True Purpose

c h a p t e r 26

Hassan felt like a fool, and even though he was grateful to Allah that things hadn't become awkward between him and Zaynab after that tiny encounter, as sweet as he had found it, he still couldn't help but feel like he had done something very foolish, not to mention extremely risky. He was just so caught up in the moment and had acted based on what his heart desired, not what his brain told him to do.

Sure, Zaynab was his wife. But the reason as to why he kept on berating himself was because he hadn't even told her that he loved her yet he went ahead and done something like that! How could he have been so rash?! Without telling her his true feelings towards her, he had no way of knowing how she felt towards him! What if she didn't reciprocate his feelings? What if she didn't like the fact that he had done that to her, but she only responded to it because she felt obliged to do so?

Hassan knew that now since he had gone ahead and done what he did, it was high time that he told her how he felt about her. She deserved to know! He didn't want to make things awkward between them, nor did he want to repeat anything like that if  she didn't reciprocate his feelings, as much as he hoped that wasn't the case. And he also wanted to know how she felt about him.

There was no doubt that Hassan had enjoyed every single second of those few special moments they shared, but he would have preferred to do it knowing that Zaynab knew how he felt about her and that she reciprocated his feelings.

But right then, Zaynab was away. She was at her friend's place, where they were having a study date, and along with that, Zaynab was also teaching her friend some of the important fundamentals of Islam that she herself had recently learnt from him.

The thought of Zaynab's friend made Hassan remember a very important matter at hand, and since he needed to take his mind off from the previous day's little incident, Hassan went to Yasir's room which was downstairs beside his sisters' room.

Yasir's door was open as usual, with Yasir sitting down with a pile of papers on the table. Being a genius in Geography, Yasir was an A-level geography teacher in the boys' school at only 24 years of age, but since geography was not a widely selected subject, Yasir was free most of the time which was why he was made a class teacher in primary school, and to be precise, a year five class teacher.

Hassan entered Yasir's room and sat on his bed. Yasir turned around in his chair to face his brother, who seldom entered anyone else's room unless he needed to discuss important matters.

"How's it going, bro?" Hassan asked Yasir.

"Fine, Alhamdulillah. Frankly, I'm just feeling disappointed," Yasir said, gesturing to the papers on his desk. "If you read these boys' answers here, you'll even wonder how eighteen and nineteen year old boys are able to think so childishly!" Yasir shook his head in disapproval.

"Well, you're their teacher! It's your duty to make them better at the subject!" Hassan said, shrugging. "So anyway...what's new?"

Yasir shot Hassan an odd look. "Dude, can you come out with whatever you came here to tell me? Because I know you well enough to know that you're not here for some friendly chit-chat!"

"Wow, you sure do know me too well!" Hassan chuckled. "Anyway, listen. I'm here to have a serious bro-to-bro conversation with you."

That made Yasir look at Hassan even more weirdly. "Hassan, what?" He said.

"Yeah, you heard me. A serious bro-to-bro chat," Hassan replied.

Still looking at Hassan as if he had grown another pair of eyes, Yasir nodded. "Alright, go ahead. What d'you wanna say?"

"What do you think about getting married?" Hassan asked.

Yasir seemed to choke on air as soon as the question was asked, because he immediately started coughing. Once he recovered, he looked at Hassan.