After getting defeated by her brother in all the three sets in a row, and after shedding 100 USD as the winning amount, Akira happily started walking back towards their house. Throughout the evening that she was out, her hands were itching to text him, but she was somehow refraining herself, as she couldn't let Mike, have a hint of what was happening in the background.

Her ears were longing for his voice, while her eyes were longing for a sight of him. But little did she know that the longing in his heart was far worse than hers.

Inside a car, which was parked just a few meters away from her house, he was waiting for her to arrive back at her home. The moment he saw them walking back together, laughing happily in a jolly mood, he was ecstatic. He saw her dressed up in a bright color dress after God knows how many days.

She was wearing the same sneakers which he had bought for her and had given to her in London. It sprang a smile on his face. Somehow these small cute gestures of her brought immense happiness to him.

Right now he just wanted to get out of the car and to run to her and embrace her in his arms and kiss the breath out of her, but somehow deep down he knew that he was being followed. So he just decided to station himself outside her house and fill his heart, just by looking at her.

Suddenly Mike looked straight towards the car. Even though it was parked at quite a distance, the moment he looked at the driver seat, he was shocked,

"What the !!!"

Mike exclaimed like anything.

"What happened, Mike?"

But before he could see anything clearly, Raymond had already started his car.

"Nothing, I just felt like... Erm... never mind. Let's go in. It's already getting quite dark."

Saying that Mike shot up one more look in his direction, for he was sure that he saw him or someone who looked like him.

After they got inside, Akira went straight to her bedroom and two minutes after that Mike came out of his bedroom and sneaked outside the house. He felt like he saw him, he knew that it was impossible, but he was not ready to accept that it was just a passing thought in his head.

So he immediately went outside the house to the exact same spot where Raymond's car was parked a while ago.

Akira came out of her room after changing into her pajamas, to fill her water bottle and saw that the main door was open. All shocked and scared she was about to call Mike when she saw him entering the house.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Ah nothing, just went outside to have a breath of fresh air."

"Didn't we just come back after inhaling bucket loads of fresh air?"

"Well yeah, but I wanted some solitude."

"Jeez that word coming from your mouth, sounds so weird", saying that Akira retired back to her room.

Taking a deep breath, Mike closed the door behind him and went straight to the room. He was just glad that he was able to steer the conversation away because he couldn't bear to discuss about Raymond with Akira, not after when for the first time in all these days she had started to live again.

She got into her room and saw that there was a new message.

"Looks like you guys had a nice time together !!!" - RAYMOND*

"Looks like someone was following me :P" - AKIRA

A smile spread on his face as he read her reply.

"Did u see me?" - RAYMOND

"Can I call? Don't make me type this much" - AKIRA

And she held her phone all eagerly, waiting for his response. But instead of sending a message, he had called her up directly.

"Hii"

"Hi there."

"How are you?"

She blushed just after hearing this question.

"I feel good after hearing your voice"

"Guess what? me too", Raymond said while driving back to his house.

"Drive slowly ok and I hope you are using handsfree."

"Yes, I am."

"You didn't answer my question. Did you see me?"

"I didn't but someone else had a glimpse of you and became all restless. So I could deduce that it must have been you."

"Ah, I should have been discrete. But the moment I saw you, I just lost all my calm", Raymond said and chuckled.

"But I didn't get to see you. That's not fair.

"Come to the dance tomorrow. I bet you will beg me to stop visiting you"

"Is that so?"

"Well yeah, that's my agenda for now."

"So I am a task now?"

"No, you are not a task, you are the Everest that I want to ascend."