Mehendi & Moonlight || Ana

Chapter 14:: Closer Steps

"I usually am great at spicy, this one's kind of strange." He whispered to himself as Nisha chuckled, "Are you sure you're not the one with a bad spice tolerance?"
"No!" He shook his head, "I really... am good at spicy! I even won the spice tolerance challenge with the colleagues I had in the States."

"You do realize the spice levels of the States are nothing compared to here." She gave him a knowing smile.
He sighed, "Shut up, Nisha."
"Busted, I see." She whispered, laughing loudly when he made a sour face, "I don't want this."
"Excuse me, please give us a less spicy plate here." She said.
"I didn't want a less spicy one. This just tastes bad—" She nearly gasped at his statement, gesturing for him to shut up. He turned his head to see the stall owner frowning at him.
"This tastes good! I'm the one bad with spice." He immediately added, panic-stricken.

"Stop laughing." He whispered but she couldn't stop. He stuffed a shell into his mouth as she halted, "That's really spicy though—"
Watching him chew it painfully as he panted, blowing his face, she didn't know how to react. She was silently laughing but felt pity for him.
"It was fine if you just told me you're not spice tolerant."
"I— this is all the fault of foreign countries. Gosh." He sighed. She quickly pulled out a water bottle from her handbag and handed it to him as he chugged it all in.

"I hate this." He whispered, looking down in disappointment.

"It's fine. I wouldn't shame you for not being spice-tolerant, though it's quite funny. You act all mighty and stuff... understandable actually. That makes you look more realistic." She commented, calmly drinking some water as he searched for his wallet, glancing at her once. 
"Usually, people laugh when I say that. So, I pretend I'm good at it." 
"Most of those who laugh are the ones that cry for minutes after eating the Korean spicy noodles anyway. No one's a god at this." She shrugged, inching closer to him. 

He gave her a brief look before smiling. 
"I don't know if you're nice or..." 
"I am nice." A furrow formed between her brows to which he only responded with a slight huff. 
"Who knows?" 

Not much later — they were sitting on the bench again, eating ice cream. Nisha tried not to glance at Kabir. 
Every time she did, she broke into laughter.

"I'm not appreciating your reaction." He spoke, making her laugh loudly, "I'm not laughing because of your spice tolerance act. I told you that's fine." 
"Then why are laughing? It's ugly." His scowl earned a louder laugh from her.
"You eat ice cream in a funny way." 

She pointed at his melting ice cream, "I'm just a slow eater." He replied. 
"It's funny." 
He sighed, "Don't talk to me." 
"Okay. I wasn't, either." 

"You were!" 

"Not agreeing." She shrugged intentionally, irking him.

He gave her a pensive look, swallowing the offence.

Her gaze travelled from her ice cream to his. They both had the same favourites regarding ice cream, even if not spice tolerance. Though his one was halfway melted anyway. 

"You know, this ice cream has been my favourite ever since I first had it. I was like 10 then." He said. 
She hummed, "I had it when I was..."
After a few seconds of thinking, she shrugged, "I can't remember. I was really young." 
"You know, they don't have these ice creams in the States. Their igloo is different from here." 

She gave him a surprised look. 

"Is that better?"
"In taste? A few are. But this hits home."

"You seem to love things in here a lot."
"As problematic as our country is, it's still home. I never appreciated this place before moving away so, I guess that justifies it." He turned towards her, watching her gaze repeatedly shift to him.
"I like that you like your country, Kabir. Despite this place being problematic, we're all used to it in a way we can't decipher. But most people don't appreciate the imperfections of the place. It's just the people that are wrong, actually... not the country."