Kissmet

Tissue Fort

Malini

"Maaaaaaliiiiiiiniiiiiiii" I heard a sing-song voice, dissecting my name syllable by syllable, without a drip of concern in it.

With that alone, I know it's Nila, who will never show any emotion and deals with the hard stuff with sarcasm. But I always know how she feels on the inside.

"Don't worry," I lift my hand giving a thumbs up. "I am not dead." And a powerful sneeze comes right in making the tissues I stuffed in my nostrils fly away and I partially get up on the impact.

"Yet." I finish and lie down again.

Just before the meeting, my amma and aunty came barrelling into the room, bearing Tulsi concoction and kollu (horse gram) rasam, and berated me for dealing with work instead of resting.

Even though sometimes it seems troublesome, it always feels good to be babied my amma.

And about after an hour ago Surya came in with some medicines for headache and fever and instructed me to take them after dinner.

I just placed them on my night table since I didn't have the stomach to eat anything and kicked him out of my room.

As much I adore him, I can't handle him being an overbearing mother hen. And now the pestering monkey decided to make an appearance. I groan.

I crack one eye open to see her enter the room, licking an ice cream cone.

"You will if you keep stuffing things inside your holes." She says smirking, insulation heavy on her words.

"That would be a great way to go rather than this," I say, pointing to the stack of balled-up used tissues, my voice hoarse.

I groan as she pulls a chair and sits beside the bed, "My eyes are burning."

"Aww poor baby, do you need some ice cream?" she asks extending the cone.

"Are you serious right now?!" I ask her followed by a sneeze.

"What? if you don't want just say no," she says cheerfully.

I glare at her. "You know what, yes, I want ice cream. Give me." I say sitting up and reaching for it.

She protects it with both arms, "What NO!"

"You brought that for me, right? Give it to me." I reach for it again and she keeps tilting the ice cream and ...

BINGO!

I lie back hiding my grin.

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooo, my ice cream," she says in a wounded little voice extending both hands at the spilled ice cream dramatically.

I roll my eyes and throw a hand over my eyes shielding the light. "You'll survive."

She keeps eyeing the ice cream melting on the floor.

"Stop sulking, I did you a favor anyway. You don't want to trade places with me eating that."

She pouts but doesn't disagree.

"Now what brings you here?" I pluck the last tissue from the box and sneeze, adding another one to the pile.

"This," she says and slams a new box of tissue... loudly on the table. "See I am your sexy knight in armor."

It feels like someone dropped a rock on my head. I don't have the energy to deal with her.

"Fine. Now go away." I mumble and take a tissue from the new one, wiping my runny nose.