𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐍𝐚𝐢𝐫

𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐫

Turns out that finding a way to contact the Nairs was harder than Trisha had anticipated. Yes, their presence was everywhere and on every social media platform that existed. But when emailing Wazir, she had a bot reply, which told her to go and email one of his attendees. And when she tried to do that, they hadn't replied, thinking that she was just some generic fan wanting attention. She'd tried to directly message them all on Instagram, but again, no reply. How was she meant to get in contact?

Then by some miracle, her phone rang, blaring her ringtone at the ungodly volume she kept it at. It vibrated and fell off the desk, hitting her foot.

'He-hello?' she greeted the speaker, hissing from the pain.

'Hello?' came a young man's voice from the other side, 'Er- can you hear me?'

'Yeah I can.'

'Ok good. I'm Hrithik Nair, and I'm your sponsor.'

'Are you?' Trisha said back in disbelief, 'Wait then how the hell did you get my phone number?!"

There was a muffled yelp from the receiver, as though Hrithik had been startled by her abrupt change in tone. Which he probably had.

'I didn't realise that you were so personal with your phone number. Your school gave it to me. I saw the various attempts you had to try and contact me, so I thought I would call you. Once we hang up, make sure to save the number. It's the number of my personal phone,' he said, regaining himself.

'Wait- personal phone?' Trisha sat down, 'So the one you probably use to like, call your grandparents on a Saturday morning or something?'

Hrithik laughed, 'I actually call them on Sunday mornings, but yes. I have to set some ground rules with this phone number since you're not one of our immediate correspondence usually and you're just a random person working with us just for now... no offence. What I have rehearsed sounds really harsh, so I'll say it like this: please don't leak this number or tell anyone you have my number. Because we Nairs have been cyberattacked many times, and there was this one instance where my brother Wazir was hacked (you probably would've heard about it on the news). He was even hacked on his personal phone, and the numbers of many people, like our extended family, were released and everyone had to get their phones replaced. It was very hectic.'

'Oh ok,' promised Trisha, 'I won't tell anyone.'

'Thank you, Trisha, isn't it? I really don't want to act like a boss and you're my pawn or something, even though that's ideally what I'm meant to be doing. I think it's a little harsh on a kid, so I want us to grow a friendship, partners in crime kinda thing, y'know? Plus, it'll be bragging rights. "Hey, do you know I'm friends with Hrithik Nair?"'

Trisha grinned, 'Bragging rights it is.'

'Yeah. Plus, who knows? We may get my brother back, and you can be friends with him as well! I'm sure he won't mind.'

'That'd be fun.'

'Yeah... so, er, anyways. I have to go do Nair business, so I won't be able to talk for much longer. But save this number, and hit me with a call anytime you need, because I have a very boring life and need someone to talk to sometimes. Plus, I kinda miss my brother and want him back cause we have an unfinished game of Monopoly which I need to beat his ass in,'' Hrithik admitted.

'Alright sure,' laughed Trisha, 'So, can I catch you up tomorrow with more information?'

'Yeah sure, no problems! See you later, Trisha. It was nice talking to you!'

'Likewise! Bye Hrithik.'

Trisha hung up the phone and saved his number. She added her succession to the register, saved her work after that and switched off the monitor. Heading downstairs, she began to make herself a cup of hot chocolate. Her phone rang once more, blaring out the loud ringtone.

'Tishhhh!' Naisha's extravagant voice filled the room as the phone was put on speaker.

'Hey Naisha,' Trisha grinned, 'How are you going?'

'Just fine! How's your project going?'

Naisha suddenly changed the call to Facetime, 'Hrithik Nair meaning as in, the Hrithik Nair?'

'Yeah.'

'But how?'

'School project in criminology. I was given the Tanvik Nair case. Hrithik is my sponsor.'

'Wow... lucky you...' she turned away from the camera, 'Uh-huh, okay. Got to go, I'm being called by papa. See you!'

Trisha smirked at her friend's one-minute lasting call, 'Bye!'

Trisha opened Instagram and started scrolling through something, gathering information from the visuals. The pictures were of Tanvik, with a gorgeous girl hanging onto him, her hair flying in the wind. They were both at a beach, seemingly in Goa according to the subject beneath the photo. Tanvik was bare-chested, wearing a pair of board shorts while the girl rocked in a two-piece, canary yellow swimsuit.

Francesca De Souza. Wearing immodest clothes leaving little to imagination. How the hell did Tanvik's parents let him date her? And why would Tanvik date a person like her?

They had broken up after Nikhil had caused some strife between them. There had not been any official information released on why, but that didn't stop theories from rising up like active volcanoes. One day they were together like lovebirds, the next day, they acted like friends.

Tanvik's Instagram profile was extravagant, to say the least. He had many studio photos posted, as well as pictures from his own journeys. There were also images of when he'd met fans. Trisha inspected their ecstatic faces, as they looked up at the man. His last picture was posted 3 weeks ago at the same Goan beach. He was lazing in a pink inflatable doughnut, with a pair of Ray Ban's on top of his face and grinning handsomely at the camera.

Trisha copied the image into a photo editor and played around with the tools. She fiddled with the RGB slides, lowering and increasing the opacity. But something happened when she fiddled with the black colours. She slid it up to the highest intensity and found that the entire picture had gone black, apart from a single letter "e".

That was weird.

She did the same thing for many other pictures on his account, intensifying the black so the letters were revealed until there were no more letters in the pictures. After a quarter of an hour, Trisha was left with this:

E d k m y v e o a u r e h m a

She blinked at the outcome: she wasn't so good at unjumbling letters. After entering the letters into an online jumbling program, she was faced with mixed-up versions of the same alphabets. But there was one that stood out for her:

You have marked me.

***