Red Rhythm: His Sweet Obsession

16

● AUTHOR'S POV

"Ava?" Xanthos said, as getting closer to the ground he saw a familiar back sitting on one of the swings in the playground.

Ava's head snapped back, when she heard her name being called from behind, and the voice sounded way too familiar.

"What are you doing here at this hour?" Xanthos questioned, as he approached the swing beside her, and sat on it.

After their little cottage 'incident', Ava was somehow offered leniency; regarding her going around in the city. She still wasn't allowed to leave it, but she could freely roam about it, and the 'kindness' came only when Xanthos and Ava both realized, that she won't be trying to flee anymore.

Ava had a juice box in her hand and was sipping on it, when she got interrupted by the sudden arrival of Xanthos at the playground.

"I could ask you the same thing." she retorted, taking another sip of her juice.

Somehow, the time both had spent together, unintentionally, had taken out the formality and seeped in a little candidness between them.

"Fair enough." Xanthos agreed, taking hold of the swing chains on both his sides.

After a moment's silence, Ava tried initiating a conversation, as it felt too odd just sitting there and listening to nothing, but the squeaky sounds of the nearby empty swings.

"If I didn't know it was your sister's engagement, I would have thought you were crashing some underground Mafia gathering." Ava said and suddenly realized, that maybe a little congratulatory comment would have been better, rather than matching his appearance to a potential party crasher.

"C-congratulations! Congratulations on your sister's engagement, everyone was talking about it at the club..... that's how I know." Ava blurted out, before Xanthos could reply to her earlier remark.

"Right, thank you." Xanthos replied looking at her, and Ava felt it being sort of a judgmental look. Ava thought, maybe she shouldn't have joked about his appearance like that.

"Juice?" trying to keep the situation from getting awkward for her, Ava offered Xanthos the box of juice, that had been in her lap all this time, incase she wanted to go for seconds.

"Nestle Fruita Vitals, Red Grapes." Xanthos read out, as he took the juice box from her.

"You like this flavour?" he asked, pulling off the straw glued to the packaging, and uncovering it, he poked it into the foil cap.

"Ahan, it's like the red wine of juices for me. Makes me feel real fancy drinking it." Ava stated taking another sip of her juice.
(Ahan: sound that one may use instead of saying 'Yeah'.)

A small smile crept up Xanthos' face at Ava's little confession; about her love for juiced up red grapes in a box.

"Relax, if I were to take such feeble things to heart, I wouldn't survive in this world." Xanthos commented, as he could feel Ava being a little jittery after her party crasher statement. "I can differentiate when one is being disrespectful, and when one is not. Also, I'm not an 'entirely' awful man, who can't even take a joke, so you're good." Xanthos assured taking a sip of his juice.

Ava inwardly sighed in relief, and kept herself focused on her flavoured extract.

Unknowingly, both; Ava and Xanthos, had somehow managed to make each other comfortable in one another's presence. Xanthos had taken the openness between both of them a notch further, by indirectly allowing Ava to be comically transparent around him, whilst keeping a fine line between being funny and being impolite.