5 Cab Chaos

"Oh! So you are finally awake?" A deep husky voice called Ayana as she raised herself.

Her vision was blurry at first and but very soon it finally cleared only to make her jolt from surprise. She found herself sitting in the backseat of a car along with a stranger in expensive clothings. Upon a brief observation, she realized this was actually a local cab, and they were heading toward her home!

"Who are you? How did I end up here?" Ayana looked back at the man with terror filled eyes, who surprisingly, was staring at her the whole time.

He was around six foot tall in height and had a good muscular physique. Although she wasn't so sure under the influence of alcohol, his eyes and hair looked pitch black. He was wearing a fitting blue suit and a loose silver watch on his broad wrist.

'Is he some politician or a businessman?' Ayana tried to take a good look of his face, but no matter how many times she tried, she couldn't see anything except his vampire-like pale skin and a heinous smile with lips moving.

"Am I that beautiful that you can't avert your gaze off me, even for a second?" The man smirked while looking straight into her eyes.

The revolt after hearing his words made Ayana realised the extremely close space between them.

She wasn't even aware that all this time she had been sleeping on his lap, and after waking up, she had her arms touching his subconsciously.

The thought was so repulsive that it almost made her jump away like a cat and sticked to the other corner of the seat. 'What a creep!' she remarked.

"Beautiful? You? Ha! Don't make me laugh! I can't even see your face properly you pervert! How dare you take advantage of me when I was unconscious! Tell me, is the cab driver included as well?!" Ayana scoffed while preparing her fist for self defense, but the man kept looking at her wide-eyed as if he couldn't understand what she was saying.

"Pfft! It seems there's a little misunderstanding between us young miss." The man chuckled at her getting all heat up for nothing and asked her to calm down a bit, but Ayana tossed his offer away stating that she knew how all jerks like him behave to lure innocent girls into the dark and then blackmail them.

This time, the man got really angry upon getting all disrespected, and demanded an apology from her. But Ayana denied it right away.

"If you are innocent as you claimed to be, then why don't you tell me your name and office number." She demanded.

"I already told you my name and the company I work in, back in the bar. It's not my fault that you forgot it so easily" He explained in a suppressed voice, somehow controlling his anger, but Ayana wouldn't show even a trace of guilt on her face. Instead she yelled back at him, assuming his words were mocking her.

"What did you say?!" She turned around agressively and faced towards him.

Seeing her act like this, the man's thread of patience also snapped and he also began to yell back.

"Oh right! How can I forget? Of course you don't remember anything. You were so busy being wasted after all. Do you even know that you slept like a bear in the bar and I had to carry you all the way to the cab." He scoffed sarcastically and continued.

"And yet here I am like an idiot, who took the courtesy to atleast take you back to your home safely. But who would've known, you would be that ungrateful kind of a brat." He finally lashed out the anger he has been suppressing for so long.

"How dare you call me a bear?"

"Oh really?! What about the time you called me a pervert?!"

As their argument heated gradually, the driver tried to interrupt them to make a small announcement, but both of them were so preoccupied, that they didn't even notice him talking.

"Oh my! Does truth hurt? If you were not, then why would you make me sleep on your lap?!"

"That's because otherwise it would've hurt your neck even more! Also, what about the time when you were constantly staring at me with your arms rubbing mine after you woke up?! Don't tell me you are the actual pervert here!"

"Wha?! That was because I couldn't see anything properly! If I would've knoooo-!!!" As Ayana was about to complete her sentence, the driver pressed the break all of a sudden and turned the wheels instantaneously at full speed.

During the chaos, Ayana was about to hit her head from the back of the seat, but the man immediately pulled her into his arms and wrapped himself around her tightly while holding a support.

After a long screech of tires skidding in circles, everyone sat in silence with green light of indicator flickering in darkness. The roads were all empty and it echoed with the sound of the indicators blinking rhythmically.

It seemed that the driver wasn't able to make turn on time. Fortunately, the car didn't crashed into anything but the driver immediately rose up from his seat to check it anyways.

Meanwhile both of them were still frozen from the shock until Ayana came back to her senses and gently tapped on the man's shoulders to relax, but he still hadn't recovered from shock. His eyes were tightly shut and had a strong grip around Ayana's torso.

Her face was locked as she couldn't bring herself to push that cold smooth skin away from her face.

"Hey, everything's okay. You can relax now." She said as she tried removing his hands, but failed. After a while, the man suddenly came back to his senses and flinched back upon noticing how strongly he was holding onto her.

"I.. I'll go out and check if everything's okay." He said while rubbing the back of his neck in awkwardness and immediately left without giving Ayana a chance to speak again.

She was all alone now. The sudden shock had temporarily washed her drunkenness for the moment. The bright yellow beam of streetlights illuminating the dust particles in the car space bought Ayana a feeling of guilt for being so judgemental. She was feeling remorseful upon what she'd said all this time.

'What if he's actually a nice guy?! Oh no! I called him a pervert and what not. I must apologise!'

As she was repenting over her actions, a while later, a distant sound of two people approaching the car ringed her ears. It was the driver and the man, but somehow they seemed quite frustrated at each other.

"...Mister, it's not about the money I am talking about." The driver said as he abruptly turned back at him in mid walk.

"Then, what is it? If it's your job position you're worried about then don't worry, I'll make sure you don't get fired. Or is it money for tyres?" The man monotonously said as he pulled his wallet out but the driver waved his hands to make him stop immediately.

"Mister..sigh... let's forget this. Please go back to your seat. I'll be back in a minute." The driver said and walked away while covering his face.

However, the man didn't gave a second thought about it and did as he said.

Ayana stared at him in astonishment as how could he be so dumb?! Is he an introvert or a cold hearted person, she couldn't tell.

Being welcomed with an uncomfortable stare again, he jumped into the car with his brows frowned.

"What?" He asked as the hole drilling on his head just wouldn't stop.

"Are you an idiot?" She said bluntly.

"WHAT?!"

The man raised his eyebrow as he wasn't in the mood to go for an another round. But Ayana immediately interrupted him before he could question any further and said.

"Whatever you people talked about over there, we need to apologise to him, properly. We are at fault here."

"Wait a minute! Why are we the ones at fault when he was the one driving this car?! It's his responsibility to drive properly, not ours." He said blatantly.

It confused him since it didn't make sense to whatever she said at all. Being dropped at locations in hands of a well-skilled drivers since childhood, he never once cared about maintaining the disturbance level he caused to the driver. Not that he was a troublesome child, but compared to this argument, he has seen a lot worse in other's cases.

Nobody could predict what happens behind those black tinted glass windows except the ones inside.

Ayana felt equally perplexed as she could also see he wasn't saying all of this out of arrogance, instead he genuinely didn't understand her reasoning, which was very absurd.

As they both shared a moment of awkward silence, suddenly the driver entered the car and started the engine swiftly without saying anything.

Seeing this as the perfect chance, Ayana slightly poked the man, indicating him to apologise but the man shook his head and whispered in disagreement.

Ayana tapped on his shoulders slightly, telling him everything would be okay and called the driver right away without his consent. The driver sat there in silence for a while but answered anyway since it was his job afterall.

"Yes mam?" He said monotonously with complete disinterest.

"Umm, about earlier. I would like to apologise for everything we did. We discussed it, and he feels that way too." She apologized sincerely and turned around to give the man his chance.

The driver was still focused on the road ahead. It looked as if he wanted to confirm that from the other passenger as well.

Ayana quickly catched onto this, and pulled the man in near his the gap.

"You think so too right?" Ayana widely smiled waiting for him to agree to her, but the man simply stared at her with fed up eyes.

After a long pause of awkwardness he finally looked into the mirror but instead of apologising, he decided to present his own point of view.

"No. I- pfffff..urk! I do!..I apologise!" Fortunately, Ayana hit him on the side of his torso with an elbow in time and set death glare upon him to apologise immediately.

The driver knew he was forced to do so, since he was a tough nut to crack, but considering the earnest apology from Ayana, he still forgave them and told them to never fight again in the back seat, since it always distracts the drivers.

They both apologised again, but before starting the journey, the driver suggested to turn ON the music, to divert their minds from each other. While Ayana agreed to it, the man remained silent, as if he was sulking for all the wierd things she forced him to do.

"So what song would you like to play?" The driver asked as he took out his phone and connected it to the music system.

"Hmm, i don't know... Hey! How about we play the music of your taste? What's your favourite?" Ayana cheerfully turned back to the man to make up for her past actions.

For sometime, he remained seated with gaze fixed at a distant pole but as once again the intense stare began poked his side of the head, he couldn't help but share his music taste.

"Moonlight sonata." He said in his lowest voice possible.

After no response followed by, it appeared that none of them heard him properly so he repeated again.

"Moonlight sonata by Beethoven. That's my favourite." He slightly turned his head to hide his pout.