Kritvik Bhatt

“Well, how… do you distinguish between just a ‘friend’ and a good friend, motherfucker?”

“That question that night… shook me to the core, for some reason. I really felt a chill going down my spine as I heard the last part of the question, and began to… think.”

***

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

The blue sneakers walked on the dark black tarred street. I wore the usual blue denim pants and a red half-sleeved t-shirt over it. I had my hands in my pocket, my eyes fixed to the front as I continued to walk.

The sun was setting down and it was the time of evening, around six or seven. The sky was dark-blue, almost filled with the darkness of the night succeeding it. There were some clouds too, irregular in shape and scattered in shreds over the sky. The sky was a little dark red too, for some reason.

The street was empty, filled with nothing but street lights on both sides. The houses on both sides were bungalows which had lawns in front of their houses, a luxury in this country. It was, no doubt, a posh neighborhood, obviously.

I then turned my head up a little to my left, looking at the house just beside the house on my left. It was a bungalow with dark white tiles outside, with a lawn at the front. It was the house of Rohit. I walked a few more steps toward the brown metal gate as I glared at the beauty of that bungalow. Then, my shoes stopped in front of the gate, turned to it, and then stepped toward it.

I stood on the right edge of the gate and pressed the bell on a silver box-like thing. There was a speaker-like black box thing on top of the button. As I pressed the button, I waited for a second or two, glaring at that silver box. Suddenly, a feminine voice said, “Sharma residence.”

“Ma’am, I-I’m Kritvik, Rohit’s friend and classmate.”

“Oh, did he call you again today?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“Ah. Come in.”

Beep.

I turned to my left and walked a few steps, pushed the left side of the gate open, and walked in as I pushed the gate close behind my back. I walked through the pathway between the lawn softly and shyly. The door toward which I was walking opened, and on the other side stood Rohit, his right hand on the doorknob. His eyes were narrowed, and he seemed irritated.

I looked in his eyes and stopped in front of him.

***

We were in his bedroom… again. I was on his right, he was on my left. The book was between the two of us, its text facing me. The bag was on my back, kept on the bed. My eyes were on the text. Rohit was staring aimlessly at the window on the left wall of the room, just parallel to the door. The sun had set, and it was completely dark outside. It was just the dark sky beneath the glowing windows of the bungalow beside Rohit’s. Both of us were silent. He was looking outside, lost in his own thoughts. I was reading the text, preparing for the lesson, or at least, acting of doing so, because I looked a little hesitant and scared. The fan was creaking as it rotated slowly.

“So, what are ya gonna teach me today?” Rohit asked, his eyes still away from me.

I turned to him hesitantly. “Uh, a-actually, I’ve not decided that yet.”

“Take your time, motherfucker. Ya got all the time we got.”

“Y-Yeah,” I nodded and turned to the book again.

In that silent room, a second passed, then another, then another. Both of us were silent, minding our own businesses.

“I gotta think of something fast, or else his parents would find out,” I thought as I read the text, my eyes wide open in pressure, and then I flipped some pages whose voice echoed in the whole room. I then opened a certain page and quickly started to read it. A second passed, and then another. “Yeah, this is it!” I thought. I then turned to Rohit. “Ro—”

“Well, tell me one thing,” He said, sounding deep lost in thoughts, his eyes still fixed outside.

“Y-Yeah,” I was highly confused and shy.

“Well, how… do you distinguish between just a ‘friend’ and a good friend, motherfucker?”

Thud!

That question, for some reason, hit me. My eyes opened wide as I heard that question.

“Uh, uhm…” I was looking at him as I opened my lips and closed them. I gulped in.

Rohit then moved his head to his right at me. He looked at me directly into my eyes. “Do you even have good friends?”

“I-I…”

A thousand memories of Jiya, AK, Madhav, and Aishwarya ran into my mind in just a single second. Then, I blinked, and my second of nostalgia was over as I remembered the smiling face of Sana, the shining golden stud on her ear, her face half-covered with her usual black mask, as she looked at me that night and laughed at one of my jokes, maybe.

Then, I remembered her in the school uniform as she was walking away from me toward the door of the classroom.

“I-I guess I don’t, right now.”

“Yeah, y’are new here,” Rohit then turned back to his left at the window. “Ain’t that good? Ya don’t gotta care about anyone else, what they must think ‘bout ya, and all that shit. That must feel so… peaceful.” He closed his eyes, took in a deep breath through his nose, opened his lips, and then exhaled out. “Huff.”

At that moment, I was still glaring at the back of his head, my eyes neutral. Maybe I understood what he was trying to say, for some reason, and that’s why I was not shocked or anything when I heard him out. “M-Maybe you can’t,” I said, turning my eyes down, thinking deep. “Maybe, you just… feel it. You just… get the vibe.”

Still looking at the window, he thought about my words for a second or two, keeping his mouth shut in the meantime. I turned my head downward a little. Then, he spoke up. “So that means that, ya gotta feel that vibe… and identify it, motherfucker?”

“Y-Yeah, maybe.”

“But… what if ya have never got that vibe from anyone in the world?” He asked. “Ya gotta feel it once to identify it again, right? What if… ya never felt that shit even once?”

I stayed silent, my head tilted down. I had to be silent at that moment. I wondered upon his words as he stayed silent, trying to gather himself up. I kept looking at the book, not really reading it, but feeling down for him.

Slowly, he turned his head toward me, and I turned up at him. Both of us looked at each other. His eyes were narrowed, and he again felt irritated by something or the other. My eyes felt a little down for him. However, the hard time was gone for him. “So, whaddya gonna teach me today?” He asked.

“Uh, I thought…” I turned my head down on the book, reading the page. “This—Russian Revolution.”

Rohit turned his head downward at the book. “It’s a shit chapter, motherfucker. Choose something else.”

“It-It might help you in exams,” I commented, my eyes on the book. “For real.”

“Okay then, motherfucker. Begin today’s act.”

***

I was walking back down the same tarred street beneath the dark sky, my bag hung behind my back, my hands in my pocket, and my eyes tilted down. I was thinking about the incident with Rohit.

“Well, how… do you distinguish between just a ‘friend’ and a good friend, motherfucker?” His words echoed in my mind.

“Man, what a question…” I thought, my head tilted downward.

“That question really did make me think about it.”

“Why… did I feel that those in Faridabad were my best friends? What made me feel that these guys today I know, Sana, and my other classmates… Why are they different from me? Why do I feel like they’re different? Why… can’t they be my best friends? What’s the difference?”

The moon was shining brightly at the time as I continued to walk.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. My shoes echoed. The street was silent and dark, with only the figure of me walking at that time.

“That… maybe… was just my life, man. And… that made me feel that… there maybe is no particular trait that makes two guys good friends, for some reason. There’s no criteria. Some people… just vibe, and then become good friends. Maybe that’s it, for some reason.”

Just as I was thinking about it, I soon heard some footsteps approaching me. I turned my head up to the front. I noticed that three guys—all wearing a loose white shirt hung outside their tight black jeans—were approaching toward me. They all had dark skins and seemed angry. They didn’t feel right. They felt like some bad guys. So, I gulped in and continued to walk silently, my eyes fixed at the front.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

Thump. Thump. Thump. My heart started to punch my chest, for some reason. I crossed those guys, my heartbeat rising as they were just beside me for a second, and then the moment passed.  “Maybe those guys are from Vikram's gang,” I thought. “They are wearing black-and-white.”

Just as we were about a step or two away from each other, the one at the center stopped walking. “Aye, ya in red and blue.”

My feet stopped walking. “I… knew something was gonna happen,” I thought.

That center guy turned to his back. “Ain’t ya coming from that fucker Rohit’s house?”

“Y-Yeah…” I was scared. My eyes were wide open. “He’s a friend. From school.”

He narrowed his eyes as he looked at my back. I didn’t even turn back at him and continued to stand like a statue. He thought, “This fucker really seems like the first-benchers who’d call anyone a friend.”

“He won’t be included, Akshay,” One of his guys said.

“Okay.” Akshay then turned his head to the front again and continued to walk.

My right foot too moved to the front and I started to walk. I gave out a sigh of relief from my mouth. “Huff. That was scary, man!”

I turned my head backward and looked at the back of those three guys. The two beside him were relatively skinny, but the one in the middle had good strength, though he was not as well-built as Vikram. I then turned to the front and started to walk again. However, after just a step or two, I stopped as I looked at Aaryan hiding behind a streetlight on my left, about a dozen steps away. I turned my head left and right, observing if there was anyone else or not, and then I turned to my front and started to walk toward him.

Aaryan looked at me calmly as he walked out from the other side of the streetlight and we both stood in front of each other. “Akshay and his guys didn’t do any shit to ya, right?”

“Those guys who just went by? Nah.”

He turned his eyes from those guys to me and raised his open palm to me. “Give me the shit, pal.”

I nodded, brought out my left arm out of the strap of my bag, moved it in front of my chest, and turned my head down as I opened its zip. Aaryan glared at Akshay and his men as I was taking out the package from my bag. I gave the rectangular box wrapped around in a newspaper in his hand. He held it, his eyes still on the guys on my back as I zipped the bag and loaded it again.

He then turned his eyes to me. “Now listen to me, asshole. Go home running now, as fast as ya fucking can, so that these guys can’t catch ya if they try to. Got it?”

“B-But why would they—”

“I’ve no time for these chit-chats. Go away, pal,” Aaryan said as he patted my back, pulled me, and then pushed me away to my front to run away. I turned my head to my back and looked at Akshay and the two other guys running at me and him. I then looked at Aaryan, who also turned back and started to run.

In the next second, I was running for my life from those three guys. Aaryan was on my left. I was scared, with my eyes opened wide. “Don’t let them fuck ya, pal!” Aaryan shouted as we ran. He too seemed worried.

As we both were running, we looked at a T-intersection where our street divided into a left turn and a right turn. As we both ran and ran and ran, thumping our feet repetitively on the ground, I turned to my right and he turned to the left.

Luckily, when the three guys approached the intersection, just about a second or two later than us, they all turned to their left behind Aaryan.

For minutes—which seemed like hours—I ran nonstop, turning right and left continuously. After those minutes, my sprinting legs slowed down and ultimately stopped. I bent my knees and fixed my hands in my knees, bending my back to the front. I panted with my open mouth heavily. “HUFF! HUFF! HUFF! HUFF!” I then took a deep breath, and after a second, exhaled it out slowly. I closed my mouth, panting through my nose now as I straightened my back and turned my head back, looking at the empty street, lit after every dozen steps by streetlights. There was the four-lane intersection a dozen of steps away from me, lit with a streetlight. I then turned to my right, and slowly started to walk toward it. The street was filled with apartments on both sides. It was silent. It was my own street.

***

Somewhere in the middle of some park, with grass on all the sides around him, lay the body of Aaryan, his back on the top. His white t-shirt and black pants were filled with mud, pretty beaten up.

“Cough! Cough!”

“And I still didn’t know why Akshay’s men were running behind both of us and what the actual fuck was happening.”