Ohas planned to bring her to a carnival, walking towards that place casually so she would think that they stumbled on chance.

"Oh my God, look!" Naina exclaimed, catching the first glimpse of the Ferris Wheel that revolved like colourful planets in the solar system. "We used to go to a carnival every year, remember?" Ohas shrugged, flashes of their childhood selves eating softies and cotton candies with their snotty noses running in his mind. "Let's gooooooooo!"

She ran ahead and he had to jog after her, her little legs carrying her faster than he had anticipated. Her skirt was swaying with the wind, revealing smooth legs that he suddenly wanted to spread apart and wrap around his hips. But how could he, with the consequences of that act already surrounding him everywhere, children?

Any passerby could mistake the carnival for a riot. Parents screamed and dragged their children, children shot with pistols and arrows at the balloons and shopkeepers beat drums and blew whistles, selling diabetic treats. Through the madness, he spotted a few burly men smoking behind the tents and looking at Naina. Their lusty eyes fixed on her like she was a prey, ready to be gobbled up by hyenas.

Ohas strode towards her, glowering at the men, but before they looked away in fear, Naina smacked him on the head, causing the men to titter in laughter like teenage girls.

"What?" Ohas seethed in rage and Naina smiled sheepishly.

"I just hit the bubble. Oh God, look how big they are!"

Ohas saw her reflection, trapped in one big bubble with spots of scintillating lights, floating in the air till she poked and burst it, freeing the light inside, herself.

"How trapped I felt in that house! I'm finally freeeeeeeeeee," she sang, hopping ahead like a little bird.

He grew alert at that remark. "Trapped? What did he do?"

"Chill. My husband didn't do anything," her referring to that bastard as "my husband" made him want to punch a wall. Getting closer to a candy stall, she took out some moon-shaped, orange sugar candies from the jar, sucking at them aggressively. "In fact, he has nothing to do with me at all. I don't know when he comes, goes, where he sleeps." His racing heart took a break at those words, he felt lighter at hearing that he didn't sleep with her. "That day, that lady, his close friend came home with a present. Forget it, I don't want to talk about her or him. Let's take that ride!"

For a brief minute, her hand sticky from the candy clutched his, dragging him towards a roller coaster that shot upwards.

"I'm not coming," he said, pocketing his hands, feeling the lingering warmth and stickiness of hers.

"Boo, boring!" With that, she skipped happily to the line, her eyes glued to the ride.

The instant the ride began, Ohas regretted not sitting next to her since her skirt flew like Marilyn Monroe's. Naina was too focused on screaming her organs out to notice that everyone below could see her organs. Her black panties with golden stars were on full display and people looked at it as if they were dabbling in amateur astronomy. Ohas himself snapped out of his stargazing, glaring at others who dared to look up at her.

His muscles relaxed when she came down, her face flushed in oblivious happiness as she said, "I'm going for a round two!" Ohas shoved a little girl in a pink frock who was about to sit next to her, taking the seat himself. That made Naina grin. "You couldn't resist this ride, eh? The ride looked fun from below, no?"

Without a word, Ohas placed his hand over her skirt as they shot upwards, one mute and dead and the other screaming and alive.

* * *

"Now that we're on the same team, how should we kill him?" Naina asked, starry-eyed. They were on a Ferris Wheel with firecrackers bursting in the pitch black sky above, sparkles fizzling into silence. Away from the crowd that was scattered like ants below, closer to the quietness of the night. She couldn't stop smiling from the sugar and the rides and he couldn't stop looking at her.

"I can end him when he goes to work tomorrow," he said, already imagining how satisfying that would be.

"No!" Naina suddenly blurted out, horrified. "You-You can't do that. I'll take care of him-I mean, I'll take care of murdering him. I have a few methods up my sleeve."

"What are they?"

"Well, for starters," she said, leaning closer to him and grabbing his collar. "I can seduce him like this so he begins to trust me. If he trusts me, everyone else will too. So one day when I slip a bit of poison here and there, nobody will suspect me. I can even frame one of the maids, I hate her. She kept saying that Ahanay's wife had to be highly educated and pretty---" She broke off, still holding his collar, but looking down. "Anyway, this plan is perfect. Nobody will get caught and all his property will fall on our laps."

Suddenly, Ohas pulled her on his lap, her skirt bunching up her thighs and revealing her smooth legs.

"What the---"

"You don't have to seduce him," he said through gritted teeth, his cat eyes cold and hard.

"Are you mad? Leave me---"

"Why?" He smiled wryly, gripping her naked thighs, his hands dangerously moving upwards. Her stiffness enraged him, why couldn't she stand his touch when she went begging for that bastard's? He held her chin, tilting her face to meet her lips. "You don't mind doing this with him."

"You have lost it," she breathed, finally snapping out of the icy grip that had frozen her. "I swear I will bite you if you kiss me. Get away---"

"Attention please," an announcement began, interrupting them. "An eight-year-old girl is missing. She was wearing a pink frock and was last seen at the roller coaster. Her name is Pari. . ."

Pari. Ohas felt his ears hot at that name as he gripped Naina tighter in his arms. This time, Naina hugged him back, her eyes large and fearful. She placed her head against his wildly beating heart, squeezing her eyes shut.

"One, two, three, Pari out!" Eight-year-old Naina and ten-year-old Ohas shouted, their hands linked. It was Ohas' turn in the chain tag game and he had first caught Naina since he didn't like that another boy had been holding her hand in the previous game.

It was an evening with laughter in the air, children running here and there, hiding behind Maruti cars and trees where raw mangoes hung.

"No, no, cheating. I wasn't ready," Pari said, scrunching her nose up. "Once more!"

Huffing, Naina and Ohas went back, knowing that the little girl was the most influential man's daughter from their building and one complaint from her, both Ohas and Naina would be banned from playing.

"Ready?" Ohas shouted and Naina clutching his hand dragged him forward.

"She's ready, alright. Wherever she goes, we can catch her in two seconds anyway."

And Naina was right. Pari had run away to the other side of the compound where nobody went, but they were quick to find her. Throwing their hands forward, they touched her back.

Dust flew in the air from all their running and a scream tore through, bringing other children from all corners.

"Ohas and Naina killed Pari!" Someone shouted and others stared at them in fear. "I saw them push her in the ditch! They pushed her!"

"Fucking murderers! God will send you to hell!"

"Put them in jail! Show them no mercy!"

"They deserve to die! Hang them!"

All voices echoed at them as they grew up, away from everyone else, close together.

"Oh, hero!" The man who handled the Ferris Wheel operations called at them. "This is no place to fuck. Go find some---"

The minute his eyes locked with Ohas, he shut up.

Naina quickly disengaged from Ohas, smoothening her skirt and leaving him empty and cold. Both had been too lost in their past to take notice of reaching the ground. All Naina wanted to do was run away from this place, run away from everything horrid and old.

"I need a drink," she muttered, having tasted and drunk alcohol with Ohas in the past. Only a little alcohol was enough to make Naina giggly and herself. Whereas Ohas drank himself to death, his mind would go foggy and out of himself. This time, it seemed like she didn't trust him enough to go drinking with him. So they bought bottles of alcohol and Naina grabbed one, opening it and drinking only when she had reached her home.

As Ohas dropped her (against his will for all he wanted was to whisk her away to his place) and walked back to his motorbike, Naina stumbled into her house, half-emptying the bottle in one gulp. This evening had been crazy for her like a rollercoaster, taking her up to the highest levels of freedom and ecstacy before plummeting down. She didn't understand her best-friend these days, he seemed to grab her whenever and wherever he pleased. A chill ran down her spine at that memory of him trapping her in a way that made her stiff and scared. And then Pari.

She had gone to the carnival to relive the happiest moments of her life, not that one.

As she continued to stumble over the stairs and towards her room, clutching the bottle of alcohol and ears of a stuffed bunny (that Ohas had won for her at the rifle shooting game where his aim was terrifyingly perfect), she heard a sudden crash and she stilled. A voice came from the walls. "Did you have fun with that man?"

"What? I'm barely drunk! Walls cannot talk!" She touched the wall next to her bedroom and suddenly, it opened like a sliding door. "Woah, what is this!"

"Welcome to the dungeon," Ahanay's sarcastic voice mocked her, striding towards her with a black belt wrapped around his hand as she staggered back, hitting the wall that closed behind her. Her husband was completely naked, drops of water slid down his abs and further down, where Naina didn't dare to look. "Now tell me my darling wife, who was that man?"

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