Touching Boundaries

CHAPTER 5 : SIDDHARTH

"Don't you dare turn around, Ahuja."

Siddharth felt his heart deflate a bit as he kept his gaze straight and was forced to match strides with his bestfriend Ronit.

"I'm sure it won't take much time," he whispered but earned a deadly stare from Ronit.

"You and I both know the truth and today is not the day I'm going to be late. Especially when the entire senior committee is coming to interact with Freshers," Ronit said.

Siddharth barely listened. His ears were still ringing with Mrs. Verma's call's of 'Ronit! Siddharth!'

But the man had strict instructions from his own best friend to not turn around and lend a helping hand to the said best friend's mother.

"The exhibition is just around the corner," Siddharth reminded as he tried to sneakily slow down a bit. But Ronit gave him a hard pat on the back.

"It's her exhibition too," Ronit re-reminded her.

"Come on, you're her son. Don't you wanna help her?"

"Hell no! She should only fill her plate as long as she can handle it," groaned Ronit.

Ronit hated how every time his mother found ways to involve the kids and black mail them to help her. She was organizing these exhibitions for her time pass, it wasn't going to benefit any of them. All Ronit got out of helping her mother were sore feet and an uncountable amount of eye teasing from the middle aged ladies that came in the exhibition. Not to mention all the production work her mother forced them to do.

Weren't they supposed to focus on their careers these years?

Siddharth stayed quiet beside him and handed him over his bike keys. Ronit leapt up to kickstart the vehicle and run off.

But as he tried to bring to life the engine, only static greeted him.

"What the hell," Ronit murmured as he began inspecting. Siddharth was in no mood to check his own bike, instead he took a fleeting look over his shoulder and found that Mrs. Verma was not following them as they were imagining.

Siddharth again felt his heart sink.

Where did Aunty go?

Ronit tried to kickstart the bike again but he failed.

"Accha sila diya tune mom ke pyar ka"

Both Ronit and Siddharth whipped their head to the side. Keerti stood there glaring at them.

"Don't move that mouth so much, in-laws won't be happy," Ronit commented swiftly.

Whack!

Whack!

Ronit received two smacks simultaneously. He groaned, "Ow"

Keerti rolled her eyes at her brother and turned to Siddharth.

"I though you had manners," she said, "You're ignoring her while she's yelling across the compound. I hope you die of hypothermia."

"Shut up, Keerti. You know Ronit is making me do it," Siddharth said, feeling one inch less tall.

"Hypothermia because you got a heart of ice."

"I regret helping you get your favourite laptop"

"Sad you can't go back in time"

"Siddharth, Keerti, both of you stop! Mom is coming our way!"

Ronit hurriedly got off the bike and raced to the building's gate. Siddharth called out after him yet he turned for no one. Today no one was going to stop him from securing his wild card to the committee.