Kishore and Ragini met at 'Joys', the same ice cream joint at the beach where she had met Rama a week ago. Ragini had phoned Rama a couple of times the past days and tried to get her to join them. As things would have it, her attempts had been in vain. Ragini and Kishore ended up being just the two of them at the appointed time.
Ragini kept telling Kishore that Rama was sure to arrive but after waiting outside for around 5-10 minutes, they both decided to enter the ice cream parlour. Waiting outside in the hot summer sun of Chennai was not easy and the air-conditioning and coolers inside lured them in pretty quick. Inside there was a lot of space to sit and the difference in temperature cooled Ragini down very quickly. Since it was the first time she was talking to Kishore, she found herself noticing things about him. He was sweating really profusely. His T-shirt was drenched in sweat and she noticed the wetness on his arms while he was standing next to her at the ice cream counter.
They chose mango and vanilla each and asked for their scoops to be served in cones. With their ice creams in hand, Kishore moved towards a corner where there was a tall pedestal fan that was on full blast. He sat right in front of the gust. Ragini didn't as she was already feeling quite cold. Kishore and she started talking about their chats, asking each other several questions related to their cities. They speculated about why Rama hadn't shown up.
Soon Ragini found herself noticing that Kishore was not eating his vanilla ice cream fast enough and that it was melting. His body didn't seem to have cooled down and the ice cream in his hand started sending streams of the sweet melting liquid on all sides of his cone. Ragini had interacted with boys in her colony and in her college and in her city, so slowly she started to realise that Kishore was super nervous. He was already awkward and this only worsened with the mess he was making, Ragini was now finding it difficult keeping the laugh that was building up in her inside. She found herself feeling sorry for Kishore and passed him a tissue. She stared at her own mango ice cream cone and saw how immaculate it looked in comparison. It suddenly felt like she was in another dimension and watching Kishore from across a glass screen.
They ate their ice creams and left. Kishore offered to drop her home but Ragini preferred just walking back to her cousins. They said their byes and Ragini tried to not make any jokes about the ice cream fiasco she had just witnessed. But it was funny and she silently giggled to herself as she walked home.
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