A OneShot a Day: A SwaRon Collection - Page 11

Whom are you 'kid'ding?

Fourteen year old, Aryan Shekhawat swirled his cereal in concentric circles before scooping up a spoonful of it and lodging it in his mouth.

He looked up from his breakfast and saw the cold stares his mother was giving his father. His father in turn looked unaware of the wrath that was so certainly headed his way.

He sighed. This wasn't an extraordinary thing in his home. More often than not you could positively see his mother glaring at his father. He had never seen his father glare though. Never.

Aryan looked uncannily like his father. He had the same long black hair, the same hard cheekbones and that same dimpled smile. Only his greyish-green eyes were inherited from his mother. Over which he wore a pair of half-rimmed spectacles.

He often thought he looked a lot like Harry Potter, that wizard boy whom everyone from his parent's generation worshipped like crazy. And why wouldn't they? He was bloody awesome. And with his long, dark black hair, he did resemble him a bit.

Only without the round spectacles. And the scar. And dead parents.

He turned his attention back to his mother and she looked as if she was going to explode.

Poor Dad! He thought.

"Swayam!" shouted his mother.

Whoa! He thought. He was always surprised at his mother's ability to shout as if the whole damn world was deaf. He had been at the receiving end quite a number of times. Which is why he was glad he wasn't his father right now.

His father looked up from his breakfast and his calm expression immediately changed to an uneasy one as soon as he saw her face.

"Yes Sharon?" he asked, with a brave attempt to smile.

He had always maintained that his father was an extremely brave man.

"I am not talking to you!" she said, through clenched teeth.

"Why?" asked his father, confused.

His mother looked coldly at his father before saying-

"Aryan, tell your Dad that I have nothing to say to him."

Here we go!

"Fine!" said, his father, incensed. "If you want to play it that way. Fine! Aryan tell your Mom that she is being unreasonable! How am I supposed to know what I've done to make her so angry if she won't tell me?"

Aryan remained silent. This was a regular game played in his house. Sometimes he thought he was the only grown-up in this house. His parents were nothing but overgrown kids. Though he found their fights quite amusing.

He knew his father wasn't really angry. And though his mother might be a tough nut to crack, he knew his father would be able to thaw her in no time. He had mastered that ability which, according to Aryan, was a great enough feat.

His eyes swished from left to right as he saw his parents having a verbal ping pong match.

"Aryan tell your Dad that he is a male chauvinist pig!" yelled his mother, her eyes never leaving his father's face.

"Aryan ask you mother as to why she thinks so?" retorted his father, staring back with equal intensity.

"Aryan ask your father whether his small chauvinistic head remembers what happened yesterday!"

"Aryan tell your mother that while I may not remember what happened yesterday, I most certainly do remember what happened last night." Said his father, smirking.

What the hell? Was his mother blushing?

WoHoo! Dad 1. Mom 0.

His father had managed to throw off her mother for a little while. But his mother recovered from it pretty quickly.

"Aryan tell your father that what happened last night doesn't mean I forgave him for doing what he did before that!" said his mother, with her cheeks still flushed.

"Aryan tell your mother that I still don't have any idea what the hell is she talking about!" said his father.

"Aryan ask your father if he has forgotten that sexist joke that he laughed so heartily on, yesterday, in front of all our friends!" growled his mother.

No really. She growled!

Expect his mother to get upset on such a trivial thing! He thought rolling his eyes.

Comprehension dawned on his father's face along with a slight, calm smile.

And that was his most infuriating yet envious quality. He was always calm! Aryan remembered when he was at an impressionable age of six. That was a time when his father was his hero. He worshipped him. And his idolised hero wore his hair with gel. So why on Earth shouldn't he do the same?

Which is why he had snuck into his parent's bedroom, opened the cupboard that held all his father's perfumes and gels and had promptly taken out a tube of something squishy looking. Without wasting any minute, he had emptied the contents on his head, all of it. It hadn't looked right. So he had taken a comb and had sat over there running it through his hair. It proved to be quite a herculean task and on his fourth attempt the comb had stuck in his hair, twisted up in the concoction that lay piled up on his head. He had looked into the mirror and frowned. That wasn't how his father's hair looked. So he just sat there, trying to wrestle the comb out of his hair until his mother found him.

He remembered how his mother was holding him, trying to soothe him as if he wasn't the perpetrator but the victim in this unfortunate incident. His father on the other hand had just laughed heartily and had patted him on the back, as if he had done the most amusing thing ever. That moment he had felt as if he had conquered the world, won a stunning victory. Add to that the fact that his mother hadn't shouted at him was enough to make him feel happy and smug. But all that had come crashing down when later that day he had found himself in the barber's shop having his head shaved clean.

Turned out it hadn't been gel which he had so generously applied to his hair. It had been a tube of toothpaste. And he had twisted the comb so savagely into his hair that the only option left had been to chop off his hair.

He had cried a lot that day. He absolutely loved his hair, even back then. And this had seemed like an extremely cruel punishment for such a small, harmless crime.

Now when he thought of it, he wondered how he could have been that stupid and naive.

"Aryan tell your mother that it was just a joke!" said his father.

"Aryan tell your father that it wasn't very funny. It was just plain offensive!" fumed his mother.

"Aryan tell your mother just how hot she looks when she's angry!" replied his father, smirking, causing her mother to go unnaturally red in the face.

Whoa! There is a KID sitting here. Scratch that. There is YOUR kid sitting here.

His parents so needed some parenting tips.

"Aryan tell your father not to change the topic." Said his mother, much softly this time.

"Aryan tell your mother I'm very sorry and that I love her." Said his father, smiling a goofy smile that would probably scar him for life.

This was getting boring. He thought. Maybe he could check out that new video game which he had borrowed from his friend. He slipped from his place, unnoticed, as his parents continued ogling at each other, like a couple of teenagers.

He went into his room and began playing his video game. Fifteen minutes later, his parents would come find him and gush about how sorry they were for ignoring him like that. His parents were under the constant impression that they neglected him a lot. He, on the other hand, thought that they didn't neglect him enough.

A little while later, he snuck back into the dining area and saw his parents kissing.

He mentally threw up in his head, headed back to his room and rolled his eyes.

Parents!

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