The Man Who Lived Upstairs

5

I couldn't give the Rayan excuse for being late, since Umma knew we broke up.

Besides Jeff looked pissed off seeing me get home by eight.

"Where the heck were you?"

With a drunken loser flirting and apologising, who I had to drop in his house, and a key under the pots and a taxi driver yelling for extra fare, I had no other reason to procure.

"I was..with Rosa"

"At this hour?"

He raised a brow and pursed his lips like dad.

I didn't mind and got inside.

Fucking Jeff was always getting pissed at me today.

Umma was sitting on the chair, eyes widened and a sigh interrupting my dull state of mind.

Dad sat opposite her, his body unmoving.

The house was dead silent.

Did something happen?

What is going on?

It felt as if somebody died in there and they were dissecting the body slowly.

"What happ-

"RIYA!"

Umma twisted around in a gasp and rushed towards me.

Her arms cupped me in an embrace.

She smelled of turmeric and chilli powder.

"I thought you must be dead"

Dead?

They looked like a UFO crashed upon them, since I was an hour late?

My eyes ran to dad's who was taking deep breaths and exhaling. He kept shaking his head.

"I was with-

"We called Rosa and she said you were not around. Albert was with her, so no clue for it. Who else should we call and confirm your whereabouts? Atleast tell Jeff where your off to"

She pulled back and gasped. "Is that.........alcohol I smell on you?"

Her countenance said I murdered someone.

Before I could interject, Dad stood up.

"The library room in two"

Gosh.

No.

The last time he said it was when I failed Maths exam at my twelfth. My score card didn't arrive and I was partying over at every friend's house since my exams were done. The bomb explosion or karma of messing up every house landed few days after whne everyone recieved their grade while I didn't.

My parents ran around trying to find the reason when the school principal send a bomblastic email, saying I failed Maths by one mark.

One mark.

I was punished with no social media and parties for about six months.

Until Dad interjected and got my sentence reduced to three.

But today he looked fierce and.furious.

Somebody play BTS's "Not Today", so I can walk away.

Umma pulled away from hugging me again to confirm her suspicions and looked pathetically at me, like I had bombed Hiroshima.

"Yes-s-s dad-d"

And without changing from those yucky drunken clothes, I went inside the office.

Pretty sure my warning attempts would end in a suspension today.

"Did you drink?"

I stood next to his office table, filled with books, hands on my back and my head hung.

He sat behind the table, stern.

Dad was never scary until he fell into silence.

Thick silence.

"No"

He took my gaze.

The debris in the room attacked my throat, bringing a cough. A sign of guilt on having touched a drunken man filled my face.

"Riya, do not lie"

"I never lie"

The proper three words I told today without stuttering.

He left a deep exhale, "I know"

My shoulders fell a little.

"It was Rayan. He came barging, wanting to get back together, and in the process, he was drunk, so-"

"Did you get back together?", dad looked worried, for a tiny moment until it vanished from his face.

"No"

I didn't take any apologies. My dignity was higher than a thirty storeyed building so there was no way he could just come back, crawling in now.

"Good"

Relief painted his face as he put his hands on the table.

"Go on"

I let myself chill down a little and narrated the rest of the story.

Since he was bawling his eyes out and crawling on the floor for Ayna, I couldn't just leave him on the street. So I carried him on my shoulder home. He kept pulling his hand towards the pot, so I knew where his keys were at. I had visited the place too many times and my haunting memories hung there like the string of fate. Dropping him on his slumber, I made some hangover soup (because I didn't want him dead considering the amount he drank) and left, locking the place up, while keeping the keys on the window sill.

If he was getting robbed tonight, it wasn't my fault.

"Do you want to get back together with him?"

Seriously?

Dad never asked me questions about my relationship. I remember confessing to Umma about having something with Rayan. I knew Dad knew, since he would overhear most of our conversations.

Its weird, I never felt comfortable with telling him face-to-face, but it was okay if he learned by eavesdropping.

Something made the difference.

"No dad. I have made my conclusions on the matter"

The corners of his lips pulled.

"Just leave a message when you would get late"

I couldn't believe my ears.

Dad was letting me go.

I still recalled how angry he sounded with the math paper stuff. With his deep voice, the library room shuddered when he put me into detention.

Not today, I guess.

BTS won.

"So no punishment?"

I shouldn't have asked for the net when it was clearly pulled out.

Dad stood up and smiled more.

"Your too old for that. How's your job going?"

My eyes widened.

"Okay okay..dad. Just not the usual flow of customers"

"How's your prep coming?"

I shrugged, "Even worse."

In minutes, we were chatting about daily stuff, and he left the room slowly.

I noticed a tiny limp in the way he shifted the weight.

"What's wrong with your leg?"

He looked at me through his eye,

"I am getting old as well"

Those words hit harder than any detention period.

And I was sitting in the library room for a while when it happened.

The door had closed with dad leaving.

I rewinded what happened inside when the curtains shuffled again.

Like any other day, I went to the yellow blinds and shook them, shaking its curves over stretching it out wide.

The folds came out, and so did something black that was standing on the window sill.

For a minute, the shadow twitched and I noticed the windows were closed.

I was inches away from something moving behind the curtains.

A shiver ran through my spine when I made out a six feet body hanging on the rods of the window, for his life.

His face was cupped in a black mask, and a tiny black Tee and black pants hung on his little body. What struck on me, was his hard gaze.

Green eyes were staring at my soul, keeping me still with cold breaths escaping my nose every now and then.

His hair was hidden behind a cap, and so was half of his face.

In one glance, he reminded me of an idol.

Because I could only make out how lean and tall he was.

A million questions ran through my head.

Was he a robber?

A crazy man from the crazy hospital downtown?

A lost soul?

Some refugee?

A freaking understatement?

The man who had closed the ketchup bottle?

An alien?

Before I could answer any of them, I was pinned to the cupboard behind, my back hit against the wood, making me scream behind his palm.

Muffled breaths escaped my mouth as he held me to the wall.

"Shut up"

Two words.

Fucking hell.

He had a hot voice.

"Keep quiet"

I was quiet.

I stopped screaming.

My heart rate would maybe explode otherwise the remaining seemed normal indeed.

Except for sweat bedding my forehead, a shuddering spine and scary adrenaline surging through the body, excitement peaked at the man who had me against the cupboard in the library room of my house, while asking me to shut up.

He was a hot robber, in my instincts.

I held his palm and pulled it away, but his strength on my mouth tightened.

God, it was such a crushing hold, my lips would come off.

I wasn't going to bail on him.

Whatever he needed, he could take.

The only thing I wanted to know was whether he was the man who had closed the ketchup bottle.

But he wasn't going to let me talk.

Up close, I saw wrinkled foreheads, a mole near his eyebrow and thick eyebrows one could pluck hairs out of. A bit of his bucket hair revealed the long hair that reached the back of his neck. One more glance and I was exploring his long ears pierced with no earrings and perfect nose tip which ended in a mask.

He might as well take it off and show me amazing lips so I could complete the first wish of my bucket list.

"Get the hottest man to pin me to the wall"

However, he seemed concerned.

I pulled at his hand and mumbled nonsense.

He tightened the hold, eyes running to the door.

I kicked his shins, when he hit my head with his forehead.

But his hand came off, just then.

"OUCH!"

"Stop!", I pushed him and held my aching head. Damn, that was a harsh hit.

"I won't bail on you so stop attacking"

He was frowning alright, but that died instantly.

"Excuse me?!"

A voice deeper than the Mariana Trench, with a slight upper note of surprise.

I held my forehead and nodded, "Yeah...so just go hide again. Dad might come-

"RIYA!"

Gosh, he was coming in here.

I pushed the flustered and confused hot guy into the bathroom, before he could fight back and shut the door with few words.

"Just stay here until everyone sleeps and tell me everything about the ketchup bottle"

His eyes went a note high so it confirmed it.

I actually laughed and shut the door, milliseconds before dad opened the door.

He looked the same, with raised brows.

"What's up?"

Dad giving me the sup. Today was a once a blue moon day.

I crossed my arms upfront and laughed.

"I was taking a piss"

"Come on", he smiled, "Umma has made some pancakes"

I nodded and pushed the bathroom door close shut, leaving no space for air and rushed outside, closing the library door.

I wanted to lock it, but it would make everything suspicious.

Umma's pancakes and stupid Jeff's sulks made my cup of coffee for the night.

I slept well, keeping an alarm for 9 in the morning,

pretty sure he himself would come to talk to me.