The Inseparable Princes

105. The Last Few Days (Before The Return of The Trio!)

"Do you think he'll return?" Shrutakeerti heard Shatrughna's forlorn, soft voice echo in the room. She looked up from her book to see how he was staring out of the window right from the bed which was quite a distance from it. "They, I mean." he corrected himself with a low murmur. She set her book aside and crawled up to the other side of the bed where he sat.

"Of course they will! What makes you say it with so much of doubt and even a sort of darkness? It's something to be happy of, Shatru." she said, running her fingers through his hair. "What's the problem, darling? It's time for you to finally smile! You get to be the Shatru you used to be earlier."

"Do I?" he asked, turning to her with a smile that looked sarcastic to her. "This has been so hard. It has changed us so much that, I don't know about you, but I'll never be able to go back to being that Shatrughna that everybody adored, that everybody doted upon, and yet not a single soul cared about." Shrutakeerti's brows shot up at the harsh remark.

"Nobody cared about? What's wrong with you, Shatru? You've been cheerful for nearly thirteen years now! That first year was hard, but you learnt to smile through everything. Don't let this break you, please!"

"You know that's a lie." he argued, his eyes fixed to his palms that lay limply on his lap.

"Why are you being so awkward all of a sudden?" she asked, trying not to sound like she was truly irritated. He didn't respond, instead, decided to lay down on the bed and hide himself under the blanket in the middle of the day. Shrutakeerti shook her fist irritatedly, before pulling the blanket away. "Shatrughna! Tell me!"

"I don't know, Keerti! I don't know!" he said. Shrutakeerti was genuinely annoyed at this point. When he should have been smiling, celebrating in a sense, he was behaving like the biggest weirdo in existence. She physically pulled him up, and made him look at her.

"What don't you know?" she asked, trying to calm her anger.

"I don't like being what I am being right now. And if I don't like this form of myself, annoying, grumpy, serious - just nothing like what Shatrughna really was, my brothers definitely don't like me!" Shrutakeerti burst into laughter, and he glared at her, before walking away to stare out of the window from a better place than that irritating bed.

"Sorry! I just ended up imagining an 'annoying, grumpy, serious' Shatru and couldn't help but laugh!" she said. Even in these times, her husband was barely ever grumpy. It was only when somebody spoke something wrong of his loved ones that he would lose his cool. Or at other times, like these, he would just miss his brother's so much that he would be beating around the bush to avoid shedding his tears. He didn't like to admit that he sometimes fell apart too. What she admired in him was that he gathered himself up from even the deepest of depths and still came back the next day with that same, magnetic smile of his, without even letting anyone know. Or just thinking that nobody knew, for she was someone who always knew.

"You see that everyday! What's so funny about it when you imagine?" he asked, turning around to face her with narrowed eyes.

"The Shatru I see everyday tries to keep himself and everybody else happy!" she paused dramatically to correct the mistake she had made deliberately. "Oh no! He tries to, and succeeds perfectly, at making the others happy, but himself wants to just fake a smile."

"I don't fake a smile! At least not in front of you people! In front of Matas, yes, for I don't want then to worry about me." he said.

"But-" She cut herself off when she realised that she should be comforting him and not arguing against him.

"But?" He sprung his brows up. "You're speaking nonsense? Yes, that's right!" He laughed. "You know how you first said that I've been happy throughout? And then you said that I fake a smile? Like what are you even thinking, dumbo? Use your head!" he laughed almost mockingly at this point after seeing her baffled face.