Everything about Wajdani groups was about money and exaggeration. Fayd stood in the middle of the lobby and looked around to see if he knew anyone while silently hoping to catch the informer that hid under the cover of staff. He had been waiting for more than half an hour and there was no sign of Ayat returning from the meeting. Although he was impatient, he could see the faint silhouette of a woman leading the meeting through the blurred glass walls.
He had rolled his sleeves till his elbows which put his scar from childhood on show– it was comparatively big and seemed to not be fading away with time, he didn't mind it though. Everyone made mistakes. Taking a brief glance at her, he stood up on his toes to walk out as his patience grew thin– so much that he couldn't wait anymore. It was against his rules to wait for someone who never once looked back. She just told her secretary to inform him to wait and so he did. Not anymore.
While he was just leaving, "Sir?" He turned around to find Ayat's secretary looking at him apologetically. He raised a brow.
"I'm sorry sir, it took a while. Ma'am has told me to take you to her office."
"No thanks. I'll come another day, I have things to look after." He said, clearly annoyed. The secretary looked hopeless and she sighed as there was nothing much she could do. It was his request to fix an appointment with her boss.
"Sir, please understand." She tried everything in her power to convince him because she was the one to get an earful if it reached Ayat's ears.
"I can't wait all day, let's fix an appointment some other time." That was the last thing he said before storming out of the company, mindlessly muttering random slogans he read on his way to the Wajdani groups.
He fidgeted with his phone as it kept ringing and blaring loud in the vastness of the empty parking space, irritating him to the core as he pressed the power button and shoved the device in his pocket when he neared the car but what irritated him more was the face of the man that called himself as the informer of the house, standing against the car and repeatedly trying for his phone– the one that he had just killed.
"Move." Fayd grunted, pushing the man away from the surface and leaning down to see if the man had caused scratches on his car with his ugly huge-ass rings.
"Fayd-" His eyeballs rolled up with an alarming notice. Fayd was already pissed at how clumsy he was at his work and he couldn't be bothered because he wouldn't take a minute to flip.
"I said move." He emphasized each word and pushed him further away, walking around to the other side to get into the driver's seat. The man followed and stood on the other side of the closed door with an apologetic look on his face.
"Where are you going?"
"Football." He let the man meet with a dead end by uttering just a word.
"What?" The man was dumbfounded.
"Football. I'm going to play football then I'll come back to play with your head." And he sped up.
Fayd's love for Football was no new news but the time he chose to play the game never ceased to amuse them, he was known to play football at odd hours of the day– leaving everyone behind in the dark. But somehow it became his need to escape reality and it cleared his clouded mind and allowed him to think promptly. As mighty as the investigation might sound, it didn't make much sense to him when he thought about it. No sane person would dare to put their neck on the edge of a sword. Any sane person would know what it could cost if the party came to know about it. Yet, he was looking into it and went to meet with the subject only to ask her a few random questions that she might not even answer.
He judged her, he estimated her with her courage and audacity and how she stood alone and high in the world to build an empire for herself. He valued her with her boldness and with the way she dealt with the conspiracies of people against her that burst out in the news not so long ago. The moments he spent waiting for her were spent in calculating her means and one thing he could vouch for was that Ayat Wajdani was fearless.
The rest of the day was spent on the football court, tiring himself to death and wanting more. He was on the verge of passing out. Laying flat on his back and gazing into the sky, lost somewhere but he couldn't point it out, he didn't know what it was that kept him engrossed, his mind seemed to be completely filled and blank.
"Senior!" Startled, he threw his head up to see Sayrah gasp for air while holding her kneecaps.
"Kahan kahan dhoondti main aap ko," She fell next to Fayd and he laughed, "Yahin hota hon seedha yahin aajati."
"Kya karti agar aap mujhe idhar bhi nahi miley phir?" Her throat closed up at the thought of not getting to see him ever again. The dreams– the daydreams she had weaved with him were deliberate. She had been dreaming to be with him ever since she laid her eyes on him.
"Kahan jaonga main." He chuckled.
"Kya karne ka socha hai aap ne Pakistan se jaane ke baad?"
"Koi desk job hi karonga." He didn't know what he would do after he went back, he hadn't planned it out as he just wanted to rest for a while before getting started with life again, he just wanted to go back to his family and things could have been sorted out while he was at it.
The courage she had mustered was in vain again when she saw him at the roof that day after Adil cried out in everyone's face. He looked very aloof and it shattered her confidence. Will there ever be us– she questioned herself, wanting to question him but nothing came out as an answer and found herself standing at the end of an endless tunnel, waiting for light to shine so bright on her. But what if she came out only to face the darkness of the night.
To which, she just hummed.
"Tum?"
"Pata nahi kya karungi," she paused, thinking of something else to divert him from talking about the future, "Adil bhai was looking for you." And in the end, it came to Adil like it usually did. Adil was the person who nagged at him when he was around and looked for him when he was away.
"He would." Fayd sighed as he fell back on his back and closed his eyes to avoid the lights– it irked his eyes. He knew Adil would have called at least a hundred times but his phone was in the locker.
"He should be the one to care of you but please take care of him for me once I'm away, he is like a younger sibling to me." He looked at Sayrah's melting eyes as he said the words. Anyone in their right state of mind would tell tales of her love from just the way she looked at him.
"I will do it." She said it abruptly before she could choke on her words that were clogging in her throat.
"It's because of me, he prefers to rely on me," Fayd admitted, being true to his own self. No matter how hard he tried to dodge or ignore it, it was an undeniable truth that he would have to handle alone and to make up for it, he would have to make sure that Adil worked his head off in this case, "Everytime he was assigned an investigation, he would come up to me with a long face and I would fall for it– as crazier as it sounds, I can't resist him, nobody can."
He then remembered the first time Adil walked into his face with a crestfallen face and asked him to help. That help me this once continued on forever as he closed cases over cases. The saga of pulling a long face and glassy eyes to lure Fayd into the laid trap continued. Adil could bend anyone with his charm and have people work for him.
"I will have to teach everything so that he can manage himself and I see this case will be perfect."
"Why are you rushing things?" Sayrah added, pretending to be playing with the hem of her dress.
"I can't miss any more births and deaths. I couldn't be there when my nephew was born," He looked down to hide her guilt from her, "Main apne grandparents ka haqdar hon par unke janazey pr nahi ja saka.. I was busy rubbing my grieving ass in files and folders of an investigation that constricted my chest and ruined me emotionally. That was the last nail."
Silence prevailed as they both faked nonchalance, the sound of balls hitting the rods and the ground hit their earbuds. Time had passed and she got engrossed in her work right there on the football court.
At around seven-thirty, he got up from the spot he had buried himself, "Okay, I have somewhere to be.. you too go back to the bureau." Sayrah nodded and he jogged away to the shower room to take shower.
After he was done, he collected his belongings and walked out of the football court to the nearby hospital to meet one of the few people he looked up to. The higher official was in the bed for months and had been giving his support from there itself. He waited for the red light, tapping his foot against the concrete impatiently waiting for the red to blare out when he averted his eyes to an elderly woman who was staggering and holding her temples. She was trying to breathe normally by inhaling long puffs of air. She was about to fall when he ran over to her.
"Aap theek hain?" He inquired but she knocked out before she could even nod at him. Fayd took her to the hospital he was just about to go to and administered the woman in the hospital and waited while they checked her.
"A mild heart attack it is, she needs to be hospitalized until her heart stabilises again. What is she to you?" The doctor asked, extending the consent form to him. Fayd shook his head in a no.
"No one. I found her having a heart attack on the pathway."
"Oh goodness, I'm afraid I can't do anything about it then, try to find her guardian, we will talk later." He took the consent pad from Fayd and walked off, leaving him a dilemma.
What in the world are they doing to a woman who just almost met with death?
Accepting his defeat after having a fight with the staff, he took the elevator and went to the patient he was meaning to meet. The walls of glass and the luxury he was seeing in the hospital were nothing because there was no value for life in such places. All they cared about was only money. He begrudgingly did everything and took help from the patient.
"Is this your second home or what? Why do you keep coming here? I hate hospitals." He scoffed, pouring a cup of tea for the man.
"Be grateful, young man. Not everyone gets to be healthy. You come tomorrow and I may not even recognize you, that's what a tumor in the brain does." He chuckled, adjusting glasses on the bridge of his nose and patting his back. The man pampered Fayd like his own son and their relationship went deeper in the line.
"Did you just crown yourself with glasses of wisdom because I can see it in your eyes." And they laughed.
"Has liya karo dekho kitne acche lag rahe ho.. agar meri beti hoti toh uska nikah tumse hi karwata, wallah."
"Shukar Alhamdulillah, nahi hai. Agar hoti toh bilkul aap jaisi hoti, ek Nazeem sahb kaafi hai meri taangein torne." He deadpanned, peeling apples for Nazeem sahb as they both went on ranting nonsense and making fun of each other.
Nazeem sahb was hoping to see Fayd once when his brain still recognized people as he was the only person who would come through to relieve his stress. Fayd would pop up in the hospital whenever he liked.
"Tum bhi khao, saara mujhe kyon khila rahe ho?" Nazeem sahb chided, pushing the plate to Fayd and asking him to eat some.
"Aap ke liye laya tha toh aap hi ko khilaonga."
"Tum bhi khaa lo." He persisted, knowing he wouldn't have had anything after lunch.
"Main nahi khaata." He scrunched and turned his face away from the plate that laid in his lap.
"Zyaada drama karne lage ho aajkal."
"Aaj ka hogaya aap araam karlain main khirki ki taraf bait jaata hon." He walked over to the window and sat by the window sill, taking out his sketchbook to draw the farthest building he saw from where he sat, letting his wild imagination take over for the detailing as he couldn't see much of it except for its height and the burning gold that emanated from the inside.
"Fayd," Nazeem sahb's gentle call hit his ears and he lifted his gaze from the paper to him to see him with a loud smile, "Kal ko agar mujhe tum yaad nahi rahey toh khud ko mera beta kehkar mujhse milwana."
Fayd sat numb because his words reached his heart. Two things– life and the ways of life couldn't be guaranteed, he realized. He smiled because he didn't know what else he could do to comfort the man who was in pain both emotionally and mentally.
"Mujhe lagta hai kisine aap ko galat medicine de di hai aaj joh aap se yeh sab bhulwa rahi hai." Fayd continued to nag at him.
He was just getting back to his sketch when a nurse burst through the door, startling them. His glance went over to Nazeem sahb and found him gawk at her in bewilderment, "I don't think you are allowed to barge into a patient's room at nights. Do you want me to talk with the management?"
"No no.. I'm here to call you, the cardiac patient you brought in– her guardian has arrived and she wants to meet you."
"How do you know I'm here?" Fayd arched an eyebrow, demanding answers from the girl who was already intimidated by his daunting personality.
"I saw you coming." She ducked her head down in embarrassment.
Fayd threw a final glance at her before he dashed out of the room. The hospital had fallen silent as the visitors were leaving and there were no one except for a few patients who sat in the lounge to relax. He waited near the elevator so the nurse could take the lead and take him to the woman. She tried to start a conversation to apologize but ended up accepting her defeat after he glared at her.
Ten minutes later, the nurse brought Fayd to the cardiology department and made him stand outside the intensive care unit, "There she is– the patient's guardian."
Fayd whipped his head to the direction the girl was pointing at to see a woman speaking to someone on the phone. The woman was dressed in a mauve blazer, white top and dark blue denims. He went to sit on a bench after waiting for her for a couple of minutes and ended up muttering harmless curses for having to wait for someone or the other thoughout the day. He was doing just fine and minded his business in Nazeem sahb's room.
"I'm very thankful to you." A few minutes later and when he was stepping into his world, a voice said. In front of his face was the one that everyone begged to see- the one that flashed frequently on the television and tabloids. With a strayed and distant look on her face, she stood, looking down at him expectantly.
"Ayat Wajdani?"
▪︎
❝Ek muddat se teri yaad bhi na aayi hame
Aur ham bhool gaye tujhe aisa bhi nahi.❞
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They met 👀
Its faa-yedh, incase you have trouble pronouncing Fayd's name 🌝