Chapter 2.

His lips were perhaps icy cold, but when the night begin to slip from the hold of our hands, they bore balminess. I underwent such emotions after a stretched time, I could not recall. The previous days were almost obscure in my head.

He was like a frozen lake. If you drowned in it for longer, your body would thaw, catching hyperthermia.

His chilled lips planted my heart with so much warmth, and my body required more. I yanked him close. I remember deepening the grasp of my lips on his as I grasped his soft cheeks.

But soon it ended. The sensation of his lips had to depart, and he vanished, leaving his footsteps behind, making a couple with my footsteps, which made crossing paths with his.

The morning after that night was somewhat altered as well. I didn't understand the blazing feeling in my heart. I recalled his lips as soon as I woke up, still breathing his left scent.

I saw the vibrant sky through my kitchen window, then the unsettled sea, as my eyes followed the sun starting to glare on my face.

My heart was in a whirl. Hot and cold. Altogether.

I cooked breakfast and lunch for me and my brother and yelled at him to hurry, like always.

After he left for Mrs. Dalvin's house, I cleaned up the kitchen and got ready for the day.

I gazed at the sea one more time as I locked the door of my house. It looked welcoming. But the marvelous glimmers of the sun were more influential, and I shifted my gaze to the path commencing right beneath the few stairs attached to the porch of my house.

Another day began as I cleaned the table for the customers, who just entered, never forgetting the sea, which always seizes me and my mind. Why did my father say this place can give you poise? Because to me it widens the void in my heart.

I stood frozen, wavering my eyes with the sea waves as my brother showed up. I was not expecting my brother to arrive so soon.

He usually arrives with Mrs. Dalvin around 11 am, but today he appeared at 9 am and alone. One hour past since I opened the restaurant. The same hour which takes me to set up everything before customers start coming.

"Why are you here so early? And where is Mrs. Dalvin?" I asked, following his steps to the counter, where he started making a cup of chai for himself.

"Mrs. Dalvin went to buy fish from Mr. Naik'. He hadn't been going anywhere to sell fish. Recently, he started selling them from his house. So, she went there."

"Why has he not been coming?" He yawned, signifying the lack of sleep as I began grinding the coffee beans.

"I don't know. She was saying something about a creature that he saw in the sea." He responded as he waited for the water to boil in a pot.

"Creature?" I inquired, retarding the grinding.

"I don't know much about it." He added as he added the chai patti, sugar, and milk to the boiling water.

"Where does he live?" I watched him sit on the chair, facing his back to the customers, alongside the left side of the counter, which shelters every part of his body but half of his back.

"He lives by the sea as well. I wanted to go with her, but I hadn't asked for your permission. So, I didn't."

"Why do you want to go there?" I asked as I placed the coffee in the filter.

"To know more about this creature. So, may I go next time?" He required my permission, and I didn't know if I should have allowed him. But I said yes.

I was content enough about him wanting something.

It had already been afternoon, the second time of the day when we eat together. I always close the café during our lunch, wanting to spend as much as time possible with my brother.

"I will buy some of the fish from Mr. Naik when I visit him. Mrs. Dalvin says the fishes he catches are fresh and distinct in taste." He informed me as he opened the lunch box, sitting at the same table where the customers were enjoying theirs a while ago.

I served him the rice from the lunchbox, which he prefers to eat in every meal, serving myself chapatti as I served potato sabzi as well. "Then I will cook it nicely for you."

Our days had been going on like that, busy and together.

The eventful chatter of sellers hustled as they shouted the prices of the vegetables and all sorts of stuff.

The sun was setting, turning the brown of the market into gold. The small stalls dazzled with the beauty they had covered their stalls with. Such as sketches, garlands, and cutouts of paper.

Homemade pickles, potato chips, lassi, milk, dried apple, fried food, and more. The recipes of their own. The taste of their preserved family recipes.

Notebooks, rouge, flowers, rice, knitted clothes, garlands made of jasmine, and more, were being sold at such cheap prices that it was unbelievable. The city tagged everything way pricier than the products that those people sold on the small stalls set by each other.

Someone looked young and someone old. Someone sold the things required and someone sold, admired.

I saw a group of small kids playing by the streets as they ate the candies they had bought from the market. And the adults filled their tote bags with vegetables and supplies of their needs.

A lady who walked by me had a gajra in her braided hair. Garland, made from white jasmine, which reminded me of my mother cooking with the same hair as my father admired her, from the dining table, sat right beside the kitchen.

Abruptly and clipping my thoughts, I noticed my brother jostle into the crowd. "Be careful?" I warned. I knew he was going to be excited about this place. But that much? No.

"Worry for yourself." He paused at the stall where an old man sold seeds.

I crackled, sighting him being a child again, as I stepped into the shop which sold electronics. That was the only dissimilar place from the rest of the place. A modern place.

"What did you buy from that electronics shop?" My brother asked, pointing to the bag I bought from the electronics shop, sitting beside the paper bag he got from the seed shop, in the basket of his bicycle.

"It's huge. What is it?" He added as we strolled back to our house, with bags full of groceries, some I held, and some were tied to his bicycle.

"Light bulbs. I thought we should brighten our porch. Someone said it was almost like no one lived there."

"Who?" my brother asked, as we shifted from an empty road to a muddy pathway, which was surrounded by plants and shrubs along with trees at a mere distance.

The leaves still had the droplets of rain stored in them; the mud was still somewhat wet inside that wilderness.

"Someone I met yesterday," I said as I walked beside him, braiding my hair.

"A friend?" He questioned, squinting his questing eyes at me as we walked slowly.

"When are you going to make friends?" I declined his question, not knowing how to reply. I didn't know if he was a friend or a mere accident.

I added, "You should make friends too."

"I told you I don't need friends." He added with defiance, gazing at our appearing house.

Our conversation went on as I served dinner to both of us. "It smells nice, just like Mother's." He froze, right the second he uttered those words, as my heart stopped, and my smile dropped, when I heard him mention Mother.

The silence breezed in, with a window being open because of the mighty air.

"I should close that." He stammered, and quickly got up, walking up to the kitchen from where I sat a few steps apart, astonished.

Somehow, he was very talkative that night, during dinner, talking about how he'd plant the seeds he had bought. How Mrs. Dalvin will be proud of him and how his grown vegetables will taste the best in the world.

"You should bring your friend here sometimes." He added as he regarded me, closing the curtain of his room.

"Do you want to meet him?" I ruffled his calm hair as I tucked him under the blanket.

Then suddenly he boomed, jolting my consciousness. "It's a boy?" I nodded, seeing him quickly sit up at the speed of lightning.

"Then I must meet him! I want to know what kind of guy he is."

His worried remarks left me crackling. "Don't laugh. I mean it."

I stood by his bed, regarding his complaint about his worry as he went on. "We don't know what kind of guy he is. I need to make sure you're safe with him."

He was right. We didn't.

"Don't worry about that. Just sleep." I tucked him in again, discounting his glaring and bewildered eyes. He wasn't angry but astonished. Somewhat cute.

"I need to meet him!" His loud demand muffled as I closed the door of his room behind me. "Good night, Taksh."

I assumed I had forgotten that he mentioned our mother out of the blue, but once I was outside, on the porch, struggling to set lightbulbs, I was reminded of it again.

The memories just kept distressing my balance and my control.

It was the first time he had mentioned her after that day in the hospital, where we found our parents, dead.

He cried for almost two days and denying to eat for a month while I tried my best to not showcase my fear of losing him as well. I wanted to be good, at least to him.

I wanted to take care of him. I wanted to just be available at times for his needs. And I did everything to help him cure his pain.

I even took him to that place where I never wished to go. The countryside was never on the list of my favorites. To portray that I even discarded my father when brought up the idea to live the rest of our lives at that place.

We fought on this very subject. He was fixed on his idea and I was on mine. We both weren't ready to settle.

I stood by the railing again, being consumed by the heaviness of memories like always, as I found the same young man sitting on the very same spot.

The moon had attracted all of his attention as he sat with his arms tied around his knees.

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