Crossroads | ✓

f i f t e e n

Song attached: Cold Water by Major Lazer feat. Justin Bieber and MØ                                  

                                               f i f t e e n

                                               [ m i s u n d e r s t o o d ]

"Harder."

"I'm trying!" I huffed.

"Harder!" Kiranya hissed, "just a little more."

"Can't you see that I'm trying?"

Kiranya tried to blow the sticky hair off of her eyes but the sweat trickling down her forehead and cheeks only made it harder. Her hands were busy trying to steady me.

"Man up a little," she muttered. "Faster."

I saw the frustration built up in her eyes and slowly, a sense of dread started pumping it's way into my heart. Maybe I really wasn't manly enough.

"I'm new to this," I started defensively, "with more practise, I'll be better in this in no time. Then it'll be me guiding you."

Kiranya scoffed.

"As if."

And she didn't stop there. "If you can't even kick start a bike, then how the heck will you ride one?"

"There's always the auto start!"

She shot me a look that seemed to scream 'you dirty muggle' and I shut my mouth up. Biting my lower lip, I kicked the metal bar one last time and surprising me, the engine roared to life.

"Heck yeah!" I pumped my fist in the air. "Did you see that? I did it, BookManiac12."

She gave me an unamused look before studying her wrist watch. "After uncountable failed attempts for more than twenty minutes."

After associating with her, my dignity store was lit up on fire so there wasn't any left to even cringe. "The bottom line is," I replied brightly, "I did it."

She just rolled her eyes.

Kiranya showed me the brake and the clutch, and taught me how to change gears in her huge monster of a motorbike. A friendly advice to people who are going to learn to ride a motorbike for the first time like me. Never learn it with something that weighs hundreds of pounds like a Royal Enfield Classic 500.

Like a snail, I rode the bike forward while in the background Kiranya kept grumbling about how the slower the bike goes, the tougher it becomes for an amateur like me to balance it. In my defence, I didn't want to cra—

"Oomph!"

The world spun a 360 degrees before me in a quick blur. I groaned, clutching my knee. The back wheel of the bike spun beside me. It didn't feel like I just died or anything but a roundhouse kick on my knee would sum the pain up. Kiranya looked utterly horrified as she ran to were I had fallen.

I chuckled through the pain. "Shh it's okay, I'm —" She almost skid by her knees on the ground, stopping in front of the bike and surveyed it. I pressed my lips nodding. Of course. "The bike's fine," I muttered.

She heaved a relieved sigh before turning to me, black eyes choking fire balls. "You would be dead by now if it wasn't."

How I feel the love.

She forcibly pushed my hands that were clutching my knee and I winced a little. She examined my exposed knee which my shorts did nothing to hide and when it didn't show any signs of damage (and embarrassingly not even a scratch), she got up from the crouch.