Pink Rickshaw

Under The Neem Tree

The last of the sunlight spilled over the rooftops of Faisalabad like ghee sliding down a garam paratha – thick, golden, and a little too heavy. Evening had begun its slow crawl, bringing with it the scent of burning charcoal, frying oil, and the faint sharpness of guavas from the rehri cart at the corner.

Hala kicked off her chappals with a sigh and pressed her heels into the cool stone ledge outside the kiryana. The street was warm beneath her toes. Her dupatta clung to her back, damp with sweat and wrinkled, and her mehndi-stained fingers lazily twirled the rim of a half-empty coke bottle, the glass sticky with condensation. Around her, everything buzzed: schoolkids darting between motorcycles, aunties arguing over mango prices, the jarring honk of a Suzuki van rattling past.

            “I swear that exam aged me ten years,” Layth groaned, fanning himself with his crumpled paper. His curls were damp, sleeves rolled to the elbow in surrender. “I went in a student. Came out as someone’s chacha.”

            “You’ve always been someone’s chacha,” Hala said without looking at him. “Spiritually.”

            Layth clutched his chest. “Wounded. Truly.”

            “I’m glad.”

            Alia Snorted, leaning against a telephone pole, the last of her kulfi dripping onto her wrist. She licked it away with a flick of her tongue, face unreadable as always.

            “You two really going to do this in public,” she muttered.

            “We’re not doing anything,” Hala said flatly.

            “That’s what made it worse.”

            Across the street, Danish stood before a glass samosa case like he was considering a life decision.

            “While you all sort out your unresolved tension,” Danish called, “I’ve found something sacred. Bun kebabs. Greasy. Questionable. Possibly life changing.”

            “I’ll pass,” Alia grimaced.

            “You always pass until I’m eating it.”

            “You say that like it works on me.”

            “It always does.”
            That earned her a sharp glance. She looked away before he could say more.

            Hala finally stood, brushing the dust of her shalwar. Her churiya clinked softly with the movement.

            “Chalo, Romeo,” she said to Layth. “Let’s get you your heart attack.”
            They crossed the road as the sky deepened to pink. Streetlights flickered on with a low buzz. The air was thick with heat and the comforting chaos of a small town – bikes weaving through narrow galiyan, old filmi songs humming from open windows, someone’s laughter drifting down from a rooftop.

            Layth was still mid-rant about question three when Danish stopped walking.

            “What is that…?”

            They turned.

            Just past the chowk, under the quiet neem tree, was a rickshaw.

            Pink.

            Not dusty pink like old wedding decorations – this was fresh, bold, almost glowing. The tassels shimmered, even without a breeze. The number plate was painted in smooth, curling Urdu script they couldn’t quite read.

            It was humming.

            Softly. Like it was alive.

            No driver.

Just waiting.

Layth squinted. “Tell me that’s not just me.”

“Either we’ve all lost it,” Danish said, “or that rickshaw is… breathing.”

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

The group stood in a loose line, squinting at the glowing pink anomaly.

“I’m sorry,” Hala said slowly. “Why is it… pulsing?”

“It’s not,” Layth replied, frowning.

“It absolutely is,” Alia murmured. Her brows drew together, but her voice stayed calm – like they’d just spotted an expired pack of nimko, not a sentient vehicle.

Danish took a cautious step forward, one sandal squeaking against the ground. “Maybe it’s a promotional stunt. For, like… Rooh Afza?”

“No one drinks Rooh Afza out of a rickshaw,” Layth said.

“Clearly, no one rides this either,” Hala muttered. “It’s possessed.”

“It’s not,” Danish placed a hand dramatically over his heart. “It’s… majestic.”

Alia leaned in slightly. “Majestic things don’t hum like dying refrigerators.”

Danish beamed at her. “You get me.”

Layth, ignoring all of them, crouched beside the front tire and knocked twice on the metal frame. The rickshaw responded with a soft ping.

“It just pinged,” he blinked.

“No, you pinged it,” Hala deadpanned.

“No, it pinged back. Very different.”

“Layth, if you get cursed, I’m not carrying your body home.”

“Noted.”

Danish had already wandered around the other side, peering into the back. “I vote we get in.”

“Of course you do,” Hala snapped. “You also once voted to eat street gol gappay during a thunderstorm.”

“And we survived.”

“Barely.”

“I think that was character-building.”

Alia leaned in beside him, steadying herself with a hand on his arm. Her eyes flickered across the velvet seat covers – bright maroon, a bit too clean. A faint rose scent wafted out.

“There’s no dust,” she said, stepping back. “Not even on the footrest. Who keeps a rickshaw this spotless?”

Layth was already climbing in.

“What are you doing?!”

“Living my best life,” he said, adjusting an imaginary steering wheel. “Chalo, let’s go.”

“No,” Hala said.

“Yes,” Danish said simultaneously.

Alia paused.

Hala turned to her. “Don’t you dare.”

Alia shrugged. “Might be the most exciting thing to happen to us before we become boring adults.

“You’re already boring.”

She smiled sweetly. “That’s why you love me.”

Hala looked at them – Layth sprawled in the back seat, Danish standing by like an overly enthusiastic conductor, and Alia composed as ever, but with the faintest glint of excitement in her eyes.

She sighed. “If we die, I’m haunting all of you.”

“That’s the spirit!” Danish grinned.

Layth scooted over. “Come on, Hala. You love drama.”

“I hate you,” She muttered.

“You say that a lot.”

“It’s always true.”

But she stepped in, settling beside him.

The rickshaw came to life.

With a jolt, it shuddered. Above, lights flickered on like tiny fairy lights. The engine purred to life – smooth and unsettling.

“Okay,” Layth froze. “Who touched what?”

“I didn’t even lookat it properly,” Hala hissed.

Danish leapt in. Alia followed, calm, like she’d been expecting it.

The rickshaw didn’t wait. It turned – slow, deliberate – then rolled down the alley with all four inside.

A soft, old filmi song began to play from the speaker near the roof.

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

The rickshaw turned one tight corner, then another, the engine humming like a lullaby with teeth. No headlights lit the road, but everything ahead glowed faintly pink – like the world had been dipped in rosewater.

A gust of warm air swept the through the open sides, carrying the scent of fried pakoray, overripe mangoes, and something sweeter – like old jasmine garlands left too long in the sun.

“Okay, this is weird,” Layth murmured, just loud enough to be heard over the song.

“Main shayar toh nahi…” crooned softly from above.

Danish leaned halfway out, his dark hair drifting in the breeze

“Anyone recognise this street?”

“I feel like I do,” Alia said, softly.

Hala stared out, frowning, the buildings looked familiar – the layouts, the signboards, the half-tilted powerlines – but the names weren’t quite right. The walls were too clean. The posters too new. There was a shop on the corner where Abba use to buy bread – but it had a different name now. A faded mural stretched across the closed shutters. Four kids playing ludo.

She turned. “This wasn’t here.”

Layth watched her carefully, like he wanted to say something but didn’t. Instead, he tugged gently at the sleeve of her kameez and offered her a Phantom Sweet Cigarette from his pocket, the kind they used to pretend with as kids.

She took it wordlessly and tucked it behind her ear.

Danish stretched across their laps to poke a button near the rickshaw’s roof.

“What are you doing?”

“If I’m going to die in a magic vehicle, I at least want to know if there’s a horn.”

It honked. Loudly.

Everyone jumped. The rickshaw hiccupped mid-roll, then kept going.

Hala glared. “Touch one more thing and I’ll throw you out.”

“I’d like to see you try. I have more upper body strength than Layth.”

“That’s rude,” Layth frowned.

“You’re built like a soaked biscuit,” Alia playfully whacked Danish’s arm. He took her hand with exaggerated reverence and kissed her knuckles.

She smacked his forehead.

The rickshaw turned again.

They weren’t on the main road anymore. The lane was too narrow. Too still. The chai stall was there – but no one manned it. Smoke rose from an invisible flame, and four teacups sat untouched on the counter, steam swirling up to into nothing.

They passed it in silence.

Hala’s fingers were still curled around the edge of the seat, nails slightly scratching the vinyl.

“This looks like that gali behind our school.”

Layth leaned in beside her.

“Could be, remember when Danish tried to skip assembly and got caught behind the tandoor?”

“I wasn’t hiding. I was… waiting for God.”

Alia snorted.

“God didn’t save you.”

“I’ll never forgive Miss Jameela for betraying me like that.”

Their laughter came quiet, like they were scared to be too loud. Like the rickshaw might hear.

The song playing shifted. Slower now.

Layth rested his arm behind Hala’s shoulder, not quite touching her.

She didn’t move away.

Outside, they passed a playground. Rusted swings moved slightly, though there was no wind. A single pink balloon drifted lazily across the sky. It shouldn’t have been there. Nothing should have been.

The rickshaw came to a gentle stop.

They stared at eachother, no one spoke. The silence was too full.

“I guess, we’re meant to get out?” Danish stood up first, wobbling slightly.

“Meant to?” Layth’s voice was quiet.

Hala took the sugary cigarette from behind her ear and tucked it into his kameez pocket.

“You go first then.”

Alia’s fingers slipped into Danish’s hand. He didn’t make a joke this time. He just squeezed once.

They stepped out together.

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

Gajra & Chai

The street outside looked like Faisalabad – but not quite.

The air felt unusually still, as though the world had pressed pause on itself. No fans buzzed from balconies, no motorbikes grumbled in the distance, and even the birds seemed to have vanished from the wires overhead. The sky, soaked in a strange yellowish-pink hue, resembled an old film print – nostalgic and lovely in a way that made their stomach twist with something they couldn’t name.

They stood on a narrow lane that should’ve led toward the main chowk, but the road bent unnaturally, veering off into a direction none of them recognised. A familiar tandoor shop stood closed behind it as if someone were still baking naan inside, unseen, and unbothered by time.

“Okay,” Danish breathed, his voice lower than usual, “I take back everything I said. This is not majestic. This is full-on djinn story territory.”

Layth stepped up beside him, hands fisted, eyes scanning the faded signs and shuttered stalls with a kind of quiet disbelief.

“Smells like home though.”

A current of air drifted past, carrying the layered scent of cardamom, dried roses, and something warm and wheaty – like fresh roti and sweetened lassi, left out on a rooftop. It was familiar, but too perfect, too stitched together, like the best parts of a hundred memories blurred into one.

Hala let her hand trail along the cool brick wall beside her, fingers brushing over the faint chalk marks of some old child’s drawing. She remembered hiding here once, back in class seven, trying to escape an older cousin after ruining her kohl before a wedding. The wall had been warmer then, sun-soaked, and scratchy. Now, it felt untouched by time.

“I don’t like how quiet it is,” she whispered, not looking at anyone in particular.

Alia, crouching nearby, reached for a gajra resting lightly on the ground. The flowers looked fresh, as if they’d just been strung. She turned it in her palm once, then pressed it casually into Danish’s chest.

“Matches your chaotic energy.”

Danish looked down at the gajra, momentarily caught off guard. He opened his mouth like he might make a joke but instead glanced sideways at her with a softness that passed so quickly it could’ve been imagined.

Layth noticed the exchange. He didn’t say anything, but the crease between his brows deepened.

They started walking again, falling naturally into their usual rhythm – Layth and Hala at the front, bickering and bumping shoulders like always, while Danish and Alia lingered behind, steps slower, closer, quieter.

Hala kept her eyes on the path ahead, though she was aware of how Layth’s shoulder brushed hers from time to time. He didn’t pull away, and neither did she. It felt easy, expected, but something in it had shifted.

The lane opened suddenly onto a wild field, and all four of them stopped at once.

It was the old field behind Layth’s house – the one that had been fenced off years ago, paved over and forgotten. But here it was again, blooming like it had never been touched, golden with tangled marigold and mustard flowers. A wooden cart rested at the far edge, its paint faded but still carrying hints of deep blue and stencilled stars. The sky above had stilled entirely, like it was holding its breath.

“This place hasn’t looked like this since – what? Class four?” Layth’s voice held wonder, the kind he didn’t often let slip.

“No one came here after they fenced it,” Hala replied, her gaze fixed ahead. “Do you remember?”

“I do,” he turned slightly toward her. “You fell here once, scraped you knees and still insisted on racing me.”

“You cheated.”

“I won.”

“I still have the scar,” she said, a little softer now.

Layth’s face shifted. He glanced down at her leg, then back up to her deep brown eyes.

“Really?”

She nodded. “Left knee.”

Something flickered between them – an old thread tugging tighter. He didn’t reach for her, but took one step closer, enough that she could feel the warmth of his presence settle next to hers like sunlight.

Behind them, Danish had paused mid-step, crouching to pick something out of the grass. He turned it over in his palm, revealing a faded orange cricket ball, its surface cracked and worn.

“I lost one just like this years ago,” he said quietly, turning the ball so they could all see the faint ‘L’ drawn on one side.

“I wrote that,” Alia said, taking it gently from his hand. “So, you couldn’t claim it was yours.”

“You still don’t trust me?”

She offered him a look that teetered between teasing and tender, then placed the ball back in his hand and let her fingers linger against his for a moment longer than necessary.

Ahead, Hala stepped into the fringe of the field, fingers grazing the tips of the mustard plants. Her voice, when it came, was barely audible over the stillness.

“I miss it. I miss when things didn’t have to mean anything.”

Layth followed a few paces behind, the grass brushing his ankles. “Me too.”

A breeze picked up – soft, perfumed, tinged with the warmth of some old memory neither of them could quite pin down. It smelled like a rooftop in spring and the start of something they hadn’t found the words for just yet.

Her dupatta slipped from her shoulder as she walked, catching briefly on her elbow before falling.

Layth moved to fix it, gentle and instinctive. His fingers brushed her arm as he guided the fabric back into place, and when she turned to look at him, he was already watching her.

He didn’t move away and neither did she.

The wind fell still again.

For a moment, nothing moved – not the leaves, not the dust, not even the birds. The quiet was heavy enough to feel, sitting across their shoulders like something they’d forgotten to carry.

The four of them stood at the edge of the field, gazes trailing between each other and the rickshaw now waiting in the distance. Its soft pink gleam shimmered faintly under the strange, hushed light. No one had spoken in the last few minutes. There hadn’t been a need.

Alia was the first to move. She brushed the petals from her shalwar and looked back at Danish, who was still turning the cricket ball in his hands like it was a relic from another life.

“You ready to go back?” her voice even.

He looked up. “Wasn’t sure we ever really left.”

Hala joined them a moment later, the wispy strands from her braid blowing slightly in the breeze, and without thinking, she reached out to flick a small leaf off Alia’s shoulder.

“You’re shedding nature,” she said with a faint smile.

Alia didn’t answer, but looped their arms together like it was the most natural thing in the world, and together they walked toward the rickshaw. The path felt longer than before, like time had stretched around it. Behind them, Layth and Danish followed, footsteps slowing into a sync.

“You’re quiet,” Layth nudged him.

“I’m just adjusting to this whole, dream logic aesthetic,” Danish muttered. “Also, I think the gajra is making me emotional.”

Layth raised a brow.

“I’m not ready to be an adult,” Danish sighed.

 “You’ve been ready since you were twelve.”

“No, I’ve been dramatic since then. Different thing.”

As they reached the rickshaw, the engine clicked once, as though acknowledging them. The air inside smelled faintly different now – less like roses, more like incense and something smoky, like burnt sugar.

They climbed in without speaking. Hala ended up between Layth and Alia, her hand brushing both of theirs as she adjusted her seat. Danish sat across from them, leaning forward, elbows on knees.

The rickshaw started moving again.

But this time, it didn’t roll gently down the street. It shot forward – smoothly, silently, but with undeniable purpose. The old town outside blurred, streaks of warm colour smearing across the windows like melted paint. Familiar roads pulsed past, half-formed, flickering between memory and dream.

Hala blinked at the window. “Is that– was that the bazaar?”

“Not as we know it,” Alia pointed out.

The rickshaw slowed to a halt beside a set of rusted gates, their ironwork twisted with old vines and webs that shimmered faintly in the evening light. Beyond the gated stood a familiar shape – tall, shadowed, and impossibly still.

Danish leaned forward, squinting through the haze, “Isn’t that–?”

“The haveli,” Alia said quietly, voice barely above a breath.

Hala peered out, eyes narrowing as recognition bloomed. The crumbling structure at the edge of the village – the one half the mohallah swore was haunted, the one they’d dared each other to knock down as children. Its walls were yellowed and split with age, balconies sagging like tired shoulders, and jharokhas covered in thick curtains of dust. But tonight, the front door stood open.

Layth let out a low whistle. “I haven’t seen this place since class six. Remember when Zoya swore she saw a bhoot in the courtyard?”

“She also swore Pepsi cured heartbreak,” Danish rolled his eyes.

Alia stepped out first, letting the hem of her kameez brush against the weeds pushing up through the broken path. “It’s not a coincidence.”

“No,” Hala agreed, following close behind. “It never is.”

Inside, the haveli was colder than it should’ve been. The floor tiles were cracked and cool beneath their sandals and khussas, echoing faintly with each step. Somewhere in the distance, the slow creak of a ceiling fan turned lazily – though there was no sign of electricity.

They entered a large central room. Dust floated in golden shafts of light flickering through stained windows, painting them in pinks and greens and oranges. On one wall hung an enormous mirror, its frame warped, the reflection slightly delayed.

“Okay,” Danish said, voice light but unsure, “this place has big ‘jinn-on-summer-holiday’ energy.”

Alia didn’t look at him. she was tracing her finger along the edge of an old wooden shelf lined with dried-up perfume bottles. “It doesn’t feel bad,” she said.

“No” Hala shook her head. “Just, old.”

Layth had wandered into the centre of the room, standing directly beneath the fan. He turned slowly, looking at each of them.

“Why do I feel like we’ve been here before?”

“We haven’t,” Hala said.

“Not really,” Alia added.

Danish who had been fiddling with the glass bangles stacked in a bowl near the wall, paused. “Maybe we came here in a dream. Or maybe the rickshaw brought us somewhere we almost went.”

The silence that followed was thick enough to touch.

Then a soft sound echoed down the hall – like the tinkling of payals on marble.

They all turned.

Layth took a step forward. “Did you hear–?”

“Yes,” Hala whispered.

They moved slowly, like they were wading though molasses. The air smelled of rose ittar and something older – masalay from someone’s daadi’s kitchen, freshly lit incense, the dry sweetness of old paper.

They passed through the archways, one by one.

In a room near the back, they found a long-forgotten sitting area. Four cups of chai sat on a brass tray, still steaming. There were no people. No sounds. But the cups were arranged perfectly – four places. One for each of them.

“Alright, I’m officially spooked,” Danish’s mouth twitched.

Layth picked up a cup. Warm. Real. He sipped.

“Layth!” Hala snapped. “You don’t just drink things in ghost houses!”

“It’s good,” he said, smiling faintly. “Like chai from Amma’s hands.”

Behind them, Alia had moved to a low window with broken wooden bars. She crouched, silently watching something outside.

Danish joined her. “What is it?”

She didn’t answer.

When he leaned forward to follow her gaze, he saw what she saw – themselves. The four of them, younger, running barefoot in the street outside. Hala laughing breathlessly. Layth chasing after her. Alia standing calmly under the shade of a date tree. Danish shouting something they couldn’t here.

 A memory? A mirage?

He reached for her hand. She didn’t pull away.

Behind them, Layth had turned to Hala, watching her more carefully than usual.

‘You okay?”

She nodded, then shook her head.

“Too much?” he asked, quieter now.

“I just–“ she hesitated. “I feel like, this place remembers more about us than we do.”

Layth reached up to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. His fingers were careful, light.

“Then maybe,” he said, eye on hers, “we should pay attention.”

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

Something Honest

The sky outside the haveli had darkened, though none of them remembered the sun going down.

The returned to the rickshaw, slowly, quietly, as if the air had thickened around them. Even Danish, usually the first to fill the silence with nonsense, said nothing at first.

Alia’s hand was still looped around his. He hadn’t let go since the window.

Layth trailed just behind Hala, gaze flickering to her every few steps, as if to confirm she was still real.

The rickshaw waited just as they’d left it, soft pink glow pulsing beneath the edges, its little tassels barely swaying. As they climbed in again, the smell shifted once more – less rose, more rain on warm stone. Earthy. Electric.

This time it didn’t move.

They sat for a moment, the stillness settling over them like a shawl.

Danish cleared his throat. “So… do we just… wait?”

Alia leaned back; arms crossed. “I think it’s waiting for us.”

“For what?”

“Something honest.”

Layth huffed a laugh. “Not sure any of us are capable of that.”

Hala, still looking out the side, didn’t speak.

“You alright?” Layth nudged her knee lightly.

She turned to him, expression unreadable, but softer than before.

“Do you think it’s showing us what we want?” she asked. “Or what we’re trying to forget.”

He didn’t answer right away.

Then, “maybe both.”

Their eyes met for a beat too long. Hala’s breath caught.

She looked away first.

“Layth,” she said quietly, “why haven’t you ever–“

“I have,” he interrupted, just as quiet. “But you laughed.”

Her eyes flicked back to him.

“I didn’t know you were serious.”

“You never do.”

Their knees were almost touching. He didn’t reach for her. Just stayed there – close and steady.

“I think that’s what scared me,” she admitted.

“Me too.”

No one interrupted. It was like the rickshaw knew better.

On the opposite bench, Danish shifted slightly to make space, leaning closer to Alia. “You think we’ll remember this tomorrow?”

She didn’t look at him. “Do you want to?’

“I think I already do,” he said.

Her smile was small, quiet, real.

“I liked the cricket ball,” she said after a moment.

“I liked you picking it up.”

She glanced sideways. “Stop flirting.”

“You stop pretending not to like it.”

She didn’t reply – but her head rested against his shoulder as the engine rumbled back to life.

The rickshaw turned again.

The road home came into view – dim, familiar, full of flickering streetlamps and distant barking dogs. The real world, waiting patiently.

No sudden lights, no vanishing buildings. Just their mohallah again, their own cracked pavement, the faint smell of aloo parathas from someone’s dinner.

As the rickshaw rolled to a stop outside the kiryana shop where it all began, the music faded out like someone lowering the volume on a memory.

They sat still for a second longer.

Then Alia spoke. “We should go.”

Danish groaned. “You say that like we’re waking up.”

“Maybe we are.”

Layth stood but turned back to Hala. She looked at him, a faint line between her brows.

“I’ll walk you home?” he asked.

She hesitated, then nodded.

Danish jumped off next, stretching dramatically. “What a ride. Magical time travel, emotional trauma, subtle confessions – 10/10.”

Alia followed, arms folded, not denying a word of it.

They all stood in the soft pink glow of the streetlamp for a moment longer than needed.

Then the rickshaw purred once and disappeared. No puff of smoke. No dramatic exit. Just gone, like it had never been.

They didn’t speak of it again that night.

But later, much later, when they sat again on that same ledge outside the kiryana, older and wiser and a little more wrinkled with life, Danish would lean back and say–

“Remember that pink rickshaw?”

And none of them would laugh.

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

They didn’t go home right away.

Instead, they lingered outside, half-sitting on the stone ledge, trading lazy remarks and kicking pebbles as if the day hadn’t already pulled too much from them. Someone brought out Pakola from the shop fridge. Hala opened the bottle with the edge of the bench and handed it wordlessly to Layth.

He took a sip and winced. “Still tastes like melted toothpaste.”

“Still your favourite,” she said, and passed a second one to Danish, who was trying to swat a mosquito off his ankle while looking profoundly betrayed.

“Somehow,” he muttered, “we just time-travelled inside a glowing rickshaw, but the real trauma is the mosquito party on my legs.”

“It’s your own fault,” Alia replied, leaning back on her palms beside him. “You always wear your shalwar too high.”

“I have long legs. It’s a style choice.”

“It’s a cry for help.”

Danish turned to her. “You think I need help?”

She smiled, small and amused. “Constantly.”

Layth chuckled and tipped his bottle toward them in salute. “You two get weirder every year.”

“We’ve always been weird,” Danish replied.

“Speak for yourself,” Alia said lightly, brushing something off his shoulder. “I’m timeless.”

Hala watched the exchange with a curious smile – knowing. Her gaze flicked toward Layth, who was peeling the label off his bottle one slow curl at a time, eyes set somewhere in the dark street ahead.

“You thinking about it?” she asked softly.

He looked at her. “The rickshaw?”

She nodded.

‘I’m thinking,” he said, “that for something so magical, it felt a little too familiar.”

“Maybe that’s why it worked,” she said, her voice almost lost beneath the radio, still humming in the background. “Because it belonged to us. Or… we belonged to it.”

Layth didn’t say anything, but his hand moved slightly closer to hers on the ledge. Not touching – just near enough that if she shifted even a little, they would be.

But she didn’t move.

The moment stretched between them, delicate and unspoken.

Then a dog barked from two streets down, breaking the quiet.

“Ek din aap, yun humko mil jaayenge…” the radio sang, soft and scratchy, like a voice calling through memory.

None of them moved to turn it off.

Alia laid her head lightly on Danish’s shoulder. He went still for a second, then rested his cheek against her hair.

Layth looked down at his bottle, then up at Hala. His eyes held something – hesitation hope, maybe both.

“Do you think,” he said, “if we hadn’t found that rickshaw tonight, we would’ve just… gone home, and nothing would’ve changed?”

“I don’t know,” Hala replied. “But I think we would’ve regretted it.”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

She turned to him. “What now?”

He shrugged, smiling faintly. “We wait for the next one?”

She laughed under her breath. “Or we stop waiting.”

Their hands brushed – barely. Not enough to call it a touch. Just enough to know it happened.

Hala shifted slightly closer. Layth, beside her, was unusually quiet – no teasing, no ridiculous theories about time-travelling rickshaws. Just stillness.

She glanced at him. “You’re weird when you’re not talking.”

He didn’t look her. “I’m thinking.”

“That’s worse.”

He chuckled under his breath, eyes fixed on the worn gravel at his feet. “I was thinking…” He paused. “That I kind of like the quiet. When it’s with you.”

Hala blinked.

Then blinked again.

“Oh.”

He finally looked at her, mouth twitching like he regretted saying it but didn’t take it back either. “Not in a weird way– just, you know.”

Her voice caught a little in her throat before she found it. “Yeah. I know.”

A long pause stretched between them.

And then Layth reached out awkwardly and flicked the side of her coke bottle.

She stared at him, confused.

He shrugged. “Just making sure you’re not a ghost or something.”

She rolled her eyes, but her cheeks had gone warm. “You’re an idiot.”

“Certified.”

She turned back to the street, but her smile stayed – crooked, and just for him.

The radio played on.

Under the soft orange glow of a streetlamp, in their sleepy corner of Faisalabad, the four of them sat close, tired, changed in quiet ways, still themselves. Still together.

They world moved on around them.

But for a while, they stayed like that.

Waiting. Remembering. Beginning again.