Shattered Relations | Aru Shah AU |

I

ARU
BANG! The gunshot cut through the silence.

"I'm going to kill you, Aru!" Mini snapped.

She stomped into their apartment.

"You never follow through with your threats," Aru yawned, pausing the film she was playing on her laptop.

"I think it's because you can't resist my puppy-dog eyes," she continued, now getting up, and looking her roommate straight in the eye, summoning her 'kicked puppy face'.

"Adorable," Mini snarked, putting the bag of grocery store items on the counter.

"I asked you to clean the apartment, since Tuesday's your turn to clean, but it's as dirty as ever." She toed a banana peel on the ground.

"Speaking of which, I left this place four hours ago, how did you manage to get it this dirty? Do you know how many germs must have accumulated?" She eyed the floor warily.

"I'm sure they're planning to kill you in your sleep," Aru said flatly, but her voice gained animation as she said, "Now let's focus on you, dear friend. What were you doing in those four hours?"

"I-I met up with a friend--" She began, a blush creeping up on her cheeks, as she focused on putting the bread in one cupboard.

Aru frowned, but decided to interrogate her further. "Is it a boy?"

Much to Aru's amusement, Mini's blush deepened, and said, "....Maybe." 

Aru snickered, but before she could question Mini further, she spoke.

"Hey, by the way, our new roommate arrives today," she said.

"First off, you are expertly changing the topic, and I will tease you about it later. Secondly, when is she coming?"

Just then, somebody knocked on their door, and a muffled voice said, "Hello?"

"Must be her," Mini shrugged, and opened the door.

Behind it stood a tall girl of about their age, with tan skin, long brown hair with gold highlights, and hazel eyes. She had a set of heavy, gold bracelets on her wrist, and a large bag on her back. She held another duffel in her hand.

"Hi. I'm Brynne Rao. Are you two Yamini and Arundhati?"

Mini, who had extended her hand to shake Brynne's, slowly retracted her hand, seeing that the other girl's hands were occupied with bags.

"Yup! I'm Mini, and this is Aru," Mini said, gesturing to Aru.

"'Sup," Aru said, not bothering to get up  and returning to Netflix.

Mini sighed, and Aru, after knowing Mini, for, like a week, knew this was the beginning of a medical discourse. She decided to let Brynne suffer through it.

"You shouldn't sit at a place for too long! A clot could develop in your leg, and, at the instance of movement, the clot could rush to your lungs and make them collapse, and you could die!"

"Hm... seems like a good way to die. I'm fine with it." Aru said, while Brynne, in the background, sniggered.

Brynne, meanwhile eyed the messy living room.

"You made yourself comfortable in the few hours before me," she joked.

"Actually, Aru and I have been here for two weeks," Mini called out from her own room.

"Really? Why?" Brynne asked, interested.

"Welp, Mini's family had some work here, so they dropped her off here early, and I...I just was eager to come!" Aru said, fumbling for words in the second part of her sentence.

"Okay...." Brynne paused for a moment, and continued, "Do we have a pantry?"

"No, but we have tons of storage," Mini said, returning to the living room.

"Great!"

"You cook?" Aru asked.

"Yeah, and pretty well, if I do say so, myself," Brynne said, lifting her head.

Mini breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God. I'm tired of instant noodles,"

"Speak for yourself," Aru said, and, to punctuate her point, she snatched a cup of Insta-noodles from Mini's grocery bag, and held it up like a trophy.

Brynne wrinkled her nose, and said, "That is a gastronomical blasphemy. How is it even allowed?" She shot the Insta-noodles a dark look.

Mini smiled slightly, and said, "You want me to give you a tour?"

Brynne nodded, and put her bags down. The two left, talking animatedly.

Aru's smile faded as she sank into an armchair.

She closed her eyes wearily, as her mind turned over the next day's date. The first day of college. And the first year after Kara's disappearance.

Just thinking of Kara made Aru's heart hurt. Her sister had vanished nearly a year ago. With no leads, the police had labeled it a cold case. Her dad, Suyodhana, had had been distraught, and, despite her father's, influence, the case didn't progress.

Pain needled her, as she got up, and went to her room.

Pictures lined the nightstand, and she stared at the younger version of herself.

In the biggest picture, she and Kara--who was ten years older than her--were standing shoulder to shoulder, both of them grinning widely.

Behind them stood her parents, Krithika and Suyodhana. Krithika's hair waterfalled till her waist, and her eyes sparkled.

Suyodhana's arm was around his wife's shoulder, his different colored eyes gleaming in the sunlight. His smile was perhaps the widest of all of theirs--like he'd cracked a particularly bad dad joke.

Nowadays, she couldn't look at the picture without a mixture of sadness and anger rising in her. To her, it was just a reminder of the family she had had, and that had broken apart. A mosaic commemorating crushed happiness.

Mom had left them. Death took her, leaving Aru, her dad, and Kara to struggle through the grief and pick up the pieces of what their life had been, and arrange it into a warped mural of what their life would be.

And then Kara left, leaving Aru more heartbroken than ever. Her dad was not any better.

Suyodhana Shah was slowly breaking. The kind man who loved to embarrass Aru, the man who treated Kara like his own daughter even though biologically she wasn't, and the CEO of the Otherworld Enterprises was breaking.

Which was why, at age seventeen, Aru Shah decided that she would be strong. Not for herself, but for her father. She wouldn't break. She couldn't break.

Which was why, when she heard Mini's and Brynne's faint voices, arguing about sushi, she fixed a smile on her face, and wiped the tear on her cheek.

She'd had enough practice hiding her feelings. She didn't fail this time either.