Chapter 31

-Archi-

@-Archi-

Hello,

I'm back with a much awaited update. THANK YOU for all the awesome comments and endless patience! You guys truly are amazing A big welcome to all the new readers (I accepted all the buddy requests I got).

Silent Whispers

-CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE-

Blood Brothers

They said a brother was nothing less than a superhero, a thousand blessings all magically rolled into one. But Akash knew, as early as age thirteen, that blessings were like fairy tales, told to please, but not to believe.

Just like his brother.

Growing up in an affluent family, Akash learned very quickly what status and power could buy. Growing up as the youngest son of an aspiring father and a doting mother, however, taught him something else entirely.

He was perhaps ten when it happened, or maybe even younger. He had run home from his school, carrying a palm-sized trophy for coming third in a local pottery competition. He could barely contain his excitement as he rushed inside their ancestral haveli in Lucknow, looking for his mother. Back then she was the only one who he could count on to appreciate his achievements, no matter how insignificant they were.

After almost half-an-hour of searching he finally found her in the drawing room, standing next his father, gleaming at the trophy -almost as tall as him- Arnav had received for winning a state-level mathematic championship. It would be an understatement if you said Akash was disappointed.

The years that followed that incident were no better. Far from impressing his parents, Akash couldn't even save them from embarrassment. By the time he was a teenager, he gathered what life as a Raizada meant. It meant being clever, distinguished and not to mention, classy. Everything that defined the mere form of Arnav and nothing he could ever even hope of attaining.

He was emotional, foolish and utterly ordinary; so ordinary that his father, the ever so successful Alok Singh Raizada, ignored him, pushing him away from everything that was family. That was the first time Akash picked up a paintbrush and he was yet to set it back down.

"Bhaiyya?" called the voice of Om Prakash, the family's most loyal servant. "Should I call Anjali Didi?"

Akash snapped out of his reverie. After two long months in Jaipur, he was finally back in Delhi. He had just stepped inside Shantivaan when he was hit with a wave of nostalgia. Even with its humongous size and expensive furniture,the mansion was his home and he had missed it dearly.

"No," Akash answered. "I will go see her myself."

Dismissing the obedient servant, he crept up to the second floor, taking in the fresh Sunday morning breeze wafting through the open windows. He was just about to turn the corner and enter Anjali's room, when he noticed the doors to Arnav's study, a vast and strictly out-of-bounds room, wide open.

"Bhai?" Akash called, peeking inside. As a general rule, neither he nor Anjali were allowed inside without Arnav's permission.

Upon hearing no reply, however, he made a split decision to enter, confident that his brother wouldn't murder him, especially on his first day back. Just as he stepped inside, however, a gust of wind blew through the wall-sized window unsettling many loose papers on the desk.

Akash rushed forward, slamming his hand on the ruffled papers when he noticed a familiar face staring back at him from the stack he was pinning to the desk. Curious, he pulled out the photo to realize that it belonged to an article from the New Delhi Times. The face was none other than Khushi's, dressed almost unrecognizably in a coral-colored gown.

What shocked him more than seeing his girlfriend on the front page of the local newspaper, however, was the arm around her petite waist. It was Arnav's, who also was dressed elegantly in a black tuxedo. The heading read: Love and scandal; ASR never fails to stun the city.

Dread cold as ice began to freeze his veins. Something was wrong, very wrong. Akash could feel it in air as he began to read the article, knowing that he would probably regret every word of it. But he did it anyway, because if there was anything in the world worse than knowing the truth, it was not knowing it.

But that wasn't nearly enough to prepare him for the shattering numbness that struck when he finished reading. The very ground beneath him shook as he tried to comprehend what was so casually splayed out in front of him.

His brother was dating Khushi? The same brother who taught him the very meaning of love?

Surely it was a joke! A big cosmic joke, meant to simply torture him. What else could possibly reason why two of the closest people he had, decided to turn against him?

"-yes, Jai. I need the contract now," came Arnav's voice from faraway. "It better be in my inbox in the next ten minutes!"

Akash distantly heard footsteps as Arnav entered study and froze. "Akash?!" he called, disbelievingly. "You are back? I thought your flight was in the evening?"

He didn't answer, his mind whizzing away in circles.

"Akash?" Arnav called again, this time standing right behind him. "Are you okay? What's-"

"H-how long?" Akash murmured, trying to find a way out of the haze his head was caught in. "Was it because I-I left? Or... or maybe even earlier?"

"What?" Arnav asked, grasping the latter's shoulder and turning him around.

"Were you going to keep it a secret? Is that why she stopped picking up my calls? I-I thought maybe she was busy..."

"You are making no sense at-" Arnav broke off, his eyes falling on the article, still clutched tightly in Akash's hand. He paled.

"But now it makes sense," Akash continued, dazed. "It's never like her to not talk to me... to push me away. But she did... because of you."

"It's not like that," Arnav finally said, his voice ringing through the study. "It's just a big, big misunderstanding. You have-"

"So what was it about her? Her attitude? Her ambition? Or was it her eyes and maybe even lips too?"

"Akash!!"

And he snapped. "SHE IS MY GIRLFRIEND!" he roared suddenly, feeling fury like no other burst through him. All sense of reason vanished as betrayal raw as fire and blunt as ice overtook him.

It was as if the image of Khushi and his brother was hotly branded onto his mind.

Arnav flinched, not having expected the outburst. Only, it made Akash yell even louder.

"I LOVE HER BHAI," he bellowed. "WITH ALL MY HEART! AND YOU THINK IT'S OKAY TO JUST TAKE HER AWAY LIKE SHE IS YOUR PROPERTY?! DID IT EVEN OCCUR TO YOU-"

"-but she doesn't love you! In fact, she never-"

"-yeah, because she loves you," Akash interrupted, his voice descending like a whiplash, eerily silencing the room. "Just like everyone else."

Arnav was too stunned to speak.

"You think I don't notice... but I do. I always did. Maa, Papa, Anjali, Nani... they all love you, they literally worship the ground you walk on. And now, so does Khushi, the only girl who brought some sort of normalcy in my messed up life."

"It's not like that," Arnav murmured.

"But it is Bhai," he replied, looking out the window. "It is just like that. Don't do this, don't do that... that's what I have been told all my life. Study like Arnav, behave like Arnav, be responsible like Arnav... it's like I have no identity. The only thing that matters to anyone about me is that I am not like you - the perfect son, the perfect brother, the perfect heir."

Arnav listened, pale.

"You know what I think of every time someone asks me about my childhood? I think of how much Papa hated me and wished that I was never born, because I was a big let down... Whether it be my grades, my ideas or my goals... I used to spend hours trying to figure out how to impress him, how to be a good son. But no matter what I did, he couldn't get past loving his older son, the heir to his pathetic notion of a legacy!"

Akash looked away from the window to notice that Arnav hadn't even moved an inch. He was too horrified to talk.

"I won't lie," Akash continued, having no mercy whatsoever. "When he left, a tiny part of me was glad. Glad that I wouldn't have to live with his disappointment, glad that I could live on my own terms. But what do I really end up with? You - the spitting image of Alok Singh Raizada."

Arnav closed his eyes.

"But you know something? Even with all your stupid rules about family business, I knew that you cared, that you were just doing the best you can. I know it's not easy raising two kids when in many ways you were still a kid yourself. That is the only reason I stayed all these years and listened to all the bull*hit you threw my way."

Akash paused, expecting Arnav to object, to refute all the accusations. But he didn't. He stood there defenseless, almost as if asking to be beheaded.

"I couldn't have been more wrong," Akash finally concluded venomously. "This isn't about you fulfilling a dead father's wish, or helping us survive in the big bad world. It's about you getting every damn thing you want!"

"Stop it!" interrupted a foreign voice.

Akash turned to see Anjali furiously walk into the room, halting only a few feet from him.

"Stop being a jerk Akash!" she continued. "You have no idea what you are talking about!"

Akash looked Arnav. "See? I told you - she worships the ground you walk on, because even after knowing what you did, she is telling me to shut-up. Loyalty at it's finest, don't you think?"

"Akash!" Anjali rebuked. "You got this all wrong-"

"So what is the correct version?" he asked coldly, keeping his eyes trained on the frozen Arnav. "I am coming in between the eternal lovers?"

"Please!" she begged, distraught. "Just listen to me, okay? All of this is just gossip. You know better than to trust the media!"

"Save it Anjali," he fumed. "There are no more excuses left! The truth is, he cares about no one but himself. If he was my brother, he would have understood my passion the second I told him and supported it until his last breath. If I really did mean the world to him, he wouldn't have an affair with my girlfriend behind my back!"

"But that's what I am saying! Bhai and Khushi are not together-"

He glanced at her. "Oh really? Give me one reason why I should believe that?"

"Because he is our brother. If it weren't for him, you and me would have been on the streets right now! Just think about it Akash - if he really wanted to hurt you, he could have done it ages ago, in ways more painful than this!"

Akash snorted. "You know what I think? Instead of badgering me, you should ask your saint-like big brother. Ask him if everything written in that article is a lie?"

"Wha-"

"You have so much faith in him right?" he interrupted icily. "Then ask him why he hasn't said a word in the last ten minutes. Ask him why he is not denying being in love with Khushi. Ask him."

Anjali wordlessly turned to Arnav, who remained as silent as ever.

"That's what I thought," Akash muttered. "I guess I should be glad that he didn't have the audacity to refute what I said."

That seemed to be the end of Anjali's patience. "Enough Akash!" she said, her voice cold. "I get it that you are hurt, that you are in pain, but you have no right to take it out like this. Whether you accept it or not, it's not Bhai's fault. So stop blaming him for a crime that he wouldn't even dream of committing!"

"Oh he dreams of it all right," Akash said, putting as much venom as he harbored into his voice. "But you know what, there is no point talking to you. You were always a part of this family Anjali, the perfect sister to the perfect brother. You will never understand what it feels like to be in my shoes."

She opened her mouth to object, but he didn't let her.

"And after today, I don't even feel bad about that. You know why? Because you guys are nothing but a pretentious family without a shred of conscience. Maybe you don't think it's a crime to date the girl your brother loves more than anything, maybe you don't think it's wrong to squash someone's dreams as if there are worth nothing, but that doesn't mean you are right. So, I'm done. Just done with this brick-wall of a house and the namesake family in it!"

Looking spitefully at his brother, he added, "Congratulations Bhai. You win. I'm sure Papawould have been very proud of you."

And he stormed out, without looking back even once at the stricken faces of his siblings. Time had proven again and again, that he was neither a brother, nor did he have one.

Today was the day he believed it.

_________________________________________________________________________________

I know... many of you are probably hating Akash right now, but this is the rudest shock of his life. It's not easy knowing your girlfriend left you for your brother, especially the brother you have been trying to beat all your life. All the years of pent-up frustration is bound to burst out.

Let me know what you think!

I also have some bad news: My final exams are in two weeks, which means I won't be able to update once a week. I will try to post a chapter or two, but I can't guarantee anything until after Dec. 11th. I'm really sorry!