The Impeccable Scar | COMPLETED ✓

T W E N T Y - N I N E

VANYA

I was about to close the café when Advik came. I shifted my attention to clock which reads half past twelve in the midnight. I knitted my eyebrows in confusion.

Why he's here at this time?

"Vanya?" He calls my name.

"Yes."

"Can I stay here?" He asks.

"Sure." Instead of asking him anything, I agree.

He passes me a pale smile and without saying a single word, he goes to a couch.

I stayed still, unable to understand his actions but I decided not to ask anything. So I shut down the café and came back only to find him staring outside the window with empty emotions.

I collected all the books from different tables and put them back to their respective places.

"Are you not going to ask anything?" He blurted out with his eyes still fixed on the other side of glass window.

"Are you comfortable enough to answer me?"

He chuckled, dryly.

"No. I am not."

"It's okay. Do you need coffee or something?"

"Just water would be fine."

I gave him a glass full of water which he drank in a go as if his throat was dry from years.

"You know Vanya, different is not beautiful."

I scanned his face to get something about what's going inside his mind but I found nothing.

Different is always beautiful.

I reminded myself despite hearing his words.

"Are you drunk?" I asked.

He shook his head in denial. "I don't do alcohol and cigarettes. I always wants to be good in eyes of everyone."

I waited patiently for him to say something but he didn't.

"Be good in eyes of yourself." I smiled.

He clicked his tongue like I said something which he heard thousands of time.

I pulled out a pack of cigarettes from my pocket and lighted one. As I took one smoke inside my throat, my nerves calmed on their own. My head feels light.

"You smoke?" He asks.

"Sometimes I do."

He looked at the cigarette for few seconds before turning his face away.

"Here, try once." I passed him.

He took it from me but his face was enough to tell that he was confused.

"I don't know how to use it." He said, breaking the silence.

I took it back from him and showed him how to inhale smoke from mouth and then to exhale from the nose.

He put his lips around the cigarette on the same spot where I did. I don't know if he did it purposely or not but I started getting butterflies in my belly.

"Fuck. This is shit." He rubbed it against the table after he started coughing.

I smiled. So basically he never smoked.

"I know it's up to you to smoke cigarettes or not but don't do it. Your lungs are your lifeline." He whispers in a hollow tone.

"You're too good, no?" I asked, still trying to hide my amusement.

He hides pain in his eyes but still afraid for his life?