The sun was getting higher by each passing minute and the environment got hotter. Baraq never felt this kind of hesitation before, he wanted to ask Layla how did this machine of time worked, but the hesitation of his didn’t let his question out of his mouth.

"Uhm," he cleared his throat and gazed down on the watch on her wrist.

Layla saw him eyeing her watch like it was some kind of monster, he was glaring at the mere ticking object as if hated the concept of it's existence. Well, Layla's thoughts weren't wrong. He hated the watches, the clocks, the ticks they resonate to denote the each passing second.

"It's just a watch, Baraq." She said softly, breaking away his attention from his thoughts.

"Yep, monster of denoting time." He hissed as if already imagining the creature yelling out loud of the passing time.

Layla's eyes widened. She was perplexed by the choice of his words. Her head tilted as she raised her eye brows and her mouth opened and closed like a fish.

"What?"

"A watch isn't a monster." She simply said, as if she was confused too, was watch a monster?

"No, forget it. But why do you think it's a monster? She asked intrigued by his words.

Baraq didn't answer. What was he going to answer, that he hated watches because he couldn't read the time, or never cared to understand how it worked? It was quite enough embarrassing thought, letting out will only make him burn in embarrassment and that was the last thing he wanted to happen. Blush coated his cheeks as he glared at her watch.

"Is it because, you don't know how the clocks work? She asked, amused by him. Baraq, the man who terrified everyone didn’t know how the little clocks worked. It was a thing to laugh on, but Layla didn't, she just ducked her head to see his expressions and his eyes conveyed enough of him to make her throw her head back with a small laughter bubbling out of her chest.

Baraq has never heard a girl's full laughter, back in his village, females prioritized their their laughter, even his old lover never laughed infront of him. Small smiles were, but it was only limited to chuckles and Baraq swore that Layla's laughter would help him in caging the demons inside of him. His eyes stilled on her face as she tried to conceal it.

He turned his head to see if Nazreena and Hafsa had heard them, but found them seating far and involved in a heated argument. Turning back his head, he found her head leaned on his shoulder, and different kind of warm  spread across his chest.

He had never heard something so beautiful than her laughter, not even his own laughter. Her laugh was a fire for his iced heart.

"Sorry, I just couldn't control." She said finally getting enough of her laugh.

"Come here, let me teach you." She said and raised her hand to let him look clearly.

"You see these needles?" She asked pointing on the needle hands, suddenly getting serious. He nodded and focused on the watch ignoring the warmth which spread into his torso from the mere touch of her elbow.

"These long needles are called hands, there three of them. Second hand, minute hand, hour hand." He nodded on her words.

"This one, the longest and the thinnest hand is second hands. It is always moving hand, so that how to denotes the seconds. One more thing, not every clock has second hand." She informed about the first hand.

"So, the always ticking one is second hand." He summed up, making her nod and passed him a thumbs up.

"And you see this the shortest needle, this one is hour hand. It tells us about the hour. There are 24 hours in a day. It is the mid of the night when the day changes." She slowly said, as if talking to a child.

"So what is the time, now?" He asked.

"Seven oh' fifty." She replied the reading the time.

"Here, see the small hand is pointing at hour hand, right? And it is seven that's how we know it's seven." He leaned more and held her wrist in his hold, nodding his head.

All the words the which she thought to tell him about the watch and time vanished. His closeness made her, blink at those vanished thoughts. The way his chest warmed up her shoulder made the butterflies buzz in her guts.

Her thoughts, they wandered to more unmodest scenarios where Baraq's names form would consume hers and then she closed her eyes instantly regretting the visionary.

"And this second longest one, what does it do?" He questioned, bring her out of her thoughts.

"Huh?"

"This one?" He pointed at the hand pointing near the twelve of the watch.

"Ah, ha, yes, this. Hmm, this hand is used to tell us about the minutes, how many have been passed. Every hour as sixty minutes, and the gaps between each of these number denotes five minutes." She rambled out the words, hastily.

"So, if the minut hand comes and rest at one and hour hand rest at eight. Then the time will be Eight hour and Five minutes?" He summed up whatever she thought him and questioned to understand it better.

"Great, you got it very well. But, to say the time we usually say, Eight oh' five. That's better." She let him know the better information, so he don't feel behind if he ever encounters a moment where anyone would point him out on not knowing hot to tell the time, she wasn't wrong life was full of surprises.

"See, it wasn't that hard." She mumbled straightening her back and moving a little far away, but how far could she move when he sat on her lap?

"Yeah, says the person who hated the her own time few days back." Baraq mocked.

Layla wasn't dumb to not understand his words, by time he meant her life and she was tired of it hearing from him.

"Are you even going to forget about it?"

She asked blinking at him and slipping on the hot dessert, but when the hot dessert stuck onto her soft palm, burning it, she scrambled back in his lap making him throw his head back in laughter.

"Never." He answered making the red coat her cheeks.