Four People that Yuvraj Dev Loved...1shot

Summary: Because it's a very well known fact that the fallen king is always the one to be left behind.

Warning: My friend cried! Read at your own risk, please.

Characters: Well, mainly Yuvi.

Setting: In the future, the timeline varies though.

Word Count: 1900. Exactly.

Words in Italics: Taken from "Broken" by Lifehouse, thought it was fitting actually.

So, have fun:

1. Meera – "In your name, I find meaning"

You look at her in dismay and try very, very hard to concentrate on breathing. She is standing in front of you and you have to look away because you're not strong enough to play pretend. The tears in the corners of her eyes are a dead giveaway, and the sniffling and whimpering doesn't help matters much either. You see her hands moving, and understand that she is concentrating on grasping something, even though it sounds so abstract that you don't want to dwell on it. She repeatedly murmurs her apologies –for what you no longer remember— and you gaze unfeelingly at the sky. It's only when she tugs at your shirt and you realize her hands are wet that you show some emotion. You wonder for a second if it's because you've really turned just into your father over the years, and while the thought scares you, you remain stoic.

Someone once told you that the trick is to keep breathing. You desperately want to, but you find it getting more and more difficult as you feel your throat closing up on you. For a second, you remember your childhood biology classes and think bitterly that breathing should really not be this difficult.

Two weeks later when your phone rings at the middle of the night, you're surprised to discover that you're really not surprised. It's a short message on your answering machine, a trembling voice saying "Its terminal", and you can feel your heart pounding in your chest. You simultaneously shiver because somehow, you've dreaded it all along, and you feel a sense of relief because it's not the end….yet.

But then you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, and for the first time you happen to notice yourself and desperately wish that there was someone to kiss and make everything better. You don't want to call her anymore, because really even you know you've lost the right to, so you keep silent and stay awake long at night. The happy family next door with the dad playing catch and the mom shouting for them to get ready for dinner seems to have an adverse effect on your respiratory system. You find yourself closing your eyes and those precious moments of your childhood when everything was okay, really okay comes to your mind.

The last thing you remember before going to sleep is that the battle begins long after the war is over. You give this three months.

Exactly two months and twenty nine days later you receive another phone call. And this time you feel no sense of relief. Later you would try to convince yourself very hard that the sudden wetness on your cheeks was because you were chopping onions.

2. Yashwant – "I still see your reflection, inside of my eyes"

You get the message via newspaper of all things, and you smile at the bitter irony. For a few minutes, you aren't sure what to feel, you aren't even sure that you're supposed to feel anything, but then it hits you right at the chest. It surprises you that you feel a sense of calm at the words, "no suffering…instantaneous death" but it turns into a dull throb at the back of your heart. Granted, he was never around; he was the constant in your life, the person who you could always count on to be the bas***d extraordinaire, and you don't like inconsistency in your life. But you keep quiet, take a deep breath and go to work as usual and pray no one makes the connection. It hits you that you're ashamed at the fact that you loved him – you still do, unfortunately- and you almost want to throw up because if he would've asked you to give up his life for you, you would.

You go to his funeral, and almost slap the stiff guard who asks for your name for security. You don't think it's fair that you need to have an invite to come to your father's funeral, because your father never was around to teach you exactly what to do.

You sit through the almost boring procedure and it's not until you're back home that it strikes you just exactly how selfish you are. Because you really don't want to love for, or even care for your dad but the other alternative, the destructively heavy and antagonizing alternative of him not being there will never cease to make you miserable.

But you keep quiet and continue your shameless display of…. Something (you don't know how to name what you're feeling….you aren't even sure you're capable of that) and you think of how similar you've become to your father. But you don't know how to change, and his genes are dominant anyway, and suddenly the deep throb inside your heart changes into a flare of anger.

Yet you fight the growing urge to burn something or hurt someone, and you pride yourself on not breaking anything, not even his picture, and you stay quiet and submissive because you figure your father would've wanted that one last time. That and he's the reasons you were born, so there is something you could be grateful for, except the right now, you aren't even sure you're happy of that.

Two months after that, the kid next door asks you for advise on something or the other, and says in his innocent tone that "you're almost like my father" and you have to work really hard to keep that incredible urge to cry down your throat.

3. Siddharth – "Haven't forgotten my way home"

You wonder how you've gotten here, from being the crazy duo who would bet their lives on each other to two distant human beings who don't trust each other. You try to pinpoint a moment when it all started but you can't, because you like to pay attention to minor details and you know that the breakdown of your friendship was slow, painful and nothing that you attempted to fix.

Yet it surprises you when you get the call, for god knows what hospital, because they thought it would be kind to inform you that he was gone. It doesn't bother you until very late that you're still his emergency contact person, but you find yourself getting up and driving ferociously to that hospital. But it's too late and after minutes, you're soothingly ushered out of the place where they kept dead people covered in white sheets, and you marvel at the fact that his face was still warm. It hits home that you would never see his perplexed, crinkling smile again and you breakdown then and there, even though a few minutes later you don't know if you're crying for him, or yourself, or the amazing irony your life has become.

You remember the first time you met, the first time you spoke, even the first time that you accepted truly that this guy was your friend and in it for the long haul, and as his eyes flash in your memory; you think its Nature's greatest punishment that you weren't there to hear his last words.

You don't admit to anyone that you dream about him at night, dreams that are entirely blissful and where you find moments where you're locked into his gaze, and you want to never wake up and face the falsely shining sun and all the happy people. You sail through the routines, take responsibility for his funeral, accept all the insincere words of condolence people offered you, and sat through the eulogy that you knew was fake on all accounts.

You want to blame God, you really do, but you can't because He was the one that introduced him to you, and Ergo, He should have the right to take him away. So you don't blame Him, you don't even blame yourself, you just sit there silently locked in the restraints of time and silently beg for freedom.

Many, many days later you change the Emergency Contact Person on your medical history sheet to nothing, because he can't be replaced.

4. Anvesha – "You said that I will be okay"

On the very bad days when you feel like desperately giving up, you come back and drink a bottle of scotch. Or watch mindless programs on television about people's lives that were even unluckier than you. You don't want to think of yourself as a masochist, but you know, and don't feel bad, for the slight amount of relief you receive from it. But that night, when you come back and shower and settle down, the phone suddenly rings, and all of a sudden, you know, because you start mentally calculating all the people that could die on you, and because you know from experience that phone calls are never good.

This time you don't go to the funeral. "Her heart just stopped beating," the doctor had said soothingly, and you want to strangle him, because cardiac arrest was so much more soothing, and not to mention accurate. Instead you take the day off, climb on a stool and take out the wooden and rusty guitar from the top of your wardrobe. Flashes of her throwing your guitar in the sea stab painfully, and you put forward a trembling hand to blow off years and years of dust and pull at the string, marveling at the fact that it still works.

It figures, and you wonder why you've never thought about it before, because it's a well known fact that the fallen king is always the one to be left behind.

Ten days later, you visit her grave, and place a simple long red rose on it. You look at the plaque, and it looks glaringly back at you, and just for a second you think you see a flash of red nearby, but it's gone as soon as it came.

You sit there for nearly an hour, dry-eyed and emotionless, because you don't know what to say, and even if you did, you have never been really good at forming the words anyway. So you just sit there, and look at her grave until each little detail of the slab is burned and printed into your memory. You only get up when it becomes a little too cold, and you almost bring out your hand to touch the slab.

At the last moment, you pull back, because it's all stone, and stones as far as you know don't have feelings.

You drive back to your place, all the while with burning eyes and you try very, very hard to not imagine how beautiful your kids would've been, or that nice cottage house that you could've built together on the beach. Instead, at night you take out all the pictures you have of her and burn them in your kitchen. It's a pathetic attempt to rid yourself of memories, you know, but you don't really mind that a part of you dies with those pictures. After all, you figure, the lesser of you that's alive, the less there is to hurt.

Some years later when you go for a college seminar and see a bratty red-headed teenager trying to prank you, you suddenly have no explanation as to why your eyes start watering or the room feels dizzy.

So, seriously, I hope you like it "at least" a little bit. A few notes though:
1. "It's terminal" implies that its the last stage of cancer and you're basically...dying.
2. Please tell me you didn't cry, because I'm not that much of a masochist or sadist, I don't like seeing people sad.
3. Yes, I mean it when I say no replies = no more fics. So reply, and please constructively (or not) criticize. Because I know, somewhere (deep, deep really deep) deep down, you love me! :P
4. It's a little long, but look at it this way, it'll give you the excuse of NOT doing all that boring homework you know you don't want to do. *Ahem*

**Edited for slight grammatical errors..

Happy Reading,
Shreyasi