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If there was one thing Garima desperately wanted to do at this moment, it was to time travel back to the beginning of today and shake herself senseless and ask why. Why didn’t she heed the already gray and overcast morning sky and bring an umbrella? Why did she hear the faint pitter-patter of raindrops on glass in her Management class and not check her bag to confirm she had, in fact, brought an umbrella? Why did she choose to believe that she, of all people, would’ve prepared appropriately for the weather’s challenges? She would’ve, wouldn’t she?
Why, why, why kept going through her mind as she frantically dug around in her bag for that ever elusive umbrella. Finally, she had to accept defeat after wasting two minutes in her fruitless search, and had to suffer the ignominy of running out into the torrential downpour to catch the last bus home, with only her traitorous bag held above her head.
By the time she trudged into the lobby of her apartment building, soaking wet and dripping puddles across the linoleum floor, Garima didn’t want to do anything but strip off her waterlogged clothes, take a nice, long shower, and then sleep all the way until Monday.
Maybe even Tuesday, she numbly thought to herself, watching the elevator indicator panel slowly tick up to her floor. There was no telling how long she’d sleep when her head hit her pillow…
The elevator doors opened with a ding, and Garima stepped out, shaking her head to get the rainwater out of her hair. Droplets splattered against the concrete floor as she strode over to her apartment door, trying to fish out her keys. Conveniently, her apartment was only a few doors away from the elevators.
When Garima reached the door, she took a second to pull her shoulders back and straighten her posture, flipping her hair behind her. It was a bit frivolous to fuss with her appearance, especially now of all times, but nevertheless, it made her feel better.
At last, she reached out and turned the key in the lock, cracking the door open.
“I’m home~” She called out with a drawn out sigh, relishing the warmth that enveloped her, before opening her eyes and stopping to stare.
“Welcome home,” Xinyan replied, sitting on the carpeted floor of their apartment, legs crossed and back hunched over the coffee table. She was scribbling something into a cheap spiral bound notebook, and there were at least six others strewn about on the table. Garima had the faint memory of buying them at the clearance section of the local supermarket with Xinyan.
“...What are you doing?” She asked, wary.
“Plotting world domination.” Xinyan said nonchalantly.
“Very funny.” She rolled her eyes, shrugging off her drenched coat and turning to hang it up.
“I’m doing my assignment for government, so it’s really not that differ- whoa.” Xinyan looked up from her scrawls, squinting at her girlfriend. “What happened to you?”
Garima snorted as she bent down to peel off her boots. “Took you long enough to notice. I forgot my umbrella at home.”
“Ohhh.” Xinyan intoned, then nodded. “Right, I noticed your umbrella was still in the holder earlier.”
“So you noticed,” Garima responded. “And yet you didn’t bring it to me or pick me up at school?”
“It’s at least an hour drive to school.” Xinyan pulled a face, rising from the coffee table. “Longer if I went at rush hour.”
“So that’s how it is.” Garima exhaled, then pouted at her girlfriend with the most heart-wrenchingly sad eyes she could manage. “I see how much you care for me, then…”
There’s an exasperated huff as Xinyan takes Garima’s bag from her. “You can whine after you shower and get dry. You’re gonna catch something if you stay in those clothes.”
She lets out a laugh at that. “So now you worry about me~?”
“I always worry about you.” Xinyan says bluntly, catching Garima off guard.
“Oh.” She blinks, feeling something in her chest soften at those words.
Her expression must’ve shown it, because Xinyan hurriedly turned away from Garima. “Yeah. It’s annoying. Stop making me worry so much.”
She couldn’t hold back a chuckle as she followed Xinyan from the entrance to the living room. “Fine. But only if you join me in the shower~”
Xinyan unceremoniously dumped the contents of Garima’s bag onto the couch. “Nope. Clean up yourself.”
“Hey! My laptop was in there!”
“Stop being so dramatic, it’s not like I dropped it on the floor or something.” Xinyan waved her hand dismissively. “Besides, this thing’s completely soaked. I’ll dry it out while you shower.”
Garima felt the corners of her lips lower themselves into another pout; she couldn’t help it. “Do you really not want to join me?”
“I’ll shower later.” Xinyan sighed as she gathered up Garima’s things from the couch into a neat stack. “Someone needs to make dinner, remember?”
“It’s my turn to make dinner, you know.”
Xinyan gives her a look. “Do you actually think I would make my girlfriend cook dinner for me after she got caught in a torrential rainstorm?”
“Well,” Garima leaned in to grab Xinyan’s hand in her own, giving it a squeeze. “This girlfriend thinks you’re being plenty mean already by not getting in the shower with her.”
Xinyan’s brow furrows; she pauses, then looks down at her hand in Garima’s.
“We should order from that Nigerian place.” Garima said, turning the faucet on and reaching a hand out to check the water temperature. “I liked their fufu.”
“There?” Xinyan glanced up from taking off her hoodie. “It’s so far away though, the delivery fee’s gonna be killer.”
“Consider this,” Garima began as she walked over, helping Xinyan pull off the rest of her clothes. “It’s a wonderful rainy night that I’m spending with my even more wonderful girlfriend, and it would be the perfect opportunity to treat ourselves.”
Xinyan’s university hoodie fell in a heap against the bathroom floor; she looked back up at Garima, frowning slightly. “It’s not even a special date though. Our anniversary’s in a month.”
“That’s right.” A smile tugged at Garima’s lips, and she motioned at Xinyan to help with the zipper at the back of her dress. “But we can make it special.”
She felt Xinyan’s fingers brush against the nape of her neck, fiddling with the metal zipper. “We don’t have to order something expensive to make it special,” she mumbled. “I want to save up to do something really nice next month.”
“Oh, sweetie-” Garima started, feeling her eyes dampen.
“-I know somewhere good that’s nearby and cheap. How about pizza?”
Her eyes instantly dried up.
“Why are you looking at me like that?! It’s not one of those crappy American chains like Pizza Hut, it’s run by a Chinese guy!”
“My answer is no. I’m not spending this lovely evening with my girlfriend eating pizza, of all foods.”
“You’re so picky.” Xinyan puffed up her cheeks, her lower lip jutting out.
“I’m not picky.” Garima replied, unclipping her bra. “Pick anything else and I’d agree, just not pizza.”
“Hmmm…” Her girlfriend pursed her lips, thinking. “...Chinese? I’ve been wanting to try this place’s pig ear-”
A bra was flung into Xinyan’s face before she could finish.
“I don’t know what I expected.” Garima emphatically said, stepping into the shower. “No pizza, and no Chinese unless they have vegetarian options.”
“See, you are picky!”
“It’s called a dietary restriction, and that’s quite enough chatter for now. The water’s warm already.”
Xinyan grumbled indistinctly as she trailed Garima. “We should’ve decided on something before we showered. That way we wouldn’t have to wait so long.”
“Yes, yes.” Garima leaned over to wet her hair under the showerhead. “Come over here and help me wash my back.”
“Fine…”
As Xinyan drew in, Garima reached behind and swept her hair away from her back. “Can you use the honey milk body wash?”
“What about the rose one?” Xinyan asked, her voice bouncing off the shower tiles.
“The rose one?” She tilted her head. “I thought we ran out last week.”
“I went and picked some up the other day.” Xinyan replied matter-of-factly, squeezing pink liquid out of a bottle and into her palm.
“Aww, baby.” Garima chuckled. “Thank you. But I thought you didn’t like the smell?”
Xinyan shrugged as she began to work the soap into Garima’s skin. “I don’t hate it. But you like it, so I got some while I was out shopping for groceries.”
Garima’s face bloomed into a silly grin. Despite how insensitive Xinyan could be, how rude even she could and would be, sometimes… She would just do these things that surprised Garima, that startled her with how nice and kind and thoughtful they truly were. And then she would be mean and crass and thoughtless immediately after.
Really, she could be so confusing. Garima had trouble making sense of it even now.
A bolt of lightning flashed in the distance, followed by a boom of thunder, taking Garima out of her thoughts; both her and Xinyan looked up at their tiny bathroom window.
“Goodness,” Garima creased her brow, watching the rain hammer at the glass. “It’s still going on even now? I can’t imagine having to run delivery out in this weather.”
Xinyan elbowed her. “You should’ve thought of that poor delivery person before you dragged me inside here with you.”
Garima swiveled back and planted a kiss on Xinyan’s damp face. “That delivery person would’ve had to run deliveries for someone else, even if we didn’t order. Now turn around, I’ll wash your back.”
Surprisingly, Xinyan complied without complaint, shuffling forward so Garima could apply the honey milk body wash. For the next few minutes, there was nothing but the distant rumble of thunder crackling and the sound of water running as Garima rubbed the body wash against Xinyan’s back in large, circular motions.
“Baby,” she said, her eyes still fixed on Xinyan’s shoulders.
“Mhm?” Xinyan raised her head; she had been drawing something in the foggy glass with her finger. A cat, Garima thinks.
“What were you doing when I came back home?”
“Doing what?”
“You know, sitting at the coffee table with all those notebooks.”
“Oh. Didn’t I tell you it was for government?”
She tugged her lips into a mischievous smile. “I didn’t know you kept so many notebooks for just government.”
“Well, duh, I was working on my other assignments too.” Xinyan hotly retorted.
“Mhmm, okay~” Garima gently laughed, reaching for the shampoo. She’d seen Xinyan move to cover one of the notebooks with a sheet of paper when she got up from the table; she could tell she was trying to hide something from her.
“Why are you laughing?” Xinyan suddenly whipped her head back to glare at her girlfriend, glowering.
Garima flicked water into her face. “What, like I need a reason? Stop being fussy and come wash my hair.”
They ended up settling on pizza, despite Garima’s most fervent protests; chicken durian on one half for Xinyan, and mushroom parmesan on the other half for Garima.
She took another bite of her slice; it really was quite tasty, she grudgingly admitted, and Xinyan was rather pleased to be proven right.
“Honey,” Garima angled her head over to Xinyan, who was sitting in bed beside her. “What game are you playing now?”
“Oh, it’s this new roguelike dungeon crawler.” Xinyan responded, slashing her way across some kind of dark arena, dealing damage to a horde of beasts. “It just released on the switch.”
“What do half of those words mean?” She rested her head on Xinyan’s, ignoring the huff of annoyance that came out of her girlfriend.
“Uh…” Xinyan pressed her lips together, mulling on how to answer the question. “So, dungeon crawler is pretty obvious- you navigate, ‘crawl,’ through a sprawling environment, or ‘dungeon,’ where you fight enemies and solve puzzles and find loot.”
Garima watched Xinyan fill up some kind of meter on the side, before the screen burst with light and all the enemies recoiled. “A roguelike means it’s the type of game where you go through levels automatically generated by the game, and when you die, you have to start all over.”
“What? That sounds so troublesome though.”
“Some people like the challenge.” Xinyan shrugged. “Also, you could start from scratch, but the game could also let you keep some of your items or upgrades so it’s easier next time you try… but also, some people say that makes it no longer a roguelike.”
She hummed back, nodding a little as she finished off the rest of her pizza. It was a struggle for Garima to keep her eyes open at this point, she was just so sleepy after showering and eating…
“Hey,” Xinyan said, lowering the volume of her game. “Do you want to go to sleep already?”
“No, it’s fine.” She suppressed a yawn, and nuzzled her cheek against the soft fabric of Xinyan’s pig onesie. “Finish your game first. I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”
Her words were immediately punctuated by a loud sound emitting from the switch; she and Xinyan both looked downwards to see the screen turn back, with “GAME OVER” in dark red letters hovering above the lifeless body of Xinyan’s character.
“Shit.” Xinyan groaned. “I got distracted. And I was doing so good on this run too…”
Garima giggled. “Maybe this is your way of telling me to go to bed early~”
“Yeah, it sure is.” Xinyan set her switch down on their night stand. “You have an early morning tomorrow, after all.”
“Mhmm…” Garima burrowed deeper into Xinyan’s side. “Soon…”
“Come on, go brush your teeth.” She felt Xinyan nudge at her. “You’re practically dozing off right now and then you’re gonna yap at me in the morning for not waking you up to brush your teeth.”
“I would not.” Garima scoffed, sniffing. “But fine… better sooner than later, I suppose.”
After brushing her teeth and rinsing out the flavor of cheese and mushrooms from her mouth, she came back into the bedroom to see Xinyan texting away on her phone.
“Who are you texting?” She asked, returning to her place next to Xinyan.
“Roshan.”
“Oh?” Garima asked, her curiosity piqued. “About what?”
“It’s nothing,” Xinyan waved her off. “We were just talking about when to meet up next time, since they’re starting a new job and all.”
“Ahhh,” She said knowingly, settling back underneath the blankets. “What times are you looking at?”
“They said they work until six all week, so it’s probably going to be late. Maybe Thursday?” Xinyan scrunches up her face in thought, looking vaguely irritated. She wondered what Roshan must’ve told her.
“That works for me.” Garima replied, yawning.
“I’ll tell them that.”
“Okay.” She murmured drowsily, sliding down the headboard and onto her pillow. It didn’t take Xinyan long to fire off a final text, put away her phone, and lie down as well.
Garima turned around and reached out a hand to brush the hair from Xinyan’s face. “It’ll be nice to see them again. They’ve been so busy lately.”
“Yeah.” Xinyan agreed. It could just be because they were tucked beneath a thick blanket, but against her palm, Xinyan’s skin felt exceptionally warm.
“Mhm… I hope you remember not to be so mean to them like you were last time, right baby?” Garima teased, half-joking, half-serious.
Even in the room’s near total darkness, she could see Xinyan draw her eyebrows together, narrowing her black eyes. “Fineee. Whatever, I told you, Roshan secretly likes it.”
“I’ll believe it when I hear it from Roshan themself.”
“You’re too soft.”
“You’re too harsh.”
“That’s right.” Xinyan leaned forward and snuggled into the shadow of Garima’s neck. “I’m a cold, ruthless criminal.”
“It’s hard to take that seriously when you’re in a piggy onesie.” Garima chuckled, playing with the ear flaps on the onesie’s hoodie.
“I’m a cold ruthless piggy then.” Xinyan muffled into Garima.
“My cold ruthless little piggy then.” She pressed a kiss to Xinyan’s temple, then wrapped an arm around her waist. “All mine.”
“Yeah.” Xinyan whispered, in a voice so quiet and low that Garima had to strain to hear her over the patter of raindrops against their window and the rumble of thunder in the distance. “Yours.”