Himanshu quickly pulled his t-shirt collar up, but it was too late. Mom’s gaze had already landed on it. On his pale neck, that fresh, blood-red bite mark was flashing like a danger siren.
And the second Himanshu realized this, a storm of excuses started racing through his head. What do I even say? A mosquito bit me? I walked into a door?
"Mom... it’s...
Before Himanshu could even say another word, Mom’s face turned completely red with embarrassment. She lowered her gaze slightly and, hiding a weird smile on her lips, said,
"L-Let’s... just go eat pizza."
Himanshu felt the ground slip right from under his feet. Wait... does she think...
Himanshu quickly threw both his hands up in the air in front of him. "No, no, Mom! You’re getting it wrong. It’s... it’s nothing like that!"
Furrowing her eyebrows, the Demon stared at both of them like they were speaking some alien language. Her gaze shifted from trying to read Mom’s face to finding an answer in Himanshu’s trembling body. She couldn’t understand why the vibe in the room had suddenly gotten so weird.
Without saying a word, keeping that same weird smile, Mom placed the pizza boxes on the dining table, walked straight to her room, and shut the door. Click! The sound of the door locking felt like a death sentence to Himanshu.
Poor Himanshu stood outside Mom’s door, constantly trying to explain himself and clear his name. His struggle to prove his innocence through the closed wooden door kept going until Mom’s muffled voice finally came from the inside.
"It’s fine... it happens."
"Mom, I swear! Absolutely nothing happened!" Himanshu rested his forehead against the door.
"I know, it’s hard to control yourself at your age."
Out of pure frustration, Himanshu stomped his foot hard against the floor. Gritting his teeth, he dragged his heavy steps back to the hall.
The Demon was sitting on the dining chair, completely relaxed. Chewing a massive bite of pizza without a single care in the world, she looked at Himanshu.
"What’s wrong? Why’re you screaming so much?"
Himanshu just stood glued to his spot. His sharp, anger-filled gaze was locked straight on the Demon. His jaw was clenched so tight that his veins popped out. Gritting his teeth, he just kept glaring at her.
The Demon picked up another slice of pizza. "Why’re you just standing there? You don’t want pizza?"
Himanshu’s loud, exploding voice echoed through the entire hall.
"Shut up!"
With long, heavy strides, Himanshu closed the little distance between them in a flash. Pointing his finger aggressively at the red mark on his neck, he yelled.
"She thinks this is a love bite!"
Pointing at his mark over and over again, he tried to make the Demon understand the seriousness of this massive disaster.
But looking into Himanshu’s eyes, she stopped chewing. Her red eyes stared at him exactly like a little kid trying to process a really tough math problem. She just stared at him for a few seconds. But the moment Himanshu stopped talking, she started chewing again.
"Well, it is a bite. She guessed right," the Demon said, casually scratching her forehead. "Why didn’t she say anything to me though?"
Himanshu just stood there blinking. All the anger, all the frustration inside him went completely numb in an instant.
Without saying a word, he slumped down onto the dining chair with a heavy thud. His body had gone entirely limp like a corpse, as if his soul had just left his body. He just kept staring blankly at the pizza box on the table. One second... two seconds... three seconds passed in complete silence. In the quiet hall, the only sound ringing in his ears was the smack-smack of the Demon chewing her pizza.
He looked at the Demon once with dead eyes, and then back at the pizza. Resting his elbow on the table and covering half his face with his hand, he picked up a slice with his other hand and shoved it into his mouth like a totally defeated man.
Who am I even trying to explain this to.
.....
A little while later, Mom came out to the hall after changing her clothes. Pulling a dining chair back, she sat down and asked with a smile,
"So, how’s the pizza?"
They both nodded at the exact same time.
But their reasons were completely different. The Demon was so deeply engrossed in eating that she didn’t think talking was necessary, and Himanshu was already drowning in his own thoughts and this fresh trauma.
After a while, gathering some courage, Himanshu tried to clear things up one more time.
"Mom... about earlier-"
"Listen, we’re not talking about this. You got that?" Mom immediately cut him off.
Then, shifting her gaze toward the Demon, she said in a slightly lower, understanding voice.
"Veloria... I know it’s hard to control yourself at this age. But you really shouldn’t have bitten him that hard."
The Demon narrowed her eyes in utter confusion. She looked at Mom for a second, then at Himanshu, and then back at Mom again. She still couldn’t wrap her head around this ’logic’ of the human world.
And Himanshu had absolutely zero words left to defend the Demon. And honestly, this time, he didn’t even want to say anything. He just quietly kept his head down and kept eating his pizza. The Demon was just left waiting for him to speak up, but Himanshu didn’t open his mouth.
A few moments later, Mom changed the topic herself,
"So, when are you guys heading out?"
"In about half an hour."
"Alright, I talked to my friend. She’ll explain everything once you get there."
"You know someone there, Mom?" Himanshu asked, swallowing his pizza.
"Yeah, a friend of my junior."
"Oh."
"Veloria, are you going too?" Mom asked, looking at her.
"Yeah." The Demon replied without showing much expression.
"Okay."
Mom slightly shifted her gaze back to Himanshu. There was a very clear message in the way she looked at him—like saying, you have to take care of her.
She probably still thought the Demon was just some innocent, naive girl from a small town who had no knowledge of this big city. If she knew her reality, she probably would’ve been advising Himanshu to save his own life instead.
...
Half an hour later.
Shutting the apartment’s main door, Himanshu and the Demon started walking down the building’s corridor toward the left. Both were heading for the elevator.
But the Demon couldn’t stop the thoughts spinning in her head about that weird conversation at the dining table.
"Why was your Mom... telling me to bite you softer?" The Demon suddenly stopped in her tracks. Her eyebrows were knit tight. "Who even says stuff like that?"
But Himanshu didn’t stop; he kept walking. Going seven or eight steps ahead, he slowly turned around. There was a weird exhaustion on his face.
"I don’t know," Himanshu said, letting out a heavy sigh. "Figure out the logic yourself. Maybe something like this happened in your 8000 years."
Well, one thing was crystal clear to Himanshu now—outside of beating people up, politics, and her massive ego, this Demon knew absolutely nothing about the real world. Human emotions and conversations were like things from a whole different galaxy to her.
After that, they didn’t exchange a single word for a whole half hour. For a big city, that cafe wasn’t too far, they just had to switch one metro line and walk a bit.
Evening had set in enough that people had started turning their shop lights on. There was the noise of traffic on the streets. People in office clothes were heading back to their homes with exhausted faces. The city’s hustle and bustle was at its peak.
But Himanshu’s entire focus was on the eyes of the people walking on the street. Every passing person would first stare their fill at the Demon, taking in her weird but beautiful face, and then stare at him. Some people’s eyes would just lock onto them, while others would let out a weird laugh seeing them together.
Getting frustrated with this staring game on the street, Himanshu unzipped his side bag. He pulled out a small water bottle, popped the cap open, and started gulping down water.
The Demon was walking right behind him. But god knows what she was doing on that phone. Ever since she stepped out of the metro, her face had been glued to the screen. Completely clueless about the world around her, she was busy doing some deep research.
And right then... from behind, the Demon said something that completely short-circuited the wires in Himanshu’s brain. He spat his entire mouthful of water straight onto a random guy walking past him.
"So... do you love me?"
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
I want to say something.
{"What do you think? Can I really be a writer? This question hit me when I read novels by other authors and realized my imagination doesn’t even come close to theirs. I just started seeing a mountain of mistakes in my own work.
I try to fix them every single day. But sometimes I get really depressed. Not over popularity, but because of my own self-doubt. I know it’s wrong to compare myself to them right now, because they’ve spent years on their writing. To be honest, I haven’t been at this for very long. This is my first novel, and I’ve written 40 Chapters. I never expected this many people to read it.
I just want to give you the best novel possible. Like those other writers. I don’t care how much time it takes me. I will keep working on myself. Because this isn’t just work for me, it’s my life}
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