Make A Wish- Part 2 [Rohan]

Aarav's face turned sour. "You know what? I am out of here." He began to walk away without another word. Ru ran after him.

"Wait," he shouted, cutting through the crowd of store customers, "Oops, sorry, excuse me, sorry." He jostled and elbowed and pushed and at last caught up with Aarav, who had the longest strides. Aarav had his phone in his hand, and without thinking much, Ru snatched it.

"Are you mad?" Aarav snapped at Ru, "give me the phone."

Ru was worried for a second but f-ck it. "No," he said defiantly, "either you stay, or you are never getting your phone back." Ru was determined to keep Aarav in the store.

Aarav glared, looked around, and glared some more. Ru walked back to their cart, with Aarav's phone in his hand, knowing the poor guy had no other choice but to come with him.

They spent, or rather Ru spent another thirty minutes, contemplating which all purpose cleaner looked more antiseptic and which air freshner smelled better. He shoved one at Aarav to sniff at, and the guy turned his face away, grouching and sulking.

The girl at the check out clearly hated her job and had no interest in hearing out Ru's distress about the plastic bags that they were using to bag the groceries. Ru patiently explained to her how plastics are destroying the environment and how in the future, neither her nor his future generation would thank them for this. She stared at him like he had grown another head. On top of that, she totally refused to call the manager over his concerns about the plastics and looked at him with tired 'really?' eyes when Ru suggested that they need to fix this at the organizational level.

When Ru tried to show her how to properly bag the grocery items, she stared daggers at him. So, he just stopped correcting her and left her alone in her messy way. Even Aarav seemed to be on her side and did not say anything at all at the check out counter.

Eventually, they left the store.

"Here," Ru said, handing Aarav his phone when they got inside his car. "Sorry."

"Oh no, you keep it," Aarav offered with a heated sarcasm, "since you think you own everything, whether it is yours or not. You just take it and don't worry about how much inconvenience you are causing to the others…"

"Well…." Ru began to speak, but it fell into deaf ears.

"And yeah, sure, that girl, she would much rather get fired over your vegan environmental principles than work to feed her family."

"Well…"

Aarav did not give Ru a chance to speak. "For once, did you think that you are making a fool out of yourself, that you only look like a silly, little rich boy, who is completely oblivious to everything and everyone around you, and you are not the hero that you think you are?"

Ru's eyes stung. He went entirely silent, struggling to keep the tears from rolling down. They spent the rest of the ride in silence.

It was a total of twelve heavy bags, and they each carried six of them. Aarav offered to take more, but Ru declined. He bitingly explained to Aarav that he was a grown man and he could carry his "own shit."

And then it happened, what Ru was trying to hide the whole time, as soon as the two opened the door to the apartment.

"Surpriiiiiiiiiiissssseee!!!!" All of Aarav's friends screamed in tune. "Happy Birthday."

For a moment Aarav's was truly stunned. He looked back at Ru speechlessly. Ru gave him a thin smile and shrugged. It was Aarav's birthday today, and Ru wanted to keep quiet about the surprise party.

When they went into the living room, Ru was happy to see that Aarav's friends had carried out all his instructions perfectly, down to every letter. The streamers in yellow, pink, and blue were zigzagging across the ceiling in perfect parallel waves. The baby blue balloons with Happy Birthday and smiley face printed on them were scattered throughout the living room at an ideal distance, sending out fun party vibes.

One of the friends remembered to bring the moving LED party lights too. Another friend volunteered to DJ for the party, and Ru knew he was pretty good for an amateur DJ. And in the center of it all, on the coffee table, was the birthday cake, a perfectly square chocolate cake with vanilla icing, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AARAV :) written across it in red. Ru had specially ordered the cake from his favorite bakery.

"Wow," was all Aarav said, but Ru could see on his face that he was already regretting his words. "I…." Aarav began to say, but Ru stopped him.

"Don't worry," Ru smiled. "Let's cut the cake."

They fixed the candles on the cake, all twenty two of them, and as Aarav was about to blow on them, someone said, "Wait, make a wish!"

Aarav smiled. "I already did," he said, looking at Ru.