The Journey

Chapter 7

Aarav's POV-

I entered the coach after Ishitha and slid the door close behind me.

"That was amazing!" She laughed.

Laughing along with her, I shook my head.

"Indeed was." I stated.

"Shit. You actually cried." I said, facepalming myself and laughing more.

"It had to look real." She chuckled.

"Man that was amazing." I repeated her words.

Our laughter died soon and a comfortable silence enveloped us.

"You're fun." I stated.

"So are you."

Smiling, she looked out of the window, while I kept looking at her.

"You know, you're crazy." I said, smiling at her.

"I just live life to its fullest." She smiled.

"You never know, you might just die the next minute." She added, shrugging her shoulders.

"You don't share your sadness with others, do you?" I asked her.

"Why do you ask this?" She questioned back.

I didn't have anything to say and so just shrugged my shoulders. She smiled at me before saying, "I don't."

"Behind that beautiful smile hides so many untold stories." I said.

"Don't you think you're flirting too much with me?" She laughed.

"Too much is too less."

"Irrelevant, but okay."

We stayed quiet for a couple of minutes until her phone started ringing.

"Yeah, dadda?" She answered.

"Yeah?"

"Okay."

"Oh! You know what happ- oh, you're busy." She said, looking down, a sad smile on her face.

"You too take care. I love you, bye." She said, hanging up.

"Uncle?" I asked.

"Yeah. He just wanted to know if I had my lunch or not." She smiled, still looking down.

"You don't spend a lot of time with uncle, do you?" I questioned. She shook her head as if saying no.

"It's been three years since we had a proper family time together. After mom's death, dadda engaged himself too much in his work. I mean, yeah, we do spend some time together whenever I visit him, but it isn't like before. Not that I'm complaining, because dadda makes sure I'm safe and have nothing to worry about, he takes good care of me. It's just that, I miss the old him." She said, smiling, now looking up at me.

I smiled back at her, and started thinking of topics that would divert her mind from the current topic.

"Oh, I got something for you." I said.

"What?" She asked.

"Here." I said, handing her two Cadbury silk bars from my pocket. She laughed while taking it from my hand.

"Thank you."

She kept it on the tray like thing before saying, "I'm going to keep it here, you can have it too."

"And, after all the running I did back there, I'm quite tired, so, I'm going to have a small nap now." She added.

I nodded my head as she rested her body on the seat.

Hiding my face behind my phone screen, I saw her sleep peacefully. I wonder how she hides all her emotions behind that smile of her's.

Honestly, the first time uncle showed me her picture, I did feel some kind of attraction towards her, but it wasn't that strong.

I won't lie that I didn't stalk her profile on Instagram, because I did. The one thing I noticed is her smile has some kind of warmth, it's something like magic. I'm not being clichè here, but you know, sometimes, people have the most beautiful smile in the world. And, Ishitha is one of those people.

She has a beautiful smile.

Here's one more secret.

I've been following Ishitha from a spam account, but she doesn't have to know this. As of now. Or maybe never.

Anyway, when I saw Ishitha this morning, I was flabbergasted. For a minute I thought I was dreaming. But then later when I realised that I wasn't, I texted uncle asking if Ishitha was travelling to Ranchi by train, and also informed him that I was her coach mate.

The world indeed is a small place.

Looking at her sleep, a smile made its way onto my face.