Valentine - Short Story
Kuru Aravinthan
He passed by her to his room as if he had not noticed her, but he stared at her from the corner of his eye.
He regretted not knowing that his sister had such a beautiful friend for so long.
The moment he saw her, he felt an indescribable feeling in his mind. Though he had seen and met so many young girls, he had never felt such a feeling before.
He wondered what could have caused the sudden chemical changes in his body upon seeing her.
That feeling of wanting to look back at her at least once again and talk to her rippled through him.
He went into his room and opened the door a little, so he could see her through the gap. He watched her face meticulously every time it turned in his direction.
"Is that her?" he thought.
He had seen this girl with his sister two or three times before in her school uniform when he went to pick up his sister from school. She did not cause any chemical reactions in him back then. But a new beauty that wasn’t there before was visible on her face now.
He was unsure what made him fall for her, whether it was her beauty, her neatly dressed clothes, her shy smile, or his age-related hormonal fluctuations.
But the only thing he could understand from the moment he saw her was that something unspeakable was attracting him to her.
He thought of saying ‘hi’ and introducing himself. He wondered if he could talk to her about something. "It's good to have some good topics to talk about, and that’ll lead to a good start," he thought.
"How are you?" or "Are you studying with my sister?" he thought about what he’d ask.
"Would she underestimate me if I spoke in Tamil? Maybe it’d be better and posh if I used some English words here and there?"
"Whatever it be, I should somehow speak to her today. Otherwise, I’d not get an opportunity again. Above all, I need my sister’s support before I start anything."
He came into the living room and opened the refrigerator door.
He could act as if he was getting a juice from the fridge. He anticipated that the noise of opening the fridge door would shift her attention towards him.
With that attention, he thought he’d ask, "Would you like to have something to eat?"
He looked at her as if looking back casually.
She already had a glass of juice in her hands. His sister should have given it to her.
"Did I fail in the first attempt itself?"
He felt an unexplainable hatred for his sister. She should have introduced her friend who has come over to their home.
"At least she could have introduced me to her as ‘he’s, my brother.’"
"She will not tell. He knows her!"
He had never behaved well with her to do such a thing. His mom often complained that their relationship was like that of a cat and a rat.
Even if she had wanted to introduce her to me, she’d have avoided it, fearing that he’d say something inappropriate or sarcastic.
Or she may have wondered why she should get unnecessarily humiliated in front of her friend.
He felt his heart beating fast.
As mom served food in the dining room, they both seemed to be having fun, laughing, and eating.
"How lively it would have been if they had invited me too!"
"What can be done now?"
He stood in front of the mirror and inspected himself, his face dark with sweat and his hair on the front scalp messed up. He combed his hair with his fingers and rubbed powder on his sweaty face.
He heard someone call his name near the doorway.
"Shit," he said annoyed, wondering who was disturbing him in such a precious moment. He walked to the door and found it was his friends.
He remembered he had agreed to play cricket with them, but he lied and gave them a reason not to go. His friends laughed at his excuse but left, asking him to come as soon as possible.
He worried that his friends calling his name might have caught her attention, and therefore tried to walk like a cricket player. Despite that, he felt his legs weaken and shiver.
She had finished eating and was sitting in the living room with his sister, going through his family album.
As his sister pointed at a photo and said something, it seemed to him as she laughed out loud and looked straight at him. He wondered if his sister had shown her a picture of him with a diaper in his childhood.
He went back to his room, thinking his first job was to take the picture off the album.
Before he could do anything, she left for her home.
As it got a little dark outside, she asked his sister to accompany her to the bus stop.
His mother asked him to accompany them, and he gladly accepted.
He looked straight into her face as he left and shed a smile. He noticed an expression on her face as if she was trying to say something to him, but he ignored it.
When the bus arrived, unwillingly she left, waving goodbye.
‘You never told me you had such a good friend,’ he said as if he had a sudden affection for his sister when he came back home. This was an expression of his inability.
‘I don’t want all of those buttering up. It's too late! she thought to herself.
'A very nice girl. We are not lucky enough to have her,’ his mom sighed while serving him food.
He stopped eating and looked up at his mother.
'Did you ever listen to me when I asked you to study? Do you remember Gopi who studied with you? He had proposed to her. Not sure whether she likes him or not, but she has not confessed her decision yet. He's finished his MBA in the United States and will be here by the end of this month!’ mom scolded him.
His sister never opened her mouth to say about the frequent inquiries her friend had made about her brother, nor the ‘Love you’ card she had given to her to give him on his birthday, nor the two-lined poem saying, ‘I’d like to mess with your hair that is not blown away by the wind,’ due to the anger she had on her brother.
Mom calling them ‘cat and rat’ had made some sense, despite them being siblings!
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