“Ma’am, we are about to descend. Can I open the window shield? Ma’am?”

Akira slowly woke up from her deep sleep. “Uh – huh,” she said. As the attendant opened the window shield slowly, her face started glowing up. The morning sunrays started spilling its magic on her face. She looked like a tiny golden bowl of happiness. She yawned sleepily and put her blanket down reluctantly.

The attendandts voice woke up Raymond as well. He looked at her face all glowing with yellow sunrays bouncing off her face. Before drowning in the endless abyss of her Bambi eyes he looked at her cheeks and chuckled. Quickly he gazed at her hair and the next moment he burst out into a laugh. “What’s wrong?”, quipped Akira. Raymond suppressed his laugh hard and sighed – “Nothing!!! Just that you look super glamorous right now.”

“No way,” thought Akira and pulled out a small mirror from her bag and the instant she saw her reflection in it, she scowled. She had drooled while sleeping and it was all over her cheeks. Her hair looked like the nest of a hummingbird. Overall she looked like a mess that needed urgent repair. Feeling dejected she unclasped her seat belt to go to the washroom. Just when she stood up, the attendant came back and requested her to stay at her seat as they were about to start the landing..

She slumped back into her seat all grumpy. She didn’t have the courage to look at him. Immediately she took out her comb and started setting the nest on top of her head. Then she took a wet wipe and wiped her face. Next, she took out her lip balm and applied it on her lips. She could sense that he was watching her. She turned towards him and saw him looking at her intently. His gaze was focussed like a laser beam on her lips. She blushed and started clasping and unclasping her fingers nervously.

—

After landing, Raymond stood behind Akira at the stamping section. He saw a tattoo of a swallow at the nape of her neck. The tiny swallow looked really pretty on her skin. He felt like grazing his fingers. His thoughts made him feel like he was some lunatic and he shrugged his thoughts off. He sighed and decided to forget this encounter. He wanted to focus entirely on his new project and how to get funding for that. Suddenly the real Raymond was back who made no further attempts to talk to her.

She had no luggage with her. So after the formalities, she started moving towards the exit whereas she saw Raymond turning towards the baggage claim section. For a split second, she paused to say a proper bye before leaving but when she saw him moving ahead unperturbed, she turned back. “At least he could have said a bye,” she muttered under her breath. She took out her earphones and tuned into her favorite channel on Amazon Music. But just after taking 2-3 steps something within stopped her from moving any further and she turned back and shouted at his direction – “Hey !!! Seat no. 6 neighbor. I am Akira by the way and yeah, nice to meet you too.” Then she turned back and without even looking back once, plugged in her earphones and stormed towards the exit.

Startled with her voice Raymond turned back. He knew it was her. But before he could say a thing she had already left for the exit. But then he saw that she had dropped something while walking. He shouted to stop her but she didn’t listen and continued walking. He hurried to the point where she was standing before and picked up the stuff she had dropped. It was a Boarding pass and a letter addressed to some Anthony. When he got up, she was nowhere to be seen.

He stared at the Boarding Pass with her name “Akira” on it.

Silently he muttered – “Goodbye Akira”.