'Thank you', I said as we walked out of class.

'No problem. It was pretty obvious that you needed a way out of...whatever was happening around there', he said unsurely.

'A man who doesn't know how to take no for an answer', I clarified wryly.

'Actually a man would know to understand certain essential forms of vocabulary whereas a boy would be confused and irritated when denied what he wants', he said.

'Do you always talk like this?', I asked.

'What?', he asked thrown off track.

'Like some sort of novel', I said.

'I've never really thought about it', he said and paused in his footsteps as if he was going to think about it right now.

'Well', he started after a while. 'I guess I'm more 'wordy' when I'm myself. When I'm with people I don't know, I tend to go mute'.

'I'm glad to make you feel comfortable', I grinned feeling as if I had unlocked some sort of achievement and he smiled at me.

'But seriously I didn't like how he talked to you even though I couldn't understand a word of it. I tried asking Aravind but he speaks Hindi and said something about how your language was too hard for him', he said.

'I think it's the pronunciation. Oh, but how did you become friends with Aravind?', I asked remembering how I had often seen Ethan with him.

'Oh, we went to university back in London together. He's been quite close to me ever since', he said with a smile.

'Ah, I see'

We both had some time to kill before our next class so we decided to spend it in the gardens, also because it was near our classrooms.

'How did the whole thing start anyway?', he asked as we sat on a bench which was tucked away beneath a large oak.

'Oh, he asked me out on Instagram and I declined because he was the definition of a narcissistic prick and then he somehow got the nerve to ask me to the party', I scowled.

'Oh the party from the text?', he asked.

'Yeah that one', I said distastefully.

'Are you going?', he asked.

'Not really my scene', I said and he chuckled.

'I take it with what you told me the other night that you're not going either', I said but I hoped it sounded more like a question.

'That and I actually have a commitment the same night', he said.

And there he goes wrapping his life into another mystery. Why couldn't he just say where he was going instead of making the other person want to ask.

You know what Ethan? Keep your little secrets. It's not like I have any immediate intention to befriend you even though my fairytale wired brain wants me to.

'I'll see you then and thanks again', I said getting up to leave.

Ethan didn't even ask me why I was suddenly leaving, instead, he simply smiled and gave me a short nod.

Gosh, I hated these kinds of people. The ones who purposely hid their feelings to create a mysterious aura even though you already knew that they were reliable. But I also knew another thing about their kind, that once upon a time, they had been badly hurt.

And so the question arose, who had hurt Ethan?

But the most important one was, did I really want to get myself into the same things I myself was trying to avoid?