ARSHVELLO

The bond grows stronger

- "Oh, you're fully wetted!" Jack said.
"I'm bringing a towel for you, just a minute."  He moved for the towel.
Aarav was standing inside the door, looking at the house carefully. It looked nice, especially the aquarium stairs, fishes  gently swimming in colourful blue water. There were sofas on the left of the stairs, near the massive cinematic window, from where Jack was waving at him. The kitchen was on the right side, it wasn't that visible, as it was in the rear part of the house. A chandelier  was over him, looking like many planets, it shone in the dark. Although the house was so adorable, just perfect, he always dreamt of owning a house like this, and live together along with his parents. For a minute he was lost in his imagination, imagining him being a great scientist and owning this house. Mom calling out for breakfast, he didn't get much time to finish it properly. While eating, there was always a phone in his hand, he was busy talking to people. Then leaving quickly for an interview on the TV, the breakfast not fully finished. Dad was reading paper, with his two hands. He called back Aarav saying "We're so proud of you", with a tender smile. He was about to reply but the imagination was shattered, Jack stepping down from upstairs, with a towel.
- "Here you go." He said,  tenderly smiling.
- "Thank you." He  replied with a rare smile, wiped off himself.
It was a nice state, at night, still raining. Jack told Aarav that it didn’t rain usually. But maybe the day was different. Aarav was sitting on the sofa, enjoying the rainy weather. Jack came with two cups of coffee, both of them took a sip.
- "Ummm.... It's nice." Aarav said, looking impressed.
- "You're a nice coffee maker!"
- "Glad you liked it!" He replied, full of expression.
- "All credit goes to Jen  though."
Aarav was paused for a moment, hearing the name, his expression was suddenly changed, trying to hide the changed expression as much as he could.
- "Where's she by the way?" His gesture seemed totally unconfident, uttering every word carefully.
- "Who?"
Aarav was just silent, couldn't make it further. The silence from Aarav made Jack realize he was talking about Jenny.
- "Oh, you must be talking about Jenny. She has gone out to buy some necessary things. Will be back soon." He replied. Aarav was still quiet.
- "Do you want to talk to her?" He asked, as he wasn't liking the silence.
- "No, no, nothing like that." He said so fastly, a little loudly, it was clear that he wasn't fully saying the truth.
- "I really liked the history." He said, trying to distract himself from what he said.
- "Which history?"  He looked up at him.
- "The history of Ricilaise."
- "Oh, that history." He looked a bit disturbed.
- "Were you thinking something else?" 
- "No, no." He justified, looked quite confident.
- "Have you read it though?" He gazed at him, hardly hoping  to hear a no.
- "Yes, it was great. I'm thrilled already."
Jack's face was expressionless for a few seconds.
- "How long do you know?"
- "What do you mean?" surprised.
- "Actually I've never read the book properly." He clarified.
- "Can you tell me the story?" He looked hopeful.
The request from Jack sounded strange to Aarav. How could not  somebody  know about their own motherland's history? Jack didn't seem that he knew nothing.
- "That's okay." He replied,  with a strange gesture,  his voice was down. He started to explain, carefully, from the beginning, to the ending. It took straight one hour.  All the time Jack seemed to know the history fully, his body language was speaking he knew nothing, but his eyes were speaking something else. Aarav didn't focus on his eyes, to make it more suspicious, and kept moving further. Finally he was done.
- "That's it?"
- "Yeah." He breathed.
- "Nothing more to be told?"
- "No" he replied, doubtful.
- "Why are you behaving so strange?" It was out of his mouth finally.
- "Nothing, actually I was imagining myself in the story. That's why." He replied, his eyes busy in playing hide and seek.
- "Okay." He pretended it was okay, but everything was still suspicious. He didn't drag the conversation further.
- "Here's your book. Thank you for it." He tenderly smiled, giving the history book to Jack.
- "You're most welcome." He smiled back.

They talked for sometimes, about the sudden mess of nowadays weather, until the rain stopped. The city was too calm compared to previous time,  nobody could understand what the off days were for. The moon was on the point, clouds slowly moving on, the moon also playing hide and seek.  Jack opened the window, a wave of wind entered inside, the aroma after rain was blowing their mind. At such a moment, the calling bell rang, the sound was of a hundred  of birds tweeting  together.
- "I think Jenny's back." Jack moved to open the door. Aarav started preparing himself, getting a bit uncomfortable, resitting  politely.
- "Hey Jack? What's up? Hope you're fine." It was Jenny, wearing a black skirt, her golden red hair was opened, holding some bags in her hand.
- "Yeah, all okay." He smiled.
Jenny got in, saw Aarav sitting on the sofa, not eye contacting, looking on the floor, pretending he didn't see her coming. She took her eyes off also, and moved to upstairs handovering the bags to Jack. Aarav looked up for once, then took it off again. 
- "Won't you come downstairs?"  He loudly said as the voice couldn't properly reach at Jenny.
- "Let me get freshen up first." Her voice was fading up.
- "Fine...." He softly said, though it wasn't hearable to Jenny. 
- "Excuse me, let me put the things in the kitchen." He said to Aarav.
- "sure, please."