❝︎ nǐ shì ài shì xī wàng shì nuǎn
nǐ shì rén jiān sì yuè tiān ❞︎

( you are love, hope, warmth
you are the tender month of April )

- “Sunshine of my life” by Jin Zhiwen

★★★

She regretted it now. Kinda dejavu-ish, she'd say.

She wished she had taken a glimpse at Shahveer's cell when he was showing the restaurant's name to Daneen. Heck, she wished she had made up with Shahveer a bit earlier so that she'd have had a say in the restaurant's choice.

For where they were now, didn't make Fizza the happiest.

After having simultaneously and wordlessly recalled the aftereffects of staying in the car alone, Shahveer and Fizza had awkwardly agreed to step out. They had to do so anyways but it was their pounding hearts that made them leave that entrancing, shrouded by the crowd vicinity.

As soon as her eyes landed on the restaurant's neon blinging label, the color from her face drained, considering it was owned by an old acquaintance's relative. But it wasn't a given that that old acquaintance would be here at the same time, right?

Shahveer had booked them a table for ten and they had sited themselves in an overly benefiting order. The other teachers on one side, then a chair left for Shayan and then the four of them. The corner most ones taken by Shahveer and Fizza, across from each other.

They engaged in random conversations until Shayan arrived, his eyes softening as it locked with Daneen's smiling ones, and he called her 'Princess', due to which Daneen flushed and smacked his arm, making his lips spread further.

Haroon, however, contrary to his regular brazen spirit, sulked and expressed disapproval on being the fifth wheel on a double date.

"I should've called Anum. Your PDAs are hard to handle." He scrunched his face in disdain and the others snickered.

"This may be the first time he's making such a face, right? So refreshing." Fizza teased, originating a bob of head from Daneen and they engrossed in teasing the never before teased Haroon but their cheery occurrence came to a halt soon.

"A coincidence or should I allow myself to be happy?" A familiar yet not too welcomed voice stroke their ears after they had received their order and all five heads turned to face the speaker. The sight did cause Fizza's eyebrows to arch a little but she was prepared for it anyway.

"Though I didn't get the latter part but yes, a coincidence it is." She permitted a small smile to form but it dropped as soon as his next words reached her.

"Don't lie." His lips tugged upwards, instantly creasing her brows. Why the hell is he acting so casual when we didn't even end on a good note?

Rohaan Haider's sight took in other people at the table and firstly he greeted the teachers. Haroon replied with a wave and Shahveer with a slight nod of head.

"What's the occasion, Sir Shahveer? I greeted them and heard you're treating everyone?" He probed, motioning at the older faculty whom were now occupied in their own discussion.

Shahveer lifted his head and unexpectedly smiled at Rohaan, wanting to appear calm and mature in the unnecessary presence and answered; "I won't be teaching after this month and I didn't want to leave just like that, hence the decision."

"I see. Well, mind if I join you guys?" He asked, his words a bit hard to decline and even though Shahveer had refused to conjure pettiness, he still didn't want to let an anticipated dinner go to waste because of an intruder.

"Of course not." Haroon chirped and the others looked at him as if he had gone insane, in response to which he mouthed while pointing at Shahveer; "I helped him."

Shayan though remained insulated to everything and carried on with emptying the carrots Daneen had separately and unintentionally collected at the corner of her plate—in his own.

"You, Fizza?"

"No problem." I guess? She shrugged.

"You haven't changed much. Minus the fact that you're prettier now."

His words made Fizza chuckle in discomfort. "What? That was so out of the blue."

"You know." He smirked, "You were always kind, pretty and selfless. You were back when I did you wrong and you still are." He complimented as he asked the waiter to bring a burger for him while taking a spare chair from the nearest table and relaxed in it. Perks of being the owner's nephew.

However, Daneen couldn't control her pretty audible snigger at his words and he flinched in response right after.

"Daneen..." Fizza subtly glared at her.

"But he called you selfless!" She broke into chortles and glanced in Rohaan's direction. "We've been friends for three years. I know it's not too long of a period but I assure you, selfless is really not the word for this person." She pointed at Fizza as she shook her head, still smiling.

"Now that makes me look bad." Fizza complained but her expressions were far from annoyance, instead she looked rather thrilled. "Thank you for the compliment Rohaan, but it's true. I wouldn't describe myself as selfless as well."

"If what happened, happened with someone I really liked..." She continued, "...then I won't ever forgive them and converse with them easily the way I am with you right now. Infact, I'm afraid the way I do things and express my feelings is quite selfish." She chuckled at the end, noticing how everyone at the table were now letting them talk amongst themselves. Except a certain onyx haired male, whose gaze elevated in her direction at her words but soon focused on the plate in front of him.

"What do you mean by 'really' like? Did you not like me enough?" He presented his question as a joke, laughing as he said it, but only he knew how hard it was for him to utter that. Though, in other's eyes he was none but a jerk who caused two friends' relation to deteriorate because of his inconsistency.

"I wouldn't say that," She squinted her eyes as she placed her elbow on the table and hoisted her chin in her palm. "But, that 'like' was close to what people call puppy love. Just adolescent temporary attachment. No more, no less." Rohaan had casually shifted his interest from Fizza to Nida back then so she figured it was fine to be frank about it. No hard feelings, she assumed.

"That makes me think you have experienced serious likeness. I mean, to be able to distinguish between actual like and puppy love." Their conversation wasn't particularly for all to hear but as Haroon was busy talking to the other teachers, it became especially engaging for the one who was seated directly in front of her.

Amber marbles peered from Rohaan's hazel ones and shifted to Shahveer's visage that was looking down and snapped up as soon as she uttered the first syllable.

"I have. To be exact, I am experiencing it." The words leaving her mouth felt surreal to her. She couldn't believe she had said that in a public sitting, though she knew the only people involved in that conversation were her, Rohaan and Shahveer—the one who tried not to pay attention but failed miserably.

It was the surroundings, she gathered. She knew Shahveer wouldn't move towards her an inch in public and also wouldn't voice out anything so she took advantage of that, gaining confidence in his silence and puckering forehead.

"Is that so? I wonder who the lucky guy is." Rohaan mumbled, eying the burger he was served, unaware of Shahveer and Fizza's deviant reverie.

"Lucky guy?" Fizza hummed, gawking in Shahveer's direction, and tipped her head to the side as she continued; "I'd say I'm lucky."

Her confession made Shahveer and Rohaan swallow the lump in their throats simultaneously, for different reasons. The former because his heart was about to leap out of his ribcage and the latter because he had finally lost any chance with his first love.

Fizza smirked, ignorant of Rohaan's languished image and surveyed Shahveer's actions. As his eyes slightly widened, his spine straightened and his hand ruffled his hair, he exhaled and mumbled with wrinkled brows.

"Your food's getting cold. Eat."

"I should, shouldn't I?" Fizza giggled and proceeded to dig in her pasta, deciding to leave the topic as it is, whilst Rohaan sat there with a sardonic smile on his face and excused himself soon enough.

~~

Stepping out of the restaurant premises, they bid farewell to the other teachers and the five of them, well primarily the females and Haroon chatted, deciding that the ex-tutors will be called bhai from now on, while the two quiet souls smiled and threw jabs in between every now and then.

Shayan had loosened up rather quickly with them, something that he, himself, found strange.

"Haroon bhai you're coming with us. We'll pick your car up." Daneen declared, making Shayan's vision squint in her direction, but he didn't voice anything and waited for her to present her reasons.

"Could you stop making that displeased face?" Haroon offered a tight lipped smile to Shayan, generating cackles form others and a shrug from the targeted one.

The cheeky fellow's eyes widened a bit too much and he dragged a hand through his face while mumbling, "As if Shahveer wasn't enough to infuriate me, I've been awarded with another similar lad." He sloped his head backwards, facing the dark, twinkling April night sky. "Ya Allah, what did I do to deserve this?"

"Why ask Allah, you're well aware." Daneen shunted him jokingly and continued, "Anyways, today is Fizza and Shahveer bhai's last day, they won't be meeting again for quite some while, so I took it upon myself to decide that they won't be disturbed tonight." The mentioned pair aww-ed at her initially but the last of her wordings pictured unmentionable things in their secular minds, warming her cheeks and his ears—to pacify which, she massaged her neck and he twiddled with his ear lobe.

"Okay, as our princess wishes." Shayan muttered, nodding his head with a waggish smirk and the others fake gagged while Daneen pinched his bicep, forming a grin of his mouth.

"Would you stop that?!" Haroon barked, he had enough of feeling single for the decade.

"Well, that's what I call her so deal with it, bro."

"Why would you? That's so lame!" He contoured his face into disgust, resulting in Fizza and Shahveer to share a glance and stifled laughs for having finally witnessed an extremely peeved Haroon.

"Because that's what my name means." Daneen spoke cogently. "Does that sound like a good enough reason to you?"

"Wow." He sighed, "The one who's about to go halal here is the one feeling single, wow." He sunk in his shoulders and laughter surrounded them, as Shayan, once again, sent a shrug his way.

"Oh yeah, you're going to Anum bhabi's house tomorrow, right?" Fizza's eyes flickered with a sparkle, one that appears only when she's extremely excited.

"Yeah, I am." Haroon blew out a breath. "I hope it all goes well."

"It will, it will. Insha'Allah."

"Just be yourself and you'll be fine." Shahveer patted him on the back and he bobbed his head, trying to regain confidence.

They stood there, emboldening Haroon, absolutely oblivious of a silhouette reaching them until he voiced;

"Fizza?" Rohaan appeared from the restaurant, ceasing their conversation and becoming the reason for the tick of jaw of a six feet male.

He gestured to Fizza, jerking a thumb towards a corner. "Could you spare me a few minutes?"

"What is it?" She asked, moving towards him as she received Daneen's wave and sent back her own. He fidgeted, a sight she had never seen before and so she sighed and thought of assuaging the tension.

"By the way, were you already here when we came?" She put forth with a soft smile, noticing from the corner of her eye that the couple third wheeled by Haroon was taking off and Shahveer was staring in her course, leaning against his car with an unreadable look scorching in his irises.

"No, actually...my uncle recognized you and gave me a call. You know I live near, right?" She slowly bobbed her head but her brows wrinkled.

"Your uncle recognizes me? He just saw me once before." That was the truth. Fizza had never hung out with Rohaan other than that one time when he took her and her friends for lunch to his uncle's diner.

"Lets just say he has a good memory." He tried to dismiss the topic but a further knot of Fizza's brows had him going into detail defeatedly.

"I talked about you too much. That must be why." He admitted but soon justified his behavior. "But that was before, okay? I mean, I don't have any feelings for you now." He lied, desperate for her to believe it. His heart still beat at the sight of her. And he didn't want to hold those regretful feelings anymore. Maybe that was why he was standing in front of her. Maybe now, all he wanted was closure.

Fizza sighed, gazing for a second in Shahveer's direction, who was still looking at them. She didn't like this discussion. She was, as she had said, selfish. That immature, teenage matter was long done and dusted so talking about it now felt like a waste of time for her. But for Rohaan, it was not and so she had to put a clean end to it.

"You liked Nida, right?" She blurted absentmindedly, wanting to return to Shahveer's side as soon as possible.

"What?" He was caught off guard, his blinking eyes an evidence.

"I mean, you were with her back then, right? So I assumed you realized that you didn't like me but Nida. Which is why I don't understand why you'd talk about me with your uncle or anyone."

He opened his mouth but closed it again and looked away, unable to comprehend how he could explain his juvenile conduct.

"You remember you came to our class once, to talk to Alina?"

"I don't know, did I?" She tipped her head, looking back in her memory but to no avail and he smiled. She didn't even recall the moment that had managed to replay in his mind for the last few years.

"I just saw you once then and I don't remember why but I wanted to get to know you and eventually, I started liking you...more than I ever liked anyone else." She pursed her lips, ignorant to any appropriate reaction.

"But then, even after chasing you for months, you still didn't reciprocate my feelings." He inclined his head down and she unconsciously looked back at Shahveer, feeling uncomfortable for unknown reason, and found him disturbing the Earth's peace by impatiently tapping his foot on it.

"I was beyond immature at the time and to make you regret your indecisiveness which somewhat indicated rejection, I approached Nida." That piece of information caused Fizza's head to snap to Rohaan incredulously and he noticed it. "It was a very bad decision, I soon realized. Not just because my intentions were wrong but also because I knew Nida genuinely liked me."

"So you never liked Nida?" She could hardly stop a gasp from emerging. If that was it, then all her assumptions had been wrong. She had been wrong. Dead wrong. But that was bad of him, so, so bad of him. That means that Nida had never been reciprocated of her honest, earnest feelings and they had been in a comprising relationship all the while.

He shook his head, propelling her to do the same.

"But weren't you guys together for like, two years?"

"It's no lie that I appreciated her but...I could never like her the way I liked you." He pulled a long face, ashamed and Fizza could now picture what had been the reason for their friendship's fallout.

Nida stayed with Rohaan for almost two years while he tried to like her but couldn't, and ended up spilling his fondness for Fizza in front of her as he tried to free both of them from an unhealthy relationship.

"I cannot believe this." She sighed, guilt swelling up in her chest. Nida had taken out her frustration on Fizza but, maybe things would've turned out better if they had sat down and talked calmly, like adults. Except that they weren't adults at the time, just immature seventeen year old girls.

"I'm sorry." He muttered and she didn't waste a second before pouring cold water on him, figuratively.

"I'm not the one you need to apologize to." She monotoned and he nodded.

"I know, I apologized to her too. She accepted it, much to my surprise."

To mine as well. She urged to let him know.

"If you don't mind, I want to ask you something."

I do, but I'd rather answer you and end this conversation asap.

She weened in the midst of gesticulating him to ask and he did, impelling her eyes to widen.

"Was it Sir Shahveer? The one whom you were talking about."

Straight forward af.

Well, Fizza wasn't surprised. Rohaan had always been confident, blunt and someone who could walk on Earth as if it belonged to him and him alone. She was sure of his personality since the day he came to her classroom, hands stuffed in his pockets, a smirk formed of his plump lips as he called her out and expressed his interest in the first meeting.

Regardless, as far as straight forwardness was concerned, Fizza didn't lose out to anyone.

"Yeah." That was all, and she looked back at Shahveer with a soft plead masking her features-as if wanting him to take her from there.

And perhaps the heavens were on her side.

Shahveer stepped forward and strolled towards them, halting a good step away from Fizza and looked between the two of them.

"You guys done? We should be leaving now." He side glanced at Fizza before turning to Rohaan and she blinked, trying hard not to ogle at the sight.

"Yes, we are." Rohaan answered as he smiled at Shahveer, the mirth in his eyes awfully noticeable.

"Perfect. Fizza, let's go." And she nodded, starting to move with him but both stopped in their tracks at Rohaan's voice.

"Wait, take this." He shoved his hand in his pocket and pulled out a snickers bar for her, raging Shahveer and puzzling Fizza to infinite lengths.

She didn't know if she should take it and glanced at Shahveer, his jaw clenching as he eyed the bar, and then at Rohaan's smiling stance.

"We will never see each other again probably and I didn't want the last memory of me to be of me only apologizing...so I guess I came up with this? It's your favorite, isn't it?" He waved the bar in front of her and his words made her contemplate positively.

"You're right." Her answer to both his perceptions and she took the bar from him. "Thank you."

"My pleasure." He replied and sighed.

This marked the end for them. And he was content. He was happy that after all his petty adolescent decisions, he had reached a rather constructive end to his first love and thus he smiled, as he watched the two turn and walk towards Shahveer's car.

~~

A second.

Merely a second after climbing into the car, Shahveer snatched the bar from Fizza's grip, forging a gape and torpid blinks from her.

"You're not eating this one." He affirmed as he tossed the bar on the dashboard. "I'll get you ten more. No, I'll get you no matter how many more you want but you're not eating this one."

She recovered from the shock in a few seconds and laughed, generating a crease on his forehead.

"Why're you laughing?"

"Why, you ask." She leaned into her seat. "Because you're cute."

"Fizza, you really need to up your game with vocabulary." He clicked his tongue and she chortled before presenting a question.

"Oh yeah, I've been curious since some while." He hummed as he ignited the engine.

"When did you recognize me as the one you lent your notes to? Or precisely, as the one Rohaan lent your notes to?" Shifting her weight to face him, she watched him as he effortlessly and one handedly maneuvered the car, his right hand gripping the steering wheel and the other running through his hair as he thought about her query.

"I suspected that since the time I first starting recognizing you but could only be sure when I heard you talking to your friends."

"And when were those times?"

"The first one would be when I caught you eavesdropping—"

"I didn't eavesdrop!"

"—on my conversation with Miss. . . ."

"Hafsa." She completed for him, deadpan and he cleared his throat.

"Yeah, Miss Hafsa. And you did eavesdrop."

"I didn't, I'm telling you!"

"Then what were you doing? Had a crush on me since then and was peeking like a sneaky Tom?" That would still be eavesdropping but she doesn't need to realize that. He decided.

She opened her mouth to retaliate but closed it, rendered speechless at his accusation, and turned in her seat to face the front.

"Okay, I was eavesdropping, let's settle with that." Now it was his turn to laugh and she scrunched her nose.

"But wait, why was she even confessing in a sacred coaching?" She swung her head to face him again, her brows tangled together. "Why didn't you guys discuss that in a restaurant or something?"

"Don't know. She said she wanted to talk and there was an empty room right in front so we sat down and...talked." He shrugged.

"Were you the one who suggested to talk in that classroom?"

"Yeah." He stretched his ending vocals as if persuading himself of his memory's reliability. "I think it was me."

She snorted. "I'm sure you would've said that with finality and she couldn't even think of inviting you out to a restaurant."

"You think so?"

"I bet so." She waved her hand sagaciously and his mouth urged to tug up.

"And? The other time?"

"It was when I heard your...dispute with your friends." He cautiously put forth, glancing in her direction.

"Ah." She sounded. "You've seen all my worst moments, huh?"

"I wouldn't really call it worst." She looked at him. "It was simply a change for the better situation for you."

"I guess so." She mumbled, in a way that she didn't need an answer, she knew it. She had felt it as her friendship grew with Daneen but the information she had just gotten from Rohaan had her rethink her actions and decisions.

"Fizza." His voice brought her out of her brief yet seemingly endless moment of uncertainty and she focused on him as he turned to a lane. "Whatever happened with your friends, happened for a reason. A good reason." He assured and like none other, his words did reassure her.

"Hopefully." She had it down bad. She really, really wanted to lean on him but she couldn't and so she leaned on the window, glancing at the road for anything distracting.

Shahveer beheld her silent frame and licked his lips as he thought hard on how to uplift her mood again. He didn't like how the car had become silent all of a sudden. Not because he disliked silence but because he dreaded one that came hand in hand with her sadness. Though, he didn't get to mull over it much, as Fizza decided to share a deepest, hidden part of her with him.

"You know there was a time I hated them so much. Nida, Rohaan and my other friends." She disclosed, not knowing why. Maybe she just wanted to say it out loud. Maybe she wanted someone to tell her that her decisions were understandable in her given circumstances.

"Why?"

"Well, the case with my friends was simple. It was because they didn't think from my perspective and blamed everything on me but Rohaan..." She inhaled unfazed, thinking back to those feelings which felt foreign to her now. "I hated him because he disturbed my life. I had a pretty stable way to things, you know. His appearance stirred things for me, negatively at that, so that's why I hated him. And myself too because I was allowing a person to mess with me that much."

Shahveer wouldn't deny that her words kinda made him regret asking her to elaborate but still he wanted to make her feel better. He wanted to be an understanding friend for her too so he tried to word his feedback carefully.

"I understand why you would feel betrayed by your friends but Rohaan..." He trailed off and spoke only after several beats of silence. "I didn't know he had that much of an effect on you." He didn't want to say that, by reason that saying that made him appear petty, causing him to grimace internally.

"Effect? I guess yes, Rohaan did have an effect on my self esteem. Because at the time all I knew was that I was liked by someone, made to feel like I was on the top of their world and then forsaken. So even if I never really liked him, the situation made me really hate him and doubt myself."

"Doubt yourself? Fizza, you—"

"I don't think that way now, trust me. I just felt that maybe I wasn't a good enough or, I don't know, a pretty enough person to be with."

She noticed him taking fretful, worried glimpses of her in between handling the vehicle and she had already started feeling better.

"But you know what?" She smiled, anticipating his reaction to what she was about to reveal. "You are the one who helped me with that."

Finally, they had reached that one stop—that one turn before her alley—and Shahveer let go of the steering wheel as he listened to her with impartial attention.

"With what exactly?" He stared at her expectantly and she felt warmth creeping up to her cheeks.

"I don't know if this would make me sound arrogant but I've never felt short of how much you...cherish me." The last of her confession was pitched low, exceptionally low that he had to strain his ears to make out her words, still he caught them and decided to remain silent as he gazed at her with affection.

"I mean, when I'm with you, I don't think I have to be on my best behavior. I want to be the best version of myself but you have never made me feel like I have to be, if that makes sense." She sheepishly, timidly added for she was beyond embarrassed. She was now sure her biggest enemy was none other than herself as she always puts herself in situations that bring about drastically disadvantageous outputs.

Though it seemed she worried for nothing. Keeping her sight at him, she tugged a loose strand behind her ear with a smile and adored his reaction.

He averted his eyes from her, gripped the wheel again and sighed as he shook his head, his lips drawing up slowly and turning into a grin.

"I don't really think that's special. Wouldn't everyone be like that?"

"No, not everyone is like that and it is very special but...you tell me now. Why do you like me?"

He snapped his head towards her, baffled by her unexpected question. "That was so sudden." He complained but she didn't leave the topic and cocked her head enquiringly.

"Okay okay." He gave in as he hummed. "That's a tough question though, there's not just one answer to it."

"That's unfair!"

"What's unfair? I'm telling you there's more than just one thing I like about you."

Now it was her turn to be caught off guard as her cheeks decided to color garnet and heart started pumping a million times faster. "O-Okay. Then let's just move on. You don't need to answer that." She waved her hand dismissively and he mumbled with an amused smile; "You're so weird."

"What was that?"

"I was thinking I've gotten myself involved with someone really... unique, don't you think?" He rubbed his stubble with furrowed brows and she regarded him with a glare, one that only made his countenance vibrate with a frisk laugh.

"Give me your phone." She demanded out of nowhere, the intensity of her glare dimming in the vividness of her mischief and he handed it to her, curious to what she wanted to do. He noticed her typing a number in the calls keypad but before he could ask who she was calling and why, her own phone rang and she grabbed it with a grin, hanging up the call in the blink of an eye.

"Here you go." She returned it to him. "Now I have your number, be prepared to receive multiple unexpected calls and texts from this unique someone." She beamed puckishly and he found himself getting lost in the smile of her eyes, hardly getting back with a jab.

"What if I'm not available?

"But you said you'll always be there for me."

"Is that what I'll be reminded of everytime?" He glanced at her with his left brow soared in flamboyance.

"Yes, you will be. Forever." She worded as she struggled to keep her attention away from that slightest of smirk gracing his lineaments and to the glass window behind him.

Forever? That one stance succeeded in regulating multiple emotions within him. Emotions that concocted to an arrangement that orbited around her.

"Fizza."

"Hm?"

"What are your plans for the future? As in, career."

"Well, nothing too grand. Just studying hard and keeping up with the world of coding so that I'll be able to get a job as soon as I graduate." He hummed and bobbed his head. "Figured."

"Why do you ask?"

"Actually, I told my parents something based on that. I told them that I won't be taking them to your house anytime soon. In fact, not in at least two years time so that you'd be able to focus on your studies and career."

Oh? Fizza's eyes went round at the scenario he had suggested. He was saying he will ask for her hand in marriage. He was making it clear as day to her that he'll come for her. That commitment of his elated her.

But what?

At least not in two year's time?

She would admit that she heard a loud thud in her mind at that statement. One that kept pressing down her shoulders in unbeknownst grief.

But she knew that was the wisest decision. So she gave him a nod, wordless though, and looked out of the window, feeling somewhat bitter sweet.

"Well then," She caught his attention. "I guess we should leave now." She proposed and he raised his phone to view the time displaying in it.

21:25 It read and he sighed, knowing that they should leave.

He reclined into his seat, looking at her in a daze and a second passed. Then two, then three and then the longest needle of the watch coiled on his wrist cycled ten times and yet he remained helpless against swerving his vision away from her face.

So she opened her mouth, hoping to play his usual role.

"Why're you being like this? It's not like we won't meet again." She declared, confident that they'll be able to make time for one another. But Shahveer remained resolute in his worry. He figured it wasn't a good idea for just the two of them to meet and asking the others to accompany them would mean to accommodate four peoples' schedule for a single gathering—which was quite a challenging task.

Nonetheless, worry won't help them, would it?

"Are you reassuring me right now?"

"Yes, I am. It seems I have learned a thing or two from my mentor." Her eyes crinkled from the edges as she grinned, sweeping away all the gloomy feelings building up in him and he felt his mouth spreading from its corners.

"You know what this realization teaches you, right?"

"I do, I do. It teaches me to stay with my mentor more."

"Yes, good gi—student." He veered his sight away from her, feeling awkward suddenly and held the steering wheel as he heaved a sigh and let his eyelids work, leaving her befuddled.

"Let's go now." Conveying, he pulled back a gear and the engine roared as he drove into her alley, stopping at the foot of her house.

Reluctantly, she grasped the door's handle but before she could open it, she turned about and gave him one last look, one last smile.

"Allah Hafiz." She murmured and his throat bobbed as he replied similarly and watched her as she got out, taking with herself the warmth of the car and leaving him in the quiet space.

Taking out her keys and unlocking the gate, she looked back at him and waved, her smile not intact, and he waved back at her, his smile nowhere to be found as well as she disappeared from his sight.

For a while, Shahveer remained there, trying to accept the reality of their situation. And he felt frustrated.

It appeared frustrating to him how they had feelings for each other from the beginning yet as soon as they came to terms with their emotions, circumstances decided to come in their way.

Howbeit, life never turned out exactly the way we wanted it to, right? He had to accept whatever life threw at him, right? Moreover, it wasn't like he was about to be deprived of any contact with her like two years ago.

He picked his phone from the dashboard, tapping on his data and a messaging application. There, from several chats, he opened one that was named 'annoying dude' and let his fingers move over the screen as he typed;

"You didn't forget what I asked of you, right?"

★★★

A/n;

Guys am I happy? Yes yes yes I am!!! I mean look, I updated just a liiittle over one month, didn't I? I am so happy.

Anyways,

Assalam o Alaikum and Hi, hope you all are more than simply fine

I said the last chapter was the end of coaching-teaching life but this one marks the actual end of their two week interactions.

Please lemme know what you think of the chapter fellas. I'd love to hear your opinions and don't forget to tap on that cute little star on the bottom left corner lmao

Also I have a Instagram page with the same username and I'd loooove to see you guys there as well so come let's add each other there and share cool aesthetic stuff and whatnot

Also also also THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR READING YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING

Well then Allah Hafiz and take care

Laters ✌🏻