Chapter 101: His playground

"This is your home?" Thankappan asked, surprised seeing the scene before him.

"Yup. You get why we moved houses now, right?" Shivani smiled. What they saw before them was a run down house which was entirely flooded. The house was barely visible with all the water. It was really a sorry sight.

"Yea, I get it." He nodded his head. It wasn't just him. Everyone else was astonished about this as well. Rita was the one who was the most surprised though. She had been teaching Shivani for three-four years now. Yet, she never knew that her old home was this much of a rundown place. The shock was immense. The woman, who was sticking with Taro during the entire journey, walked towards her student and patted her on the shoulders.

"I didn't know…" She spoke, however words failed to come out of her mouth.

"Meh, I was deliberately trying to hide that. So, it makes sense that you didn't know. The principal is the only one who knows in our school." She spoke, yet again with a smile on her face.

"Hmm, it's a surprise that it didn't flood any further. Didn't the weather forecast guys say that this is one big flood?" Kunjan spoke as he looked at the sight. While the others thought of his words as insensitive towards Shivani and her situation, Shivani herself didn't mind.

"Ah, it is a big flood situation. Although, it usually doesn't flood that much in Thrissur since its mid Kerala. This region usually doesn't flood. Except this place though. Our area gets affected by floods almost every year. So, this wasn't much of a surprise." She replied.

"Does it always flood to this magnitude? I mean, your home is totally underwater now, right? Is that always the case?" Kunjan asked.

"Hmm, not really. It does flood every year, however this is the first time that such a big one happened. It's always the half of the house or somewhere around that. So, I guess it's the impact of the actual natural calamity." She sighed. "Well, I just wanted to see how much the water level was. Now that I have seen it, shall we go back to the Holy Land?" She asked, to which everyone nodded their heads and walked back.

"By the way, if it always flooded like this, how did you manage living here during those times?" Taro, who was silent this entire time, since Rita walked away from him and that was the only time he could relax, asked. Rita was already by his side, so he didn't stop himself from talking to someone else.

"Ah, as I said before, the past floods were manageable. Like, I could walk in it. So, that's exactly what I did. Although, the last flood was a bit different from the past ones as well… That's why we took on a decision on moving to the Holy Land." Shivani replied.

"You guys really made the right decision on that." Taro spoke.

"Yea." She nodded her head and slowly backed away from Taro since Rita just reverted to her clingy behavior, and she didn't want to get in the crossfire. Taro tried stopping her, but he was unsuccessful. In the end, his journey back to the Holy land was the same as his journey from the Holy land. Taro could only sigh at the face of this predicament.

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Back at the front gate of the Holy Land. Lonappan and Shivani had already gone back to their respective house/room. The ones left before the gate were the aliens, Thankappan and Rita.

"Hey, aren't you gonna drop me to school?" Rita tugged Taro's shirt and asked playfully.

Taro sighed. The disease inside Rita had gone far worse than he had expected. She was really fine when they met a few days back and moderately talked. So, he didn't understand why the woman was all clingy that day. At first, he thought that it was the students that kept her behavior under control. However, even in the presence of her student, she remained clingy. So, he was really baffled at this point. Anyway, he wanted to get as far away from her as possible and was planning to head straight to his room as the other two did. However, the others beside him didn't make it possible for him, since Thankappan wasn't willing to give the keys to the room.

"Huh, why would I? The school's literally a minute or two away from here. Why would I accompany you for just that?" Taro scoffed. He really wanted to get away from Rita.

"So, you wanna send a lonely maiden all by herself to the school, huh?" She pouted as she spoke.

"Dude, it's literally a few steps away from here! Why would you need me to join you?" Taro spoke; he sounded annoyed as he spoke.

"Bruv, I think you should join her. She's right, you know. A young maiden like herself in these streets… It's dangerous." Thankappan spoke.

"Et tu Brute? It's broad daylight and this is one of the safest roads that you'll ever see! Why are you picking her side?" Taro cried.

"Well, you know… The school's pretty much empty now and the classes are open… So…" Rita was about to suggest something when someone interfered.

"Even the sports room?" It was Gibli.

"Huh? Yea… Even the sports room." Rita replied.

"Really? Hell, yea! You know what? I'm gonna accompany you two as well." Gibli proclaimed, much to the dismay of Rita.

"Dude…" Thankappan was about to speak, trying to persuade him from doing so, however Taro jumped in before he could.

"Fantastic! We'll play badminton when we get there. How about that?" Taro was excited.

Seeing Taro excited, Gibli got pumped up as well. "Yea! Let's see who's the best in badminton!" He jumped up accordingly as well. The more this conversation progressed, the worse Rita looked.

However, someone was thinking of salvaging the situation before it got messed up. "Ah, well… If Gibli's coming, I'm coming as well." Thankappan spoke out as Rita glared hard at him. He signaled her to calm down, which didn't turn out well.

"Hmm, is that so?" Taro had a twisted look on his face when he glanced towards Thankappan.

"Yea…?" Thankappan suddenly got all nervous when he saw the look on his face, however decided to stand by his decision.

"That's fine by me then. What about you two?" Taro faced John and Kunjan and asked.

"We're not coming. M'Ba… Charlie is with Shivani now. However, I don't think he'd want to stay there for more. So, we're gonna wait for him in our room." Kunjan replied, politely rejecting the offer.

"I see. Good luck with that." Taro spoke as the four headed to the school. This is where Thankappan played a part. He dragged Gibli slightly away from the two and gave Taro and Rita some space. Taro was really baffled. He had clearly stated how he didn't like Rita's behavior before his roommates. So, he didn't understand why this guy was trying so hard to do this.

Anyway, they got to the school pretty soon as Taro spoke before. Although this wasn't the case when they walked to the school during school days because Taro liked talking with Shivani and all, in this case, a walk which usually takes two minutes was done in two minutes itself. Rita was pretty disappointed by this, however was still happy since she got an extra two minutes of time around him.

Meanwhile, Gibli ran towards the sports room like a child who just received candy. He was excited. He took a badminton racket and was ready to play. "Hey, who's coming to play against me?" He waved his badminton racket vigorously as he shouted.

"I will…" Thankappan was about to volunteer since that would mean alone time for Rita and Taro, however Taro yet again interrupted him.

"I will play with you, Gibli!" He shouted back, before looking back to Thankappan. "You know I don't play badminton, right? I'll just play till I lose and give it back to you." He smiled.

"Ha, that's fine by me. Don't worry." Thankappan smiled back. He knew that the Wadorian was speaking the truth about not playing badminton. And since he said that he'd just play till he lost, Thankappan was really fine with it. Well, how long can a man go unbeaten, especially when he's a newbie?

Taro held the racket in his hand. He grabbed it with his both hands, trying to figure out which one had a better grip on the racket. However, it seemed as if both were just the same. So, he randomly picked his right hand to play. The first serve was Gibli's. Since both were basically newbies, Gibli thought of serving a normal one. It all seemed well and good until Taro sent back a bullet of a shot that barely went out of court.

Taro sighed as he once again tried to get a better grip of the racket. "I'm sorry. I couldn't get a grip on this. That's why it went out of bounds." He gave out a genuine smile. Thankappan felt it. Taro lied. He wasn't a noob. That wasn't a mistake. He wasn't gonna leave the court anytime soon… This is his playground.

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