Talk of the Town

10 //

Red. White. Blue. Green. Orange. Purple. Grey.

Now, why is Miraya listing all the colours?

Because she's trying to prove that the probability of Shray wearing a crisp black shirt that looks like it was tailored to hug his toned body is very very low. Out of the broad variety of existing colours, why oh why did he have to pick out the black one?

She squeezes her eyes close and opens them. Shray is standing before her in the damn shirt and jeans that look perfect on him, a smirk playing on his lips. And his eyes are on her.

He knows.

He knows that she finds him out-of-the-friend/enemy-zone attractive whenever he dons black.

Then that very slow bulb in her head lights up with a bling.

He knows because she told him.

It was ethnic day at school. Might as well call it Truth day after what happened.

Ethnic day means every guy was going to be eyeing a girl as if she's never been beautiful before and... vice versa. As for Miraya, she loved a sari but she didn't like the idea of going to school in a sari. At that age, she wasn't used to wearing one and her mother wasn't around to correct her dress if her draping slipped from its position. And since she has to look grand, she has to wear long earrings and leave her hair loose to be on the same level with other girls. It wasn't as easy as it looked. That was why Miraya was glued to her seat, not even bothering to go to the canteen. She couldn't move.

She sent Shray instead.

The boys, for ethnic day, usually paired a shirt with a veshti, which was a white stretch of cloth with printed borders that should be wrapped around the waist and fastened in a... way she didn't quite understand. It was less complicated than draping a sari but she didn't know the technicality of it.

That year, there was a trend going on. Boys paired a black shirt and veshti together and somehow the pre-existing combination suddenly turned into the most appealing look for a man. And not surprisingly, her class boys decided to hop on that trend and colour-coordinate as well. She didn't think much of it.

But oh boy, she was in trouble when she saw Shray in it.

She blushed when he flicked her earrings and said they were weird on her. It was that bad.

And Miraya had a boyfriend.

Nothing made sense.

That was when she decided that Shray in black was dangerous to her well-being and inner peace. She refused to relive the three years she secretly pined for Shray under the security of the best friend label. That story was tragic and it was over and it was buried in the seabed of the Arabian Sea nice and deep with no chance of excavation.

Shray came back from the canteen with two ice lollies. And the end of his veshti was clutched in his hand, as if he was the nonchalant hero of a south-indian film. Good lord.

He placed the lollies on the table and picked up the other end of the veshti to fold it around his knees. His legs with fine hair were visible.

"NO!" Miraya blurted. "No, you're not doing that. Put the damn thing down or I'll complain about you to Meera Ma'am for public indecency."

Shray laughed. But he let the cloth fall back over his legs. "What? Why?"

"Just don't. It's... not nice."

"Is it that bad that you can't even look at me?" His voice was low and offended. Miraya knew he cared about his looks a lot.