Fever

Kritvik Bhatt

“That lunch break made me realize one thing. And it’s that maybe… she doesn’t like me that much, man. Or else, she wouldn’t have vanished with Kavya without even telling me, knowing that I’d be left all alone, after all. Obviously, all of that love triangle stuff was just something that I made up in my head, after all.”

The gray soft clouds covered the whole sky. There were no birds, no planes, nothing—just the clouds with some open patches here and there. The whole street was empty, for some reason, and was only filled with unoccupied gray cars. The walls were pure white, and had some trees and stuff on the other side in front of the houses. The houses too were huge and wide, like some bungalow, maybe.

In the middle of the road was my figure in a white shirt and navy blue pair of pants, along with a green sweater and a green coat. My hands were inside the pockets of my pants, and my eyes were tilted down.

“I was still wondering about all of that damned stuff, for some reason. Obviously. No doubt, I couldn’t let it get off my head.”

I turned my head to the front. About a couple dozen steps away, I could see the little figures of my school students walking with their bags on their backs from the left to the right, some cuts away. “I’m a part of them now. But… I don’t feel like that. I don’t feel normal here. I don’t feel like I belong here. I…”

“I don’t feel like myself here. Still.”

My figure turned to a black silhouette walking toward those all-white figures. Everything around me was turning darker and darker until what was left of the bungalows around me was their silhouette under the dark blue and gray sky.

Dark smoke came out of my figure, for some reason.

“Why do I have this… strange feeling… that some kind of strange aura is surrounding me at all times…?”

I opened my eyes. Everything around me in my vision was back to normal, for some reason.

***

“Hey, K!”

I turned my head backward. “Yeah?”

Sana was sitting right behind my seat—on the table. Her body was on the left edge of the table, for some reason, as her body was balanced on it by her butt. She turned her head to her left at me and asked, “Do you know about JenCon?”

“Huh? What’s that?” I narrowed my eyes.

The whole class was scattered here and there as kids entered the class randomly with their bags on. There was still some time left for the school to start.

“What? You really don’t know about JenCon?” She narrowed her eyes in boredom. “Poverty…”

“Stop it.”

“Emo.”

I then turned my back backward to her. “What’s that?”

“Well, it’s just an event where fans of Jenshin and other spin-off games of the franchise come together and have fun.” She then turned to me with an excited smile on her face. “You see, people are cosplaying, buying t-shirts, books, hoodies, and other merch of the series, and there are even some VR stations where you can play the game in VR!”

“Damn!”

“Cool, right?!” She shouted with excitement. She then turned her head to the front. “Like, there are even the creators of the games who talk about their experiences and how they made the game and some other really interesting things.”

I smiled too. “Damn, man. You seem excited.”

She turned to me. “I wanna go there.”

“Where is it held?”

“D-Delhi…”

“What?!”

“Yeah, so I don’t really know how I could visit it, you see.”

I nodded as I stood up. “Delhi, huh?”

“Yeah,” She turned to me, her smile fading away a little. “Like, you wanna come with me?”

“No doubt I will, but…” I turned my eyes to her. “How are we gonna go to Delhi?”

“… Metro…?”

“Yeah, but…”

“Anyway, I know all the lanes, and I can really guide you perfectly. We won’t get lost, I promise!”

“But… I don’t think my mom would agree, man,” I replied as I turned my head to the front. “Maybe she would, but I don’t think she will.”

“Emo, at least try before you give up. Like, you see, she might agree…”

“Y-Yeah, but…” I stopped midway, and thought, “Why will my mom ever agree to send me to Delhi alone with a girl, man? How do I tell her this…?”

“… What?” She asked.

“Uh…”

“Well, I can talk to her if you want. I’m really good with moms, you see.”

“Who else is coming with us?” I turned to her as I asked her the question.

“How many people do you think play Jenshin in our class?” She asked back, looking straight into my eyes as she smiled. “None.”

“Damn, but… two people… alone…”

Her eyes suddenly widened, like some thought just hit her, maybe. “So you’re scared to go out just with girls?”

“Damn, no!”

“Well, then what?”

“It-It’s just that I’ve never gone that far with friends.”

“Well, it’s my first time too, you see,” She smiled. “But I badly wanna have fun there. And there’s no one else. Like, they don’t play games, you see. All of them are boring.”

“Uh, I’ll try asking my mom, man. But, like I said, I can’t guarantee it, obviously.”

“I know you’re coming in, emo!” She commented.

I smiled. “I hope so too.”

Ding, dong! Ding, dong! The bell rang, and everyone started to move here and there back to their seats. I turned my head to my left—at the blackboard—and noticed the class teacher in her dark black kurta-pajama walking in toward her desk. She had just entered the class, no doubt. So, I turned frontward to the blackboard as Sana jumped down from the table too to sit on the chair.

She was moving her butt to the chair behind my desk as I had my eyes on the teacher.

***

“Well, it’s really cold today,” Sana commented.

We both were standing in front of the windows of the corridor, looking at each other with our lunchboxes in our hands. The window glanced at the cloudy skies and the white bungalows with black modern tiles on them.

“Like, Kavya even caught a cold.”

“Damn, hope she gets well soon,” I commented.

“Anyway, why are you… shaking?”

“Huh?” I turned my head downward to my left hand, which held my lunchbox. It was trembling a little.

“Uh, it’s cold today, man. I didn’t think it’d be this cold, so…”

“That’s sad… Like, get some more layers on,” She worriedly looked at my trembling left hand. I turned my head to her as I took a bite from my right hand. She too turned up at me, looking at me with her worried eyes. “You can really catch a cold, emo.”

I gulped down the food in my mouth. “No doubt I’ll be fine, Sana,” I smiled a little. “I’ll get some more clothes on when I reach home.”

“Are you out of your mind?!” She scolded me. “You are really trembling, emo!”

“Y-Y-Yeah, but…”

“Whatever. The classrooms are warmer. Get in.”

“Huh? No, don’t worry about it. I—”

She grabbed my right hand and turned to my right—her left—toward the classroom’s door.

Both of us walked in, one after the other. She then left my hand and I walked behind her as she turned left toward her desk. “Sana, I’m fine.”

“I might have a woolen muffler in my bag. My mom is really cautious, you see,” She said.

“But…” I tried to protest, but we had reached her desk and she had crouched down on the ground. She opened the zip of her bag, keeping her lunchbox on her left on the ground, and then started to shuffle her books. “We can do it after the lunch-break, man.”

“Like, whatever,” She commented back as she continued to look for it. She then opened another zip and started searching there.

“Sana, get up,” I said. I took another bite of my food and started to chew as I glared at her bag.

She then suddenly pulled a red cloth out of her bag. She took her lunchbox in her left hand and stood up, moving the pink muffler toward me. “Like, I don’t even use it. I don’t know why my mother still keeps it here every day.”

I gulped in as I started to close my lunchbox. “We could have done this after lunch, man.”

“Yeah, but you were really trembling, emo. What if you catch a cold?”

“Uh, I still don’t think it makes a difference, man.”

“You see, it really does,” She firmly said as she moved it up. “Take it now.”

I kept the lunchbox on the desk on my right—which was my own desk, since it was in front of Sana’s—and then took it from her with my left hand. I held the pink muffler in both my hands and glared at it.

She took a bite and chewed it, staring at me as I stared at the piece of cloth. She soon gulped in and said, “What?!”

“I… Uhm…” I turned my eyes to her, hesitantly. “How do I wear it?”

“What? Really?” She frowned.

I smiled a little awkwardly.

She shook her head in disbelief, for some reason, and then snatched the muffler away from me. She opened it, and then held both its ends, and then collected it in the form of some rope or stuff, and then turned to me. “Come.”

I bent my back a little toward her and she stepped to me. She moved the muffler around my head to the back and then rolled it around my neck once. One edge of the muffler ran down from my left shoulder, and the other ran down my back.

“You see, I really don’t know about how it’s actually supposed to be worn. But, well, you look okay.”

I looked toward her, that pink muffler on top of my white shirt, around my neck, just staying still.

She glared at me for some time, and then she laughed. “Pfft! You look funny in pink, K!”

I smiled too as I turned my eyes downward at the muffler. “Damn, man…”

“Aheehehehhe.”

***

“Around the hometime, it had gotten worse, for some reason.”

“Chee!” I sneezed.

“And Sana had taken care of me all day long, man.”

My arms were folded in front of my chest. The muffler was wrapped around my chest and neck, with my arms folded in front of it. My bag was behind my back, hanging.

The two of us were walking home from school. The sky above our heads was still cloudy and everything around us was still gray, obviously. We walked through the street filled with apartments on both sides, like usual. My house was still a little far, man.

Sana looked at me worriedly as she walked beside me on my right. “You really caught it, emo,” She worriedly commented.

I nodded. “Yeah, man.” My voice had turned a little coarse because of the cold.

She moved her left hand and patted me on my back. “Get some more layers of clothes from tomorrow on, okay?”

I nodded, my head tilted down. “I feel like I have a little fever too.”

“Like, I see that too,” She worriedly replied. She turned her head to the front. “Don’t worry. I’ll walk you home.”

“Thanks, man.”

“What thanks?!” She angrily shouted at me as she turned to me. “Like, what’d you have done if I were absent or something?!”

“I’m sor—”

“Why can’t you even take care of yourself?!”

“I-I’m sorry…”

“Like that’d get your fever out.”

I didn’t say another word after that. I kept my silence. Sana too glared at me silently, her eyes frowning.

She then turned her head to the front. She patted me on my back again, and then took her hand away. “You’ll be fine.”

I smiled a little. “Obviously, I’m not gonna die, after all.”

She smiled. “Like, yeah.”

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

Both of us walked beside each other, silently.

“Anyway, you’ll be absent for some days now, right?”

“Yeah, man.”

“You see, I wanna talk about something serious with you.”

I turned my head to her. “What is it?”

“I… I want us to go to JenCon, you see.”

I gulped in and nodded. I turned my head to the front, and cleared my throat. “Ahem. I’ll try my best, Sana.”

“It’s not really fun to go there alone, you see. And I don’t really think I’d have fun with anyone else. I only know you and Kavya as my friends.”

“After all, you only have two friends, huh?” I smiled a little.

She didn’t smile. “Well, COVID took many of my friends away, you see.”

I nodded, smiling. “I'll try my best.”

She smiled too.