#jask

Master List

Table of Contents

chapter one

“Higher!”

“No, why don’t you stretch a little more?”

“Saale…how is it so difficult for you to grab one thing from a shelf?”

 The last comment was directed after a dastar-wearing boy tumbled down a ladder, barely escaping the crunch of a broken nose.

Sehaj scowled down at Gurbaaz, pushing him away, and watching with a vague sense of satisfaction as he crashed into another dusty shelf. By the time he emerged, coughing and waving his hand to clear the air in front of his face, the entire store had been converted into a mess. Books were half open across the ground, practically begging to be crumpled and torn. In a corner, part of a shelf was lying, jagged edge revealing how it had been broken off the larger structure. If the storeowner uncle came back anytime soon, they would all be scolded badly and thrown out like a pair of ruffians.

“Hun keda siyapa pata tu?” Sehaj berated, smacking the boy on the upper arm. 

[What kind of mess have you made?]

“Why are you hitting me? Stop hitting me!” 

“Then what else will I do, give you a hug? Look at this mess you made!”

For Jasleen, who watched the glass pane of the window, this was the ultimate source of entertainment. The knight-in-shining-armor, Sehaj, had saved the dainty princess, Gurbaaz, from swooning off the ladder! Oh, the way she had caught him! Gurbaaz had been leaning backwards, only propped upright by Sehaj’s arm slung under his waist—it was the most romantic of occasions! Straight out of a Bollywood movie! Now, if only Jasleen could find someone to recreate this scene…

“Oye! What are you looking at?” 

Jasleen twisted back around in time for Gurbaaz to arch an eyebrow at her. She would never tell him so, but his attempts at appearing haughty made him look like a little boy wearing his father's baggy shirt. It didn't suit him and more importantly, she hated it.

“Aa fadd, kamli,” he mumbled before Jasleen could get a word in, tossing a dusty tome onto her lap. 

[Take this, you crazy girl]

“Why are you calling me crazy?” Jasleen hmph-ed, turning away in mock anger, “I’m not the one who almost broke his skull on a ladder,”

Gurbaaz neatly ignored her last comment: “Then what else should I call you? You’re sitting here all alone, while one of your crazier friends is starting a fight inside and another one is sneaking into your house,”

Jasleen froze. “What other friend?”

“Sehaj,” Gurbaaz pointed at the figure through the window, “That girl who follows you around like a ghost,”

Jasleen hit Gurbaaz on the upper arm, “You think I don’t know who Sehaj is? I’m talking about the person you said was sneaking into my house,”

“Oh, that!” Gurbaaz made an exaggerated expression of realization, as if his dramatics weren’t solely fashioned to lengthen any conversation with Jasleen. “That girl…”

“Which girl?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“You said you saw her!”

“That doesn’t mean I know her name!”

“Fine, describe her then,”

“You two sisters adore her, I think. She always prances around Harleen di like her personal jester. And, she’s always sucking up to her like it's not the most disgusting thing ever to watch,”

Jasleen’s curious expression instantly shut down into a death stare, “Amrita!”

“Haanji, that one,” Gurbaaz smiled simply, more than happy with himself.

“Don’t even talk to me about that Amrita! As if she’s my friend,” Jasleen grumbled, folding her arms over her chest and slumping back around. 

“But you always talk nicely to her at home?” 

“Then, should I curse her out in front of my mother and sister?” Jasleen snapped.

“Well, that’s not what I meant but…”

“But, nothing! She’s the worst person to have ever been born! There’s nothing good about that girl, from those irritating pigtails of hers to her brown-nosing—”

“Are you talking about Amrita again?” Jasleen shut up instantly, perking up at the sight of her favorite person in the world. She jumped to her feet, swinging an arm over the shorter girl’s shoulder and tugging her closer. The carefree smile had returned, forgetting all the previous creases that came from anger.

“Yes, Gurbaaz was saying that she’s sneaking into my house and that got me started—”

“Why is Amrita sneaking into your house?” Sehaj questioned, tilting her head up at Jasleen.

“What would I do without you, Sehaj? Who would ask all the important questions?” Jasleen exclaimed, pulling away to grab her satchel. 

She hooked an arm around Sehaj and caught onto Gurbaaz’s shirt collar, doing her best to drag them. “Come on, come on, come on. We have to find out what that she-devil is doing near my house. Nazar naa lagge!”

“Ohdi nazar taan tere veer te hi ae,” Gurbaaz mumbled, earning a swift kick on the shin.

[Her eyes are only on your brother]

He doubled over, providing enough cover for Jasleen to discretely threaten him, “I have a masterplan in the works here, Gurbaaz, and if you do anything to ruin it, the last thing you need to worry about is your father finding your body. So, for the well-being of everyone, keep your loud mouth shut!”

Powered mainly by Jasleen, the trio stumbled over the rural plains in a rush to catch their only source of entertainment for the evening. They bypassed the main road, on Gurbaaz’s insistence, and found themselves digging through the paddy fields for dear life. By the time they emerged, they were drenched up the knees from the warm flooding of the crops. Only Sehaj seemed bothered by it, while the other two were instantly encouraged by the sight of a bright red salwar-kameez standing around in the courtyard of the Rangi house. Predictably, Jasleen wanted to get closer so she could eavesdrop, so the only option was to hide behind Aunty’s rosebushes in hopes of catching any whisps of the voices.  

“Mere veer te akh paun aalian tan baalian par ohdi jide te akh honi oh main vekhna,” Jasleen muttered in Gurbaaz’s direction, concluding the over-exaggerated threat she had continued on the walk home. She was satisfied by the visible fear on the boy’s face.

[There are many people who have their eyes on my brother, but I will decide who he has his eyes on]

“Why did you drag us here if you want to keep whispering with that donkey?” Sehaj sighed, “We could’ve done this at the stationary store, too,”

“No, no,” Jasleen pacified, but not before a lingering glare at Gurbaaz. She huddled closer to where Sehaj was peeking over a stray vine. “Let’s see what Amrita wants,”

Gurbaaz hesitantly crept near the girls, forced into the endeavor. He figured he might as well make the most of the situation. When Jaskirat appeared at the doorstep and the Amrita girl looked up expectantly through her eyelashes, Gurbaaz nudged Jasleen with his elbow. The message was clear: what Amrita wants is your brother. Jasleen responded in kind, not even looking back before shoving him harshly so he was sprawled out on the ground. 

“She’s giving him something!” Jasleen hissed in Sehaj’s ear. “I wonder what it is,”

“Don’t you have eyes?” Gurbaaz dusted off his pants, squatting on the ground again. “It’s clearly a letter,”

“No, I think it’s a gift of some kind. Look how clunky it is,”

“Both of you shut up!” Sehaj hissed, surprising the other two with the rising heat in her voice. “Neither of you have seen Amrita’s handwriting—it's bigger than the entire Taj Mahal. It’s undoubtedly some love letter she wrote out like its an exam sheet,”

“There's no way Amrita can even write this much in any exam. All she does is look around for someone to cheat off of and shake the entire table,” 

Sehaj turned her head enough that Jasleen could see the faint trace of a smile, the intended target. Before she could reprimand her again, Jasleen had already turned back to the matter at hand, jumping from topic to topic like an escaping squirrel, “Whatever she does, that’s not the issue. The problem is my brother entertaining her,”

“Oda kasoor na kado ji oh tan jamya eh kamla si,” Gurbaaz bantered, trying to rearrange the rose vines for better visibility.

[Don’t blame him, he was born stupid]

Jasleen ignored the comment. Just as she opened her mouth near Sehaj’s ear, she flinched backwards at a shrill noise in the air. Hearing Gurbaaz audibly wince, she wiggled her eyebrows at him playfully, “Guess you’ve never heard Amrita laugh before?”

“If I had known this is what I signed up for, I would’ve just stayed behind at the bookstore,” Gurbaaz rubbed at the outer edge of his ear. 

Jasleen huffed at that, a breath of air that was more of a laugh. “She always does this around Jassi. At school, she behaves normally—or as normally as she can—but the second she sees him, she turns into a completely different person. Poor Jassi, he doesn’t even know what’s happening to him,”

“So what’s the plan, madam ji? How are we going to save your precious veera?”

Jasleen shrugged off-handedly, settling on the ground and focusing on ripping out the weeds near her leg. “We aren’t going to save him,”

Gurbaaz’s face was scrunched up cutely, not that Jasleen would ever voice it, as he asked, “Then why are we here? What was the point of this entire thing?”

Jasleen looked up at him for a moment, her mouth already curving into the picture of mischievousness. She didn’t say a word more, just raising her eyebrows and tilting her chin in her best friend’s direction. She had brought Sehaj here with the utmost swiftness, her job was essentially done, as she laid everything in place. All that was left to do was wait, and let everything work out on its own.

True enough, Sehaj’s mind was running a hundred kilometers an hour, as she tried to absorb as much information from the interaction before her. The irritating buzz that was Jasleen and Gurbaaz’s banter faded from her ears, as she tried to catch all of the barest of implications between Amrita and Jaskirat.

Amrita, that horrible girl, stood too close to Jassi. Even when the boy had respectfully taken a step backwards, she had only taken that as an invitation to come even closer into his personal space. She smiled docilely up at Jaskirat, while handing him the hideously blinding packaging. It reflected the sun, glinting and glittering at every small movement. 

Jassi had unwillingly accepted it, his shoulders pulled taut as his left hand stretched outwards to clutch at the boxy shape. He hadn’t spared it a glance, in Sehaj’s mind, instead settling on glancing over Amrita’s head to the gateway entrance of his home. He repeated that motion several times over Amrita’s conversation, barely participating and appearing as if something else preoccupied his mind. 

Sehaj clenched her jaw at the sight of Amrita’s dainty hand reaching on top of Jassi’s wrist. Actually, that’s not completely accurate. She had squinted her eyes at the moment, waiting for Jassi to diminutively pull away, tucking his hand into his pant pockets, in the way he always did whenever Sehaj accidentally grazed him. Instead, he hadn’t even been aware of it, eyes still stuck on the horizon.

What could he possibly be thinking about right now? she grumbled to herself in her mind, further aggravated by just the idea that something could monopolize the boy enough that he lost consciousness of his surroundings.

“I hope she didn’t lick that hand,” Jasleen whispered to Sehaj, who only hummed absently in response. It was a throwback to their childhood, when all the kids in the mohalla would be fearful of Amrita who was infamously known to cover her palm in saliva before touching others during a game of tag.

“Oh… aaunde vele Sehaj takra ja disya kitne tenu?”

[Waise…when you were coming here, did you happen to see Sehaj?]

Sehaj felt like her eyes were about to pop out of her head of their own accord, at the unexpected mention. She looked back to see Jasleen’s blown-away expression, accompanied by Gurbaaz’s shit-eating grin. “What did he say? Did I hear that correctly?”

Jasleen nodded frantically, edging closer to the front so she could catch the quickly-escalating situation. Never in her right mind had she expected that her endearingly-unaware brother would be so direct with his intentions. Sehaj shook her arm in a hurry, trying to hide the climbing flush of her neck. Jasleen slapped her away, gentle as ever, but they missed whatever Amrita had responded. A good thing, because Jasleen would’ve lost interest all over again.

When Sehaj looked back again, shocked and sheepish to the core, she found Jaskirat rubbing the nape of his neck furiously. He was making wide gestures with his other arm while refusing to look away from the gate anymore. He was also doing some strange dance with his feet, almost hopping from one to the other like he was barefoot on burning coal. 

“No, no, no,” Jassi was blabbering, his eyebrows coming together in the way it had when he was a little boy, “There’s no particular reason. It’s just that Jasleen is always hanging around Sehaj, so…”

“Don’t listen to him, yaara. He’s never this concerned about me,” Jasleen piped up instantly, before the freezing chill of disappointment fell as a shroud over Sehaj’s good mood. “It’s just that he can’t tell her the truth, that’s all,”

Even Gurbaaz supported her, “It’s true, Sehaj. It’s not even late in the day, so why would Jassi—”

“What are you all doing here?!?!”

The trio turned around guiltily, forced to gaze skywards to find their interrupting captor. It was a rare time, because usually all three of them were usually forced to bend downwards whenever she twisted their ear or yanked them by the arm. She stood, feet apart with her hands on her hip as if she was preparing to fight a battle. Fittingly, she held a rolling pin menacingly in one hand. 

Sehaj looked at Jasleen, Jasleen looked at Sehaj, Gurbaaz looked at Jasleen. 

There was nothing they could do now, not when they were caught red-handed, spying. As they got to their feet, dusting off the dirt for the final time, they settled into a line obediently: hand in hand before them, with their faces down-cast towards the ground.

Nobody stood a chance against the severity of Harleen Didi. 

Harleen Didi was barely tall enough to reach the top of the doorframe, and it only happened if she tried her hardest to jump. She had the chubbiest cheeks of all the Rangi siblings, but if she caught even a finger in the direction of her face, she always twisted it until its owner screamed for mercy. At the mere age of five, she had declared herself queen of the land, and nobody to this day had the guts to go against her. From the early years of their acquaintance, Sehaj had seen her devour parathas before, and was thoroughly convinced she secretly harbored a ghost inside of her body that came out at times like this.

If Harleen Didi wanted, she could even stand equal to and defeat the notorious bandit queen, Phoolan Devi. 

“I asked you, what are you doing here? Chal, get in the house!” She scolded, her terrifying voice somehow originating from her petite figure. When Gurbaaz had moved first, her flashing eyes had fixed on him, always an ominous sign, “And what do you think you are doing? Who told you to come inside?”

Sehaj watched with pity as poor Gurbaaz startled, jumping two feet in the air, before making himself scarce. He was too quick in tripping over himself, away from the rosebush and into the fields he usually frequented. Soon, he was barely visible over the mesh of trees and crops. 

Figuring the circus monkey had decided to retire for the day, Sehaj turned back to find Jasleen already on her way to the back entrance. Panicking, she found herself unable to move, not when the eldest Rangi sibling was leveling her with a scrutinizing look. Sehaj offered a nervous smile, one that was not reciprocated, leaving it to melt down her face. Just as she began formulating her master plan to escape without a screaming session, Harleen Didi put to rest all her hopes and dreams.

“Ki? Tenu wakhra saddiye?” Harleen Didi scowled, patting the rolling pin onto her other hand.  “Andhar mar, Sehaj!”

[What? Do you need a special invitation? Go inside, Sehaj!]

Jasleen was already at the doorstep, gesturing desperately for her to come in with the repeated waving motion of her hand. Sehaj decided it was her lucky day, what with the sudden acceptance into the house. Usually, Harleen Didi fought tooth-and-nail to ban her from the boundaries of their house, with Jasleen acting as Sehaj’s devoted lawyer. 

Sehaj shuffled close to her best friend, followed no doubt by Harleen Didi. She couldn’t resist, however, the appeal to take in the yard beyond the rose bushes. She had certainly seen more than she should’ve, but there was something wanting in the crouched manner from which she had peeked. 

Turning the corner into the looming shade of the house, Sehaj indulgently peered over her shoulder, in hopes of bathing in the vibrant memory of her little name slipping from a certain someone’s lips. She swiveled back around instantly. Sehaj pressed the cold surface of her palms to her face, unable to help the mortified scrunching of her face. 

If only Jassi and his stupid hazel eyes hadn’t been following her.

If only Sehaj didn’t turn around, drawn instinctively to him.

Lucky day, indeed. 

Sehaj looked down at the crumpled newspaper in her hand. It was a bit early in the day to be eating guava fruit, dipped in red chilli powder and salt. Her mother hadn't cared, cutting it swiftly and shoving it and Sehaj out of the house. Where everyone in town was probably sipping on a warm chai, she was often subjected to random fruits pieced together by her mom. It was another chore on the long list for her. That left Sehaj to walk around, nibbling unhappily on the guava slices.

One thing had led to another, and now Sehaj found herself in front of the old schoolhouse. The building was abandoned now, at the peak of summer when everyone was wondering how the break had run away rather than being filled with excitement for the coming school year. With the only local populace being located on the opposite side of the street, specifically the old village market with its endless availability. 

There is only so much a girl can entertain herself with in such dreary times. In a town where everyone knows everyone, avoiding eye contact with the aunties across the street is a necessary requirement. That also means no access to the top-secret gossip that comes with lip-reading, another bare-minimum talent in the fields of Punjab. 

“Chandu!” Sehaj gasped, running over past the school gate. She came to a stop just at the handpump, bending to raise and lower the crooked handle. It squeaked with every inch, a result of the years of rust piling up. Once the guava slices were drained of all color and the ground reflected crimson, she held them out one by one to the calf, “It’s clean, betu, so you can eat it. I promise, no one will scold us like last time when I accidentally gave you Mummy’s spicy aloo paratha,”

To her credit, the calf shook her head a few times, chasing away the buzzing flies, before letting out a loud “mooo”. 

Only the two of them knew the truth, that Chandu secretly liked eating non-cow food. 

Cooing at the little calf, Sehaj crouched near the ground to rub her palm over the white and brown spots of the hairy coat. Chandu gobbled up the guava pieces more easily than she had managed to, her pinkish tongue peeking out to slurp at the surface of her hand. Caught up in the sudden ambush of the cow’s excited little hops, Sehaj didn’t notice the sudden dark shadow standing over her.

“School bandh paye ne, Sehaj… keda kaam chalandea ethe?” Jassi’s voice calls out from behind.     

[School is closed, Sehaj…what work do you have here?]

The sound that escaped Sehaj’s mouth is a little more than embarrassing, caught somewhere between a yelp and a goat’s bleating. 

Pushing the baby cow away and getting back to her feet is an effort in itself. It involves the straightening of her kameez, dusting off imaginary dust on her hands, and coughing horribly to excuse away everything that Jaskirat might have seen. Fiddling with her dupatta, Sehaj smiled up at him—maybe a little too widely. “Oh, mainu…paani chahida hai?”    [Oh, I…wanted water?]

She could practically see the gears running in Jaskirat’s mind, from the way his eyes scanned her up and down. The cow was trying to force its way between her feet, head-butting her leg. Red powder (it’s not Holi already, is it?) trickled down all over her, enough that he had to look away to fight the urge to wipe a spot on her dimpled cheek. Next, she was standing around a puddle of water, one that had refused to get soaked up by the dry ground. All in all, Sehaj looked like a mess. 

She was a mess.

“Don’t you have plumbing at home? There’s no water there, or what?” 

“So now a girl can’t even take a walk outside of her home?” Sehaj huffed, unable to stand in one place altogether.

Sehaj forgot the initial argument coming up in her mind, as soon as Jaskirat began moving in her direction. Never mind that the height gap forced her to tip her head back to meet his eyes, once he closed the distance in a handful of strides. Stumbling into a wall that wasn't there before, Sehaj found she didn't know where to look anymore.

Maybe it was the humid weather or the early morning jog that she knew he undertook at this same time every morning, but Jaskirat was dripping head to toe in sweat. She could smell the musk from the short distance of their separation, a combination of wet soil and the salt of his skin. The heave of his chest, visible under the layer of a shirt, frightened her more than she wished. For now, she wanted to know what lay under, if his heartbeat would quicken or calm if she put her hand over it. She finally reached his narrowed ember eyes, skipping completely over the playful smirk and its intentions, when Sehaj snapped back to reality.

Reality, a world where she wasn't allowed to gawk at her best friend’s brother. A world where she was just a sunflower that turned its face towards the sun, but wasn't allowed to ever reach up in hopes of grabbing it in her palm.

“The problem with a girl taking a walk outside of her home, is that she starts hiding in the bushes by my home,” 

Jaskirat folded his arms over his chest, sending the sleeves by his upper arm creasing to accommodate his movement. It distracted Sehaj again. As a result, she was stupidly slow on the uptake once again, to realize he was still talking to her and that he didn't intend to let the incident from days prior go. By the time she ran though half-hearted excuses for why she was pretending to be a bush spy, he had already turned his back to her and began walking away. 

Now, the panic truly hit Sehaj.

Great. Brilliant. First you spy on him, then you argue with him, and now you've offended him.

She had no idea what she would do, now that he was actually angry at her for listening in on his conversation with his precious Amrita.

"Jassi—Jaskirat!" He kept walking. She hurried after him, ignoring the moo-ing of Chandu at the sudden separation. She had bigger fish to fry. “Suniyo!”

"Listen, I wasn't... I mean, we weren't hiding to make fun of you. Jasleen dragged me there and then we heard you talking and after that it just became awkward to come out, and then if we'd come out it would've looked worse, and…"

Jassi slowed, to her relief, "And I know I shouldn't have listened," she continued in one breath. "It was rude. I know. I wasn't trying to—"

He turned around with the most puzzled expression. "...What are you talking about?"

Sehaj blinked, trying her hardest to look anywhere except his bright eyes. "I thought..." She looked at the ground. "I thought you were angry."

A grin tugged at one corner of his mouth. "That's why you've been chasing me?"

"I wasn't chasing you."

"You've been explaining yourself for a full minute."

"I have not."

"You absolutely have."

"...Maybe a little."

Sehaj didn’t know what else she could possibly say, to excuse her horrible behavior or to make him forget the issue altogether. All she could do was alternate between looking up at Jaskirat, and then forgetting that she didn’t have the courage to complete the task, and then looking back down. Maybe the absolute shame and misery reflecting on her face was visible enough to Jaskirat, because he shook his head once and resumed the hop in his step. 

“Nevermind all that, Sehaj, come here,” Jaskirat had stopped towering over her, slinking back past her to the water pump. When he reached it, he dusted off his hands before looking at her, “What are you doing? Come here,”

Sehaj mumbled under her breath, wondering what he would put her up to now. Still, she obeyed, shuffling her feet on the way. 

It was obvious what he expected from her. If only it was the other way around, and he knew what she wanted from him too.

But, no.

Sehaj knelt to grab the discarded end of the water pump, once she was sure Jaskirat had crouched down near the opening. Half-heartedly, she lifted and pushed at the pump, making sure she was looking up in the opposite direction. She didn’t want to look at him for a moment more, more so because she knew exactly who was sitting down near the ground and quietly sipping the water from her hands.

She had known Jaskirat Singh Rangi her entire life, not that the knowledge had needed that much time to register in her mind.

She knew that he had big dreams, of making his family proud and serving the motherland.

She knew that he had an even bigger heart, one that saw everyone with the utmost kindness.

She knew that there would be no space in there, especially not for her, and that even if there was, it would never work out.

That’s why Sehaj didn’t turn her head, when she felt the ends of her salwar becoming damp. She knew exactly how that happened, when the quiet rushing of water had turned into harsh splashes. When a stray drop ended up on her face, she finally snapped and gave up on her resolution. Turning around with a hissy fit in hand, though, she felt the residue of her anger dripping down onto the ground, where it evaporated instantly.

Jassi was looking up at her, a grin creasing his face. 

His hair was all wet, no doubt from dunking his head in the water. It stuck to his face because he hadn’t cut it in a long time. The water drippled down his forehead, spreading in every direction once it reached the strong curve of his nose. His eyes caught the sun perfectly, refracting the light perfectly so that Sehaj felt a wave of something wash over her. When was the last time he had looked at her like that?

He looked just like the boy who had spent hours squatting over the dirt so that her broken gudiya had been pieced back together.

Sehaj wished he could have been that boy, and she could’ve been the girl who had given him a ladoo as payment for his good deed.

She wished and wished and wished.

It made her want to kick the sand into his eyes, so that he would stop looking at her and make her want stupid things like that.

He got to his feet and she abandoned the rust-ridden handle. He looked down at her and she looked at a spot on his shoulder. He straightened up his smile and she crossed her arms.

“Tu gussa ae?”

[Are you angry?]

“Why would I be angry?” She shrugged.

He nodded solemnly at that, as if he believed her. “I just came because I wanted to tell you something,”

Sehaj huffed out something of a laugh, as if he would ever come looking for her. “Are you sure that’s why you came? Not because you train every morning?”

Something about what she said must have been amusing because he smiled again. Sehaj didn’t know what was so funny, but it only made her want to punch him. Stupid Jaskirat and his stupid brain and his stupid smiling.

“Aagli vari jadon ghare aaenga tan tere liye aape chaa banawangi,”     

[Next time, when you come home, I’ll make tea for you.]

And with that, he was off, with less than a glance back at her.

Like a tornado, he left the dust fluttering up into the air. Something had changed from the time before he came and his leaving, but Sehaj couldn’t put her finger down on it. She knew better than to think about it, because she had done this countless times before Jassi had only succeeded in making her crazy. So, she made the most reasonable decision of the day: to go home.

Anyway, she had gotten the day’s task done, which was to spot Jaskirat. Somebody or the other had told her a foreign proverb about seizing the day, so it had become her practice to cross Jaskirat’s path at some point when he was training. It worked out well enough that she had made it the first thing she did in the day. 

Sehaj adjusted her dupatta, which was also damp, and straightened her braid instinctively. And somewhere nearby, from a weary radio resounded a voice dating back a thousand years:

“Mann atkeya…"

[The heart is entangled…]

“Beparwah de naal.”

Inktober Day 9: Heavy In Which Jask is Disgruntled And I Can't Draw Arms

Rhys (or someone) asked to pick him up and he can't very well say no right now, but he doesn't have to pretend this isn't an affront to his dignity and his fat fluffy little tummy.