprotective of us. Ever since we were little, they had assumed the responsibility of looking out for us all the time. It was nothing to complain about actually. During these times, the unsafeness of this city was on the rise, and you could never be too sure of anything.