Chapter 1: Jojo [Contd.]

Disclaimer:
All characters in the following story are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real-life persons is entirely coincidental.
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It would have been easy, no doubt, to dismiss the matter as a case of rash youthfulness and carry on on the merry road. But, I knew better than to act that way. Jojo was a person to be handled differently.

"So let me get this straight. You kissed one of the Hussein twins."
"That's right."
"And this was your first kiss."
"You got me."
"And you have no idea which girl you kissed."
"Well actually, I have narrowed it down to two."
"Were you drunk?"
"Nopes."

I seemed to have hit bedrock in my interrogation session. The character of the person before me was beginning to baffle me even more now.

"Didn't it strike you before you kissed the girl that you ought to know who she is?"
"Well, it did strike me. But I was taking for granted that she was Aisha. I didn't bother to examine the matter further. Then when we kissed, I thought she tasted like Aara."
"What do you mean 'tasted like'? Have you tasted her before?"
"No, I got this gut feeling as one may put it."

I eyed the man with a bit of impatience. Gut feeling indeed. If only he had a penny for each gut feeling he ever had. That last time his 'gut feeling' theory had been put into practice was when he blew out the Cathode Ray Oscilloscope in the lab. "Harry, I've got this under control. Don't you worry." he had assured me. "I am getting the gut feeling this is the right way to connect these godforsaken wires." The next thing I knew, the harmless looking instrument was fuming and so was the lab assistant who had appeared out of nowhere to stand behind us. I asked him for an explanation later. He came up with the innocent-sounding reply, "Harry, there are no explanations for gut feelings. You cannot express the feeling in words. It just comes from inside." while he leant back on his chair with his feet on his table. It was, according to him, one of the most important corollaries of the gut-feeling theory - The gut feeling theory has no feasible justifications.

I was just beginning to work out how much richer Jojo would have been if he did indeed have a penny per gut feeling when Teja walked in.

"Hey, I saw Jojo pass by like the breeze." He made himself comfortable against the door-frame and said, "I give you thirty seconds. I've got a class to attend." He performed a hand gesture to indicate he had started his stopwatch. Jojo was in no mood to repeat his tale, so I had to do the honors. By the end of it, Teja was brightened up beyond compare. "Way to go, Jo. You have hit new lows. I'll get back to you for some more shit after class." With that and a wave of the upper arm, he was off.

Jojo was wearily staring at the tube-light as I turned back to him.

"You didn't ask her who she was?"

He didn't bother to take his eyes off the tubelight as he replied."What am I supposed to ask? 'Hi, I know we kissed, but I don't know your name. Do you you mind telling me?'? That would have ended my chance with her faster than Teja can smoke a cigarette."

I turned the prospect over in my mind. "Well ya, that would have been a dumb thing to say."
"Thank you. But I haven't come here for you to accredit what I have already done. What am I to do now? Should I humbly ask one of them, or wait to see which one of them approach me or try to hit on both of them again?"

"Ah, my friend, you have come to the right person and at the right time." I patted the book and held it up again so that he could see it in clearer light again.
"What is that about?" he asked again.
"Ah, nothing great. The title says 'What women want and everything else under the sun". So from what I make of it, it's a book about everything." I repeated once again.

He stared at me for a second as if in utter horror.
"What?" I asked.
"dejavu", he whispered. "I get the feeling you had said the same thing some other time."

His dumbness never ceased to surprise me. But thankfully I usually knew what to expect of him. So I merely shrugged the shoulders and continued.
"Anyways, we cannot employ any of the methods suggested by thy naiive self. The matter calls for subtleties, my friend. You think Sherlock Holmes would have simply followed one of those alternatives. No, he would have assessed the situation on hand and deployed a ploy of his own. This book here is one of the keys to unravel the puzzle."
"Ooo, is that a Sherlock Holmes book? I've always wanted to read one. Pass it to me."
I ignored his statement, his request and his outstretched hand in totality.
"Jojo, we are going to figure out the unfortunate Hussein that you lay your filthy lips upon, don't worry."

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