Siddharth
Being a middle child, I rarely grabbed any attention from my parents and surroundings. It was always either I was in the background, invisible to the average eye or I would be there standing in plain sight but so plain that one would never care enough to notice.
I barely ever took the first responsibility for anything. Not that I remember of. My parents relied mostly on my elder brother Gourabh who was nearly everything my parents could want. Naturally, he is the first heir and the most responsible one. The highest shareholder after my father.
Then was Ankit, the youngest one. He was the little mischievous kid and as the greatest receiver of the young privilege. He had only one goal: to get in business as early as possible and that was his best decision. Kudos that he worked at least.
Curious about me? It's not anything special. Because I had two brothers in the business industry, I led a life in the middle. My motto was staying still. I was able to avoid most problems like that, pretending I cared when I didn't, pretending I worked hard, when I never did, pretending I had a goal, when I had none.
That was how I lived most of my life. A monotonous life without bothering to take responsibility for anything.
Until that day when I first saw her. I felt every emotion when I saw her. I was devoted for the first time in my life and I couldn't believe myself for that. I didn't know I was capable of having this feeling — I knew she was the one.
For the first time, I wanted to care. Like a teenager in love, I roamed about her and befriended her. I was that one-sided lover who was going to any lengths for her.
Then and now, nothing changed. I was still the one-sided Romeo, ending up playing her fake husband dressed in a catfish dress, hiding under a desk. Someone said right— Loving is dangerous.
"What do we do?" Payal panicked.
"Let me handle this.” I took in a deep breath as I calmed myself to an extent. “Just stay here and be normal. Don’t f…freak out. Never, okay?”
'Don't freak out?' What a freak!
My mind mocked me for being such a coward, trying to throw my emotions onto her. Swallowing down my fear, I bent low, carefully making the best use of the crowded stall. I took a glance at him and there he was, exactly at a hand's distance from the kids' crowd, silently pulling out his phone.
Taking advantage of the situation, I ran towards Abhiraj who was busy arranging the carton full of chocolate and cakes for the kids. I pulled him by his glittering robe and almost pushed him inside before he could start with his annoying questions.
"Did you hurt your head? Are you really that upset with your catfish outfit? Look, you are looking cute." He held my face up to the mirror in the room. I yanked away his hands. I had no wish to see my reflection right now.
"Stop it. My brother is here."
"That's okay—" He paused and looked at me straight. "Who?"
"It's Gourabh!"
His eyes felt like it would bulge out any moment. As if on cue, the rush and music outside stopped. We both peeked through the gap between the door to see him waving to the kids and announcing something.
"We all welcome you dear kids and all the customers. It's good to see you all..." The same boring stuff is announced over and over again. My eyes pan across the room to see Payal moving her attention from Gourabh to us. She signalled us to get in and do the thinking fast.
"What do we do?" He looked at me playing the dumb role. He sits on the junior boss' comfortable chair.
"Get up from there." I pulled him up, almost throwing myself on the chair and turned to the drawer to search for a mask but there were none. "Take this one and run." I grabbed a pair of random disco glasses, big enough to cover his entire face.
I screamed, "Hide anywhere, just go." He barely held those glasses and before he could fix them on his face, the door swung open.
Almost instinctively, I leaned back on the chair for no particular reason. Maybe that posture asserted power, a sense of superiority but in the moment, it wasn't something that was logically thought. Her eyes looked at the room in dismay and searched for Abhiraj. She pulled up her eyebrows as if to ask where he was.
My heart raced fast, about to burst out when I heard his voice behind Payal. "Anything wrong?" His deep voice in the room switched on my fright and flight mode on. Almost as if I could smell the adrenaline passing through my insides.
"Nothing sir. Please come inside." Her smile widened unnaturally with hospitality dripping from her honey-soaked voice.
It was different. Her voice. It sounded almost unfamiliar. She never used that voice with me so it nearly caught me by surprise.
"Ah, you didn't even clean this place up. Why are these lying on the floor?" As soon as he entered, he was pointing at the dirty place, all the stuff lying around in the mess. I had to take out all the old fancy clothes from the cupboard just to find sparkly glasses.
"You started with it again? Let me at least adjust here first." The air inside this room was too tense, making me unable to breathe. Only later did I realize it was a scarf that messily wrapped around my neck like an over-enthusiastic hug. Where did this come from?
"Just clean it up, okay—" He paused as I pulled the suffocating piece of cloth away and looked at him. He stared at me weirdly, giving a rare expression until he was giggling and laughing out loud.
Though embarrassment coiled up to me as my eyes drifted to Payal who was visibly amused at this situation, it served a good purpose. It bought us time to pull Abhiraj out of here.
I met my eyes with her and pointed at the desk below. Getting my clue not too late, she hunched enough to see him sitting underneath. Gladly, Gourabh was distracted by my catfish look so much that he never noticed Payal pulling Abhiraj out.
When he finally made it out, I asked Gourabh, "What's wrong? Why are you laughing?" I had this urge to hit his head against the wall. Just stop laughing.
Payal ran out after Abhiraj and all I could do was sigh. "What are you doing here?"
"Tell me about you, what's with this dress?" I knew he wasn't going to shut up about this at home as well.
"I wanted to play the role like the others. This was left for my size so I wore it." Lies. I don't want to play any role and this was not selected by me. I would rather die than put up with this but my wish sounds a bit more than unrealistic after all this so maybe, I will just live with this.
"Good for you. Great to see you managing it." He patted me with a sigh. That pitiful look that said he would never ever be able to handle this. Of course, if he was the young boss figure here, this would never have been like this in the first place. It's hard to imagine him getting forced to put on a female catfish outfit and playing with kids.
No, I can never see him like that.
"Anyway, I think I am done here. I was sent to look at the market. It was Dad's order that is why you all are wearing these dresses. He believes it will bring good luck if you are around happy children today. Anyway, it's chaos outside so just go and see it and I will go now." He turned away but looked back. "Hey, I forgot to tell you. You look cute in that."
He chuckled and left the cabin. I sighed with despair as I took a look at the room. Shit.
I pulled the dresses and stuffed them back into the cupboard and then suddenly, my lazy instinct struck me. The moment my eyes drifted towards the pile of junk collected in the cabin, I put on an invisible cover on my eyes and walked out the door.
Walking out the door, I stood steadily, observing the room and there I saw Abhiraj standing with my brother. My mouth was wide open as I saw them looking in my direction. I saw Payal standing next to them, her head hung low.
Is this the end? Is this it? Am I going to get thrown out now?
Gulping down the tension, I tried to calm down. I walked towards them and saw my brother looking straight at me.
"I—" The words muffled up inside me, twisted like a rope so much that it never came out of my tiny mouth.
"I know. You could have told me before if this was the case."
I didn't look up or rather I couldn't. I didn't know if I did everything wrong but to some extent, it was illegal and I know I could've ended up in a much worse state. Maybe it's for the better.
I turned to Payal, wishing to say, "Sorry, I couldn't help you." The words that remained inside me. I am sorry but what do I do? I was always like this.
"Sorry," I uttered loud enough for all of us to hear.
I heard him sigh and then he placed a hand over my shoulder. "I will talk to the manager. You should've told me you wanted Abhiraj to work here. But you know you cannot tell Dad. And he can work as a part-timer maybe till he gets a full time somewhere else."
"Thanks, brother." Abhiraj clung to my brother as he struggled to free himself. I was shocked momentarily before taking in the real situation.
"What about the marriage thing?" I asked.
"Ah, never mind that. We don't have to say that to Dad and it was only for full-time employees. We can hire unmarried part-timers."
"Thank you." I made the words out of my mouth to see him smiling at me as he walked to our manager.
I couldn't hear what he said but everything seemed great as I switched spots with Abhiraj the moment the manager's eyes fell on us. He smiled and showed a thumbs up to my brother when he turned and smiled at us as well before leaving the market.
Manager Arnav came shortly and said to me, "You can start working from today. It is such a busy day and thanks for helping us. So, let's consider that you work here from today."
I bowed low, unaware if I was a part-timer now who was married to Payal or the young boss who was supposed to supervise everyone.
Nevertheless, I played on.
After he left, Abhiraj let out a deep sigh of relief. "God, that was good. We made it out alive." He breathed as if he was out of breath when he felt his phone vibrate inside his king's robe. "Shit, I have to take out the phone." He ran inside the cabin, probably to take off his robe to be able to take out his phone.
I looked at Payal as she smiled and pumped up her fist in the air. "Congratulations husband."
It sounded weird but so sweet at the same time that before I could even get flustered and die, I had to reply back. "Congratulations wife."
~•~
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