Everything has changed

Chapter 9: the playful conversation starts

Kalim let out a chuckle, "Y'know sometimes... I miss when I was a kid.." He then briefly paused. "Those times when I could simply ride through the desert at night and see the world..."

"Adulthood sucks."

"It doesn't look like it to you though." Kalim laughed.

Jamil smirked, "Well it's different for everyone, I owe my carefree life to you though. Thank you."

The sultan smiled back at the viper, "I owe it to you anyways, you deserve it."

Jamil smiles and he releases a breath, "Nights like these are the best! Just us under the moon and there's not much people around."

"Well there's no people here to begin with." Kalim chuckled.

Kalim turned to Jamil again, "Ok truly, be honest."

Jamil blinked,"Ok."

"What made you go here at like 12am?" Kalim asked.

Immediately Jamil turned his head in the opposite direction, quick to scratch his nape and darted his eyes. Jamil cleared his throat, he stuttered. "W-well like I said why not-"

Jamil then took a glance at Kalim and he could see him raising his eyebrows and a smirk arose from his lips. That face screams "oh really?"Jamil thinks there's no reason to lie Kalim knew him all too well.

"Ok fine," Jamil sighed.

"Your brother, Khalil, came to me earlier."

Kalim's eyes furrowed. It's not because he necessarily didn't like Khalil, in fact, he's one of the nice ones in his sea of siblings; he's also one of the closest to Kalim. But Khalil is a troublemaker (though his intentions are never bad), and they have the same mother so he already got a gist of how this is gonna go.

"What did Khalil want with you?" But Kalim still asked.

"Oh yeah, he said that your mom has been crying wanting you to come home so on and so forth, and I'm supposed to be here to convince you, but I know you don't like that so let's just hangout I guess.."

Kalim did not respond immediately, blinking a few times, "Oh."

"Yeah, so enough about that, how's life going for you?" Jamil asked again.

Kalim released a long sigh, "Stressful."

"I figured."

"Well I at least talked to Amir earlier... He misses his mom..." Kalim frowns.

"Where did you track her last? Depending on where it is, I might be able to help .." Jamil reluctantly offers his help, quite honestly he would be 100 percent ok if Elena was gone- but Amir needs her and he misses her. So why should he be selfish now?

"You can?!" Kalim's eyes light up.

Jamil sighs, "Yes."

"She was last seen in an airport in the Queendom of Roses..."

Jamil puts his hand on his chin,"Airport huh... can you specify which one? There's about 3 major airports there."

"Wait a sec-" Kalim pulls out his phone in his pocket and opens up his messages and scrolls, "Ah ok, she was last seen at Rose kingdom international airport..."

"Rose kingdom international airport..." Jamil shuts his eyes as he thinks, he's been there before...

Where would a runaway wife go....?

"Any leads on where she was headed?" Jamil asked again.

"She was apparently seen heading north of Queendom of Roses.."

"Mhm..." Jamil snaps his fingers.

"There are a couple of places she could go if she was trying to run from the Asims..."

Jamil remembered an isolated part of Queendom of Roses he went to. If he was right she could be there, it resided in the northwest, the place was more of a rural town and the signal absolutely sucked. The place was quite...messy. He once encountered many thieves in that place, he guesses it's also a hub for crime.

There's also a "ghost town" In the northeast, well it's more empty than infested with ghosts. Jamil had happened to stumble upon the town after getting lost. The town was well- abandoned. It seems that no one even visited it as it was completely empty, every house he knocked on he got no response. Most people didn't seem to know about the place so it could be a contender for a hiding place.

There's also an extremely crowded place in the north. It's a mixing pot of all kinds of people as many commercial businesses were built there, is what they want you to believe, it's an absolute red light district when the sun sets. Jamil stumbled upon it after getting dragged there for a party, he's not gonna lie he had 'fun' at least. But it was a great place to hide too, it's so crowded it'll make it hard to be tracked and it's easy enough to blend in with the people if you play your cards right...

"And those are the places I could think of..." Jamil says.

"Wow... you've been to a lot of places.."

"Well, yeah, I sometimes just end up there cuz I get lost or something."

"I never thought you'd get lost." Kalim giggles.

"Well I didn't really care." Jamil looks at the stars, "I knew I'd come back home one way or another."

Kalim softly smiles, "I'm glad you're home."

Jamil almost jumps, that was smooth- he felt like there's a sudden heart attack in his chest. "H-hey about- about Elena!!"

Jamil felt like he was out of breath, he needed to get himself out of that situation or else he would blurt out unspeakable things.

"Right." Kalim composes himself, "I'll tell my men to search for those 3 locations you just mentioned."

"T-that's good." Jamil says, avoiding Kalim's gaze.

"Truly Jamil, thank you."

Jamil composes himself, he turns and looks Kalim in the eye, "Of course."

Jamil softly smiled, "You're hopeless without me."

Kalim chuckles, "Hehe, that I am"
__________

Kalim wakes up in his bed the next morning, the sun hitting his eyes. Days have suddenly become brighter these days.. Is it because he returned? He remembers last night, they had quite the conversations. Kalim thinks back to their teenage days, did they talk this deeply? Both knew that talking was something they both struggled at. And it led to very big consequences.. Kalim is glad that part of their lives are over.

He yawns and stretches, he then stands and goes to his bathroom to brush his teeth. He then immediately goes down, he could already hear a ruckus going on the moment he stepped on the stairs. Kalim arrives downstairs greeted by a loud voice.

"Yo yo yo! Big bro! It's me, your lil bro Khalil!"

Kalim grunted and his brows furrowed.

"I'm sorry Mr. Kalim... I tried to send him away but he kept insisting..."

Kalim sighs, "it's ok Nana... there's no getting around Khalil in the first place.."

He puts his hands on his head.

"𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘦..!"