The Hooded Hijabi

One. Two. Three.

He opens the tiny, black box and takes a delicate, rose gold ring - with tiny diamonds embedded in it - out of the box. "Fatima told me you like delicate things and that you're not into diamonds or gold so
...", he scratches his head and continues to speak,"I didn't know what to get you. Hope this is good enough."

"Are you kidding me!", I exclaim, slapping his arm lightly,"It's gorgeous!" I look at my hand on his bicep and awkwardly remove it, continuing. "And it's even better because I can wear it at all times."

The tension from his face fades away as he puts his hand forward asking for mine. I place my hand into his and he slips the ring into the ring finger of my left hand.

"Your hands are pretty.", he says.

"Alhamdulillah. But man, some girls keep giving me the evil eye. You don't know.", I say almost speaking to myself.

He smiles at me and gently places a kiss on my hand. Shivers run down my spine and I feel my hand tingling as his breath lightly brushes on the skin of my hand.

My face turns scarlet and I feel like pulling my hand away but I suppress the urge so that I don't offend him.

Instead, I keep looking down at my hand as he raises his head up again and looks at me, smiling.

"You know I have a thing for pretty hands? So weird, right? What's even weirder is that I love Ichigo's hands too.", I say nervously. "I mean, how can someone love an anime character's hands. Pcch! BUT I totally love him. He-...", I stop and look into his eyes.

"I'm doing it again, right?", I ask, my eyebrows arched. I heave a sigh but realise that Azan had let go of my hand.

"Am I making you nervous?", he asks, smiling at me.

I pout a little and nod slowly.

He gives out a light chuckle and says, "Good."

I look up at him and open my mouth to speak but he doesn't give me a chance.

"Start the engine? Let's see how you drive.", he teases me.

"Oh, please! I had been practicing driftin-...", I stop midway and turn to face him.

"Azan? I want to know more about you.", I say, my face almost sullen.

His lips curve upwards and he says gently,"Ask anything you'd like to know. I'll answer everything."

I finally had the opportunity to dig deeper into his life, personality, likes and dislikes; everything that I was curious about but suddenly my mind betrays me and goes blank.

"Uhh, favourite ice-cream flavour?", I ask awkwardly.

"Peanut butter."

"Cool."

"That's it?", he asks after a brief moment of silence.

"Dang it, I can't think of anything. You're sitting so close to me! There's so much that I had to ask!", I cry out, slamming on the steering wheel.

Azan puffs out air through his nose out of amusement and says,"How about we get to know each other gradually?"

I look at his face and nod.

"Can I ask you a question now?", he asks.

I nod and wait for him to speak.

"Who's this Ichigo?", he asks childishly, looking puzzled.

I burst out laughing and tears come out of my eyes as I place my head on the steering wheel.

Five minutes later we're on the road talking about our favourite food, color, surah and so on. I am laughing as he tells me about an incident when a girl in his high school rejected him because he eats too much when my view is blinded by a jeep coming towards me.