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|| Chapter 18 ||

~End of Namjoon's POV~

Y/n's POV:

I was scared my ass out while lifting another foot on the bike. But with the name of Maa Durga, I succeeded. But my heart was racing when he held my waist and when his fingers dug onto my skin. My cheeks burned but I continued to bring down the branch. I stood on my toe and I felt my legs shaking badly but held myself back and rotate the stick around the twigs part of the branch and in that too, succeeded in bringing down the branch at my level.
- Well done! ~He cheered, holding my foot tightly~

I plucked out a huge number of mango leaves which were in groups. Now it's time to get down.
- Don't worry Y/n... trust me. If you lose your balance, I will catch you... just come down.

My heart raced again hearing him. I lifted down one foot in the air to reach the ground but was scared. Suddenly my trust on him grew insanely at that time. So, I lost my body balance hoping he would catch me. And he did. My upper body fell in the air and he caught me by below of my hips. My hands fell on his chest while his hot breathe brushed on my collarbone, warming me down. And I slipped from his grip and stood on my feet, which landed on my opened sandals Ieft before standing on the bike. I stared into his eyes while he took the mango leaves from my hand and kept it on the basket of the bicycle.
- You okay? ~He asked, rubbing both of my shoulders to comfort me~
- Ye-yess.. I am good. Let's go home, fast!

He nodded and sat on the bicycle with me on the backseat and I again wrapped my hands around his torso as he paddled through the rough road.
- Accha Y/n, whose place was that?
- It was the place of an old woman. She is sooo possessive over that tree that she won't allow any of the kids to get near that tree to eat some mangoes. The tree grows really tasty mangoes. When I was a kid, I used to come here with my boy group. And they used to sneaked onto the branches of the tree and made me stand outside the canopy with a cloth so that I could collect the mangoes. They didn't let me do anything else as I was the only girl. One day that old grandma chased us out of her garden with her walking stick. All the boys came down except one. We all were running while one boy caught the friend in his arms when couldn't got down and ran faster, following us... that's why I sneaked you here.

Our laughters mingled with the air as the air was hitting our skin caused by the motion of the bike and was ruffling our hair.
- But isn't it a bad thing to do? ~He asked~
- What?
- Plucking leaves from someone else's garden without their permission?
- Aha! No noo... this is actually common in India. The Gen Z is the last generation to play these kind of tricks here. Now all the kids are into their phones. But we were lucky to be the parts of these plays.
While chatting, we reached in front of our house's main gate, which is decorated with red and white fabrics and flowers.. we ran into the veranda with the leaves in my hands. Maa left a relieved sigh seeing us.
- Your Dada literally came back with empty hands.. they said they didn't get any leaves in the market. The stock is out. But from where did you get?
- Ah Maa! We are running late. We will tell everything later. First give these to priest.
~I said~

Maa smiled and handed the leaves to the priest while he decorated the kalash by stroking 'Swastik' sign with red liquid sindoor and adorned it with the mango leaves and with red and white striped towel. You all are wondering why he is decorating the kalash in Ashtthami. It's because the mango leaves which were brought at the day of Saptami(seventh day of the Puja) had dried up and more leaves were needed for other rituals too. After some time, he started to chant the spells from the Vedas before giving us flowers in our hands. Before taking the flowers and leaves, me and Namjoon fist bumped secretly with each other. Then we joined our plams with the flower in between our palms and repeated the spells chanted by him. I felt, with my closed eyes, that the man who makes my heart beat faster was stealing glances at me. I smirked faintly realising that. I stood more closely to him slowly, until our arms touched with each other.

When he moved his elbows a bit, to make the touch deeper, my stomach twisted in a funny way. Well, this was our another secret and slow actions of confession. When I opened my eyes after chanting the first spells, I felt that Maa Durga's sculpted face was glowing a bit. I felt that she smiled at us faintly, seeing our actions....

A/n: Huh!!? I forgot the outfits!!? Wait!!

Namjoon's outfit(choosen by Y/n):

Y/n' Saree: