Soulful Distraction

✿ His Surprise ✿

(Zoya's perspective)

To celebrate the beginning of my 'supposedly-new-love-life' as Noor liked addressing it, she badly wanted to watch a romantic flick tonight and since we haven't spent some quality sisterly time recently, I agreed with her. Definitely not having ammi and abbu at home was a big advantage for us or else we would have had to use either Noor's or my laptop, sit on the bed of either of our rooms and watch the movie. Maybe it was for our luck that our parents were away from home.

After returning, the first thing Noor did was to make Coffee for us while what I did was to call ammi and talk with her about work. Minus Aditya's arrival and his unexpected proposal, I informed her everything about the Gill's lavish party tomorrow and the arrangements we had to get done with by evening.

Taking showers and after having Soup made by Noor for dinner, I made popcorn from the corn kernels we had brought home recently and Noor took out two cans of Sprite from the fridge and we sat down in front of the TV in our living room by ten'O clock. She wanted to get the real theater feeling thus I let her switch off the lights inside the house except the one in the corridor upstairs.

She chose 'Jab We Met' to watch which took me back to a sweet memory which Aditya and I shared just months before. It was his parent's 35th Anniversary party and the preparations were going on in full swing at his house by the arrangements done by AdiYa Event Management. I asked him for a theme to choose for the party and it was only my idea to induce the Jab We Met theme. Aditya actually thought I meant the both of us by saying 'We'. A little blush crept to my cheeks right then which I purposely didn't want to fade away.

Noor and I were enjoying halfway through the movie when we heard the bell outside the gate ring. I looked at the wall clock to notice that it was eleven 'O clock at night.

'Appi, kaun hoga is waqt? Hum dono akhele hai aur ghar par CCTV cameras bhi nahi hai. Bahar koi stalker ya phir murderer hua toh? Allah! Please darwaaza kholne mat jaiye appi..."

Noor hanged on to my hand pausing the CD by the remote. She looked petrified than scared. If we were watching a horror movie by the time, her behaviour would have been appropriate but it was just Jab We Met! I laughed pointing at Noor's face to which she moved her head back in surprise.

"Aapko ho kya gaya hai kohinoor? Hum dono bachche thodi hain. Aap ko nahi aana hain toh mat aaiye, hum jaakar dekthe hai. Just sit here and wait"

I patted Noor's hand, got up from my seat and walked to switch on the lights of the living room. Then I marched to open the front door of our house to walk outside.

"Nahi, nahi!"

Noor had jumped from her seat and was now clutching my hand with both her hands tightly while shaking her head disagreeing with my plan. I face-palmed at her and pointed to the sofa, to which she politely backed out but followed me towards the gate strangely, once I stepped towards the garden.

"Dekhiye ap.. appi, hum batarahe hai. Agar koi chaaku lekar hum dono ko maarne aaya toh phir mat batana ki humne aapko warn nahi kiya. Aap sun rahi haina ya phir main avayi bolte jaarahi hoon? A.. appi?"

I couldn't help but control myself from bursting in to laughter looking at Noor's uncomfortably scared state and I stopped to turn and face her and she immediately held my hands.

"Ky.. kya hua appi? Sab.. sab teek toh haina?"

I asked my younger sister to come closer to me by hand gestures and whispered in her ear.

"Hum dono horror film thodi na dekhrahe the Noor, aap aisi waahiyat cheeze kyun sochthi hai? Chill kijiye! Hume toh soch kar bhi hasi aati hai ki aap itni badi darpok hai!"