Project Heart(h) ✓

Chapter Twelve

"He's nice," Banhi commented, off-handedly, but Junak knew her well enough to know what she was insinuating.

He rolled his eyes. "Will you stop trying to set me up with him?"

"I'm trying no such thing. You thought of it so maybe you're the one who wants it."

Junak gaped at her. He picked up the pillow lying next to him and threw it at her face.

"Ow, hey!" She grabbed the pillow and was about to return fire when Grandma appeared at the door, smiling. She hastily threw the pillow on the bed and said, "Aita."

Junak rolled his eyes.

"Here you are," Grandma said. "Where's Niribili?"

"She's out," Junak answered, then added, "Why, is something wrong?"

"No, no." She waved her hand dismissively. "The guys are fishing in our backyard, I thought you kids would be interested in watching. Or filming."

"Fishing?"

"Yeah. We have a pond in our backyard. Haven't you seen?"

There was a cluster of ominous-looking betelnut trees behind the house that Junak was too scared to cross, so no, he hadn't seen any pond. "Will you walk me to the pond?" he asked, shamelessly.

Banhi hit him on his shoulder, while his grandmother laughed. "Of course. I wouldn't want you to get lost now. Come on."

Junak got to his feet and then turned to Banhi. "You coming?"

She shook his head. "I got to finish some edits." She gestured at the laptop. "You go ahead. I'll join you."

"Okay."

***

In daylight, the trees weren't that scary. With his camera held close to his chest, he followed his grandmother as she led him through a narrow, worn-out trail through the tree line.

When they emerged on the other side, he stopped short on his tracks.

The pond was huge. It looked like it was quite deep too, its waters reflecting the blue sky overhead. Wide patches of grassy land lay around it, where a few cows are grazing.

On the other end of the pond, several metres away from where Junak was standing, were two men, waddling through the water, without their shirts on. One of them sported the annoyingly familiar mop of curly hair.

As Junak contemplated his next move, Grandma came to stand beside him and said, "Go on. I'm sure you can manage the rest of the way." She chuckled. Before he could reply, she turned her face away and shouted, "Dikhou, look who wanted to come watch."

If there was a cliff nearby, Junak would've no doubt jumped right off of it. "Aita!" he hissed.

"What?"

UGH!!!! Old people could not take hints!

"Hey!" Dikhou called, raising an arm. "Come on."

Surely, it would look odder if Junak walked away now. Right? Sucking in a deep breath, he turned away from his grandmother and began walking along the bank, towards Dikhou. The pond looked even deeper from up close and he noticed an occasional fish breaking the surface. It was all very pretty and all, except the fact that someone there was half-naked; which would've been cool, really, if not for the weird incident that happened last night.

Which, Junak was sure, he was overthinking. Like, nothing happened. Right?

Nothing. Happened.

As Junak neared, he saw a large net was spread along the pond. Jatin was walking alongside it, raising the net and collecting any fish that tried to cross through it and got stuck.