1st in spiritual on 14th August, 2018
1st in Pakistani on 6th August 2018
3rd in Pakistani on 9th July 2018
2nd in spiritual on 13th September
Jannat, a barely eighteen, timid girl living with her parents. They are not her biological parents though...
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Dua sat with Ali in the ice cream parlour, pestering him.
"Ali bhai", she sipped on her strawberry milkshake, as she didn't want ice cream.
"Dua behn", Ali said, taking a bite of his vanilla ice cream, wondering why she dragged him to get ice cream if she didn't want it.
"Ali bhai", She said again, rolling her eyes, this time more insistent.
"Yes ,Dua behn."
"OK then. What's your girlfriend's name?", She asked bluntly, eyebrows raised.
" I have a girlfriend?", he copied her expression, his grey eyes held a twinkle.
"Well, then. What kind of girls do you like?" , a large weird smile on her face, like a psychopath planning a murder.
Ali, weirded out but still fascinated, started telling her details of his fantasy girl, who surely wasn't really his dream girl. He told details of a goth, black flicked hair, heavy eyeliner and piercings and watched as Dua's frown deepened and smile faltered slowly.
He got surprised again, when on the way home, she had yelled the lyrics 'I am a motherfûcking starboy' without hesitating for even a second.
He was truly fascinated. Like he had never been before.
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Ibraheem sat with Azlaan, both talking about things men talk about when Jannat entered the room.
"You chai, Ibraheem b-bhai." She said. Her head bowed.
Ibraheem smirked and took the cup without looking at her. He had just told her last night not to call him bhai very explicitly.
'Looks like the little lamb needs to be punished' , He thought.
Azlaan looked at Jannat, then looked at Ibraheem. His eyebrows raised and a smirk formed on his lips.
Ibraheem noticed his expressions and glared at him coldly, stopping every nonsense going through his head.
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It was midnight, nearly when Jannat saw that the water in the water bottle she keeps in her room is finished. She went to the kitchen to get some, then.
When she got there, wearing a T-shirt pyjama pants, she saw the large figure of Ibraheem was hunched over fridge, rifling through it.
He turned around when she entered and she observed that he looked surprisingly very soft in his grey track pants and a white navy T-shirt, his hair displaying a messy bedhead.
His dark eyes kept watching her as she poured the water and drank it, her mouth wrapped around the bottle.
When she was was leaving, he asked in an exasperated tone,
"So you're going to leave me here alone and hungry? "
"I-I didn't know you needed help." So he expected her to help him without even asking for it?
A little grumpy, he walked to the marble counter and sat down. "I have searched the fridge and there is nothing to eat. You should cook something for me then."
Jannat was sleepy. She really was very sleepy a minute ago, but now the sleep had vanished.
"Eggs?" She suggested. Mainly because that was the second thing she knew how to cook, first being boiling water for instant noodles.
He shrugged.
As she took the pan out, whisked a couple eggs and put some spices along with oregano in it, Ibraheem talked to her.
After a very long time, he had actually talked to her like he used to talk to her before. About school, her friends, her plans. It was refreshing.
While she cooked it on the pan, he behind her, arms around her waist as always and head on her shoulder, in the crook of her neck.
Jannat was ready for the onslaught of his lips, but that didn't happen. He just kept his head there, on her shoulders, his nose buried in her hair as she cooked.
Jannat felt her heart melting. Or maybe she was dying.
When it was done, she started plating it and thanked God for not making her mess it up. However, that didn't work because when she put the last of the pieces of egg on the plate, her finger burned a little.
She jerked her hand back and Ibraheem grabbed it in a second.
"Oh shit! Be careful Come here", he whisper- yelled.
Putting the ointment on her hand, that he had taken from one of the cabinets, he tucked a piece of her hair behind her head.
"All done."
His head bent towards her forehead, brushing his lip there lightly when Dua coughed from the doorway.
"Ahem. Ahem", she faked the cough and went straight to the fridge, ignoring them both and miraculously took a take out bag of pasta and a piece of chocolate fudge cake out of it.
Jannat smiled looking at Ibraheem as he stared at Dua in surprise and confusion, his mouth gaping open.
Dua winked at them, as she left the kitchen, spooning her cold pasta.
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Next evening, when their cousins left , everyone sat around the dining table, except Jannat.
Ibraheem's mother, Saira, took this as a chance to ask everyone for their opinion of Haya's proposal.
"She recieved a proposal from a good guy the other day. And also Saima has been asking for Jannat's hand for Azlaan for ages. What do you think?"
Saima, Azlaan's mother loved Haya as her own and wanted her for his spoiled son.
"You should look into the proposals, Ammi. I don't have a problem." Ibraheem said, without even looking up from his newspaper.
Everyone at the table - except his father, who was oblivious- was confused. He didn't have a problem?
When the lamp next to the door fell down, everyone turned their head and saw flickers of Jannat's red dupatta fly in the air as she ran upstairs.
