New Beginnings

8- Knowing Raghav

As soon as we left the house, I apologized, "I am so sorry that you had to waste your time with me. I know you hate me and I promise that I will try my best that situations like this, never happen again".

Raghav who was two steps ahead of me, stopped and turned around. He motioned me to move forwards, and spoke when I came beside him.

"Who said that I hate you?" he asked raising his eyebrows, while maintaining a slow pace, so that we walked side by side.

"Your behaviour?" I answered in a questioning tone, raising my eyebrows as well.

"My behaviour? How come? Do elaborate", he asked looking genuinely confused.

"Umm...how do I say this? Okay so, from the moment we met, you kept on frowning. And then today, you didn't bother answering me if you were decent, when I wanted to come out of the room and then....then you kept smirking and laughing at me...you were trying your best to annoy me...huff", I ranted all the things and huffed to take a huge breathe, seeing that I spoke all those things in a single breath.

Upon receiving no response from him, I looked up to see Raghav stifling his laugh.

"What?" I asked in frustration.

He shook his head and hinted me to wait for one minute by showing his finger as he tried controlling his laughter.

"Sorry", he apologized after calming down from his laughter fit.

"Alright, you are right about me being unwelcoming. But that's my nature, everyone except you knows that unlike Rishi, I am not a people's person. Plus I had to lose my room, so yeah I was frowning.

"Coming onto the annoying part, do tell me Miss. Trisha, from when does annoying someone equalled to hating them? Why would I bother taking efforts to annoy someone I hate? You are a part of our family already and you need to get used to such stupid fights and encounters, every sibling does that. If I truly hated you, I would have just ignored your presence", Raghav explained with a smile and stopped walking.

"Umm...why did you stop?" I asked nervously, hoping that he wasn't angry with my behaviour.

"To show you the park. You do realize the main reason for coming outside, is to show you around, right?" he asked, amused by my nervousness.

"Oh yeah, of course", I mumbled stupidly.

We both went inside the park. Looking around, I continued our previous conversation.

"It's good to know that you don't hate me. Umm...about what you said- Do siblings really annoy each other that much without hating each other?" I asked.

"Oh yeah! I forgot you were an only child. Yeah, almost all siblings fight. If fighting was hating then Rishi would have been my biggest enemy. But here, he is my biggest ally. We curse each other, fight with each other, yet love each other immensely.

"You must have heard that dialogue- Can't stay with each other yet can't stay without each other", he replied with a small smile.

By now, we had left the park and were on our way to see different things.

"Sooo...You consider me as your sibling?" I asked little curiously, little hopefully.

"Of course! It's going to take time for us to bond but still you are our sister now. As time goes by and we all grow comfortable with each other, you are going to witness fights and pranks every day", he told me smiling evilly.

"Looking forward to it and don't think I won't retaliate", I told him with a smirk.

"We will see", he said with an easygoing smile.

We walked further and he showed me around - playgrounds, temples and even the food market.

He asked me if I wanted to buy anything. Right now, I didn't need anything but for a future use I asked him if there was a mall nearby.

"Ah yes! There's one, come I will take you there", he said.

"Only one?" I asked him incredulously.

"Yes, I know there are many in your city, don't try and make us seem inferior", he said frowning.

"I wasn't trying anything", I grumbled.

We walked silently after that. Our conversation was seized because of my stupid comment. It wasn't like I said anything offensive but Raghav seemed too have taken it to heart. I wasn't showing off, or comparing my city to this town, I was just genuinely shocked but he took it in a wrong way.

From now onwards, I had to be careful. Not only towards him but also towards others. There's a greater chance that these people would take my words in a wrong way.

As we were walking, I saw an middle aged lady coming towards us.

"Ooo Raghav, roaming with girlfriend?" she asked wiggling her eyebrows.

"She is my sister", Raghav informed that lady.

"Sister? I thought your mother had two boys, did your sister came from the sky?" She asked laughing at her own joke.

"I am his cousin", I answered her, annoyed of her pestering.

That lady raised her eyebrows at me and told raghav, "That's a surprise, I didn't knew you have relatives, never saw anybody coming in all these years".

Raghav just gave a sad smile at her question.

His sad smile grew a lot of questions in my head but I knew I won't get any answer from him. So I just asked him about that lady.

"Just a nosy neighbour, you are going to encounter many like her. Here people like to poke in each others business", he told me in a matter of fact tone.

"Everyone?" I asked him warily.

"Almost everyone", he replied.

We walked a bit more and then turned towards their home as it was lunch time and we both were hungry.

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