CHAPTER 2 :
[Late Morning, Village Paths]
By 9 AM, the village was chaos.
Children running everywhere. Adults chasing each other with colors. Music playing from somewhere. The whole world had turned into a rainbow explosion.
I walked through it, still finding new colors in my hair every few minutes. Pink. Blue. Yellow. Some kind of sparkly silver that Angy had definitely bought specifically to annoy me.
My clothes were ruined. Didn't care.
"Nams!"
I turned.
A blob of orange hit my chest.
Vjaret stood ten feet away, holding a bucket of color, grinning like an idiot.
"Got you!"
I looked at the orange spreading across my shirt. Looked at him. Looked at the bucket in his hands.
"You brought a bucket."
"BUCKET IS STRATEGIC." He was already running. "CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!"
I didn't move.
He stopped. Turned. Confused.
"You're not chasing me?"
"No."
"But I threw color at you!"
"Yes."
"And you're not going to get revenge?"
I picked up a handful of red gulal from a nearby stall. The vendor waved—clearly used to people stealing her colors today.
"No." I walked toward him slowly. Calmly. "I'm going to do something worse."
He backed up. "Worse? What's worse than—"
I grabbed him.
Hugged him.
Pressed the red gulal into his back, his hair, his stupid grinning face.
"There." I stepped back. "Now we're even."
He stared at me. Red streaked across his cheek. His mouth open.
Then he laughed.
Actually laughed. Loud and genuine.
"You're insane."
"Takes one to know one."
"C'mon!" He grabbed my arm. "My family's having a thing. Food. Music. More colors. You're coming."
"I have maids."
"They can come too. The more the merrier."
I thought about Angy and Shenhe. About the chaos they'd bring to someone else's family gathering.
This will either be amazing or a disaster.
"Okay."
He dragged me toward his house.
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