"HOW DO YOU properly confess to someone?" Adarika asks once there both settled down comfortably under the tree. She fidgets with the hem of her top, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the weight of the makeup she had put on.

(She had spent a total of two hours and thirteen minutes on her face, falling into a stupid cycle of feeling okay about the outcome but then wiping everything off again, convinced that it wasn't good enough. Over and over, until she eventually just gave up and followed a YouTube tutorial instead. )

Her insecurities got the better of her, unfortunately. What made her less worthy of a candidate compared to Kashika? Was she not pretty enough? Was she not funny enough? Was she only capable of sending out platonic love and never anything different? Such thoughts had cycled through her head throughout the night, strongly irking a piece of her, like an itch that can't be soothed.

Ishan drawls out a hum, seemingly deep in thought. He turns his head to Adarika and tilts it onto his shoulder, upper body raised from the way his arms support his weight.

"Maybe you've just gotta make a move?" There it was again. Make a move. Adarika drags her hands down her face with an exaggerated groan. "But how? How am I supposed to gather the confidence from thin air and run up to the guy I like with a clear confession? It doesn't work like that." Ishan lets out a soft giggle seeing her so antsy. "Why do you ask?"

There's a silence between them-Which is funny because it's not really silence. There are still the same overlapping screams of active children in the background, the distant cawing of birds that can't ever mind their own business, honks of vehicles nearby and the wind that feels a bit too violent for comfort on this day as if it's physically trying to push Adarika into action.

I'm trying! Adarika screams to Metaphysical Wind in her mind.

By now, the silence has extended far too long; and Adarika chews on the inside of her cheek subconsciously, gnawing at her mind for something to say-anything -that can pull her out of the awkwardness.

Fuck it.

"Kiss me."

"What?" Ishan asks slowly. Suddenly, Adarika wishes the ground would open up and let her fall into some underground chamber. She swallows dryly. "You heard me."

Shock pools across the surface of Ishan's eyes as they bore into the girl's which contain an indecipherable message screaming past them, desperate to be noticed but met with no avail.
"You're messing with me, right? Adi, I can't-"

"Ishan," she cuts him off. "I just—I just want to test something and try to sort my? feelings out, and for that, I'll never know if I never try, Please just-Can you trust me: on this? I promise I won't try to do anything weird and if you don't want to, you can tell me to my face and I'll be perfectly fine with that and we can brush this off like it never happened."

(Adarika doesn't like the way she speaks sometimes, especially when her habit of speaking out of impulse kicks in when she's just trying to carry a conversation without doing something wrong. Sometimes the way she rambles on with repetitive reassurances and attempts at keeping the other party with her on the same page reminds her too much of the instances back in the thin walls of her childhood house.

Case example: Her father, on his knees, forehead touching the cold marble floor, crying out for forgiveness from her mother, who stands with her arms crossed weakly, demeanour evoking nothing but defeat. The atmosphere during the aftermath of a fight was always grim when there was utter silence except for the constant uttering of apologies from the shaking, sobbing man on the ground.

Not that Adarika was ever often present in that poor excuse of a household at times like those. Rather, the seven-year-old was laughing with her best friend over a jungle book episode playing on TV, trying her best to eradicate all thoughts of her parents. Ishan's mother gave Adarika hope that it was possible to have a happy mother, without ever being hers.)

"Adarika," Ishan replies with a reassuring yet disbelieving smile, "I'm not going to kiss you,"

It's a simple six-word declaration. It shouldn't mean so much but it does. Whether he's, saying it because a part of him knows that it's not what Adarika wants deep down, and he knows her that well to figure, or because he's equally as aware of how risky it is at an age where people are starting to date with intention, tying knots and whispering promises of a sweet forever to be doing the action of kissing your best friend.

It's a simple six-word declaration, but it hits the Rajput girl harder than the Metaphysical Wind could ever have the capacity to. Adarika only flashes Ishan a weak grin, mumbling, "Yeah, you're right. Never mind," but inside?

Inside, Adarika feels horrible. She feels like she's seven again and banging on her parents' bedroom door as she hears the yelps and sound of belt hitting ones flesh behind the thin chipped walls. Horrid, guilty, ashamed, helpless. Whatever she felt back then has recollected itself to form something much stronger and it's no help that Adarika currently feels so vulnerable and bare out in the open.

Ishan Kishan is a nice guy. But Adarika, is that all he is? Just nice and handsome? Of course not. Ishan is many things, and when you get to know him, you'll find that he never was and never will be oblivious to the world and people around him.

He sees the way Adarika's eyes glint a little bit more when she turns her head to look down at her knees in front of her, and that's enough to tell him all she's thinking and feeling at this moment.

So he keeps his lips pressed shut, corners slightly tugged upward as he looks away from her, eyes trained, once again, on the rowdy children running around in the playground who don't spare any mind to the warnings their parents call out to them about trip hazards.