《Short Recap》

"I may be loser pathetic Akira, but I'm far from stooping to that level," he said, his tone laced with scorn, "I don't need your bright and wonderful presence constantly to self validate."

I bit back an insult. He was allowed to vent and I wanted to get to the root of the problem rather than arguing fruitlessly.

I placed a light hand on his strained biceps and asked softly, "Vinay you're scaring me. Can you please tell me what's wrong?"

Drawing in a ragged breath he swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing visibly, "I am not going to either Cornell or UPenn."

●○●

At first I thought I'd misheard Vinay's words.

But the strained, pallid manner in which he said them knocked me back to reality.

"What on earth do you mean?" I exclaimed, utterly shocked.

"I'm not going. Or rather there's no possible way I can go." Vinay shrugged with a practiced indifference, "Didn't you hear what I just said?"

I bit my lower lip unsafely.

I knew where this was going. Hiding behind his enormously high emotional walls and his pretence of apathy was his safe place. Something that gave him the false feeling of being in control.

I pulled my mouth into a thin line and sighed.

"Care to elaborate?" I asked, turning my entire attention towards him.

"I'd be just end up wasting my breath then." Vinay replied coarsely.

He emptied the remaining contents of the rum bottle in his hands and placed it on the floor. He lifted his foot and placed it on the smooth, flat surface lightly before pressing down forcefully and crushing the glass.

I flinched slightly as the sound of the splintering glass pierced through the quiet of the night as he unforgivingly attacked the broken shards with the thick rubber sole of his sneakers.

Yet I sat beside Vinay wordlessly and waited for him to talk. I knew he'd buckle under the weight of the heavy silence hanging between us sooner or later.

"My father's decided that he is not going to fund me down my path of self destruction as he so politely put it." He rasped out finally, "Apparently he thought I'd finally had an enlightening staying with you and had decided to throw myself into engineering."

He laughed bitterly to himself before leaning back on his hands to gaze at the clear moonless sky.

"You should have seen his face when I told him I got into both Cornell and Pennsylvania. He looked so proud of me, impressed even, because he used to be a visiting professor at UPenn and he knows how difficult it is to get admitted." Vinay continued, "But it lasted merely for a few seconds until the words English major tumbled out my mouth. I didn't even get to the part of taking a mathematics minor."

"Vinay," I said sympathetically, laying my head on his arm, "I'm so sorry."

"Oh no, that's not even the worst part. I'm getting to it. He'll pay only my tuition fee on one condition." He drawled, "He wants me to give a fucking early end semester exam at the end of this month, and get an A grade nonetheless, to make sure I've graduated at least my second year of engineering. There's no way I can fucking pass that paper."

"But this semester started just three weeks ago. How can your father expect you to study six months of course work in fifteen days?" I breathed slowly.

Vinay began to laugh, softly at first before his chest started shaking harder with his laughing.

"It's fucking hilarious, don't you think." Vinay said, between his snorts, "You told me to fight for what I wanted, to actually do something to achieve my goals. Well, I did. And look at where it's brought me now. I feel like a lone warrior on the verge of dying, yet fighting valiantly to salvage a lost cause with the false hope of leaving this labyrinth of suffering with the satisfaction of having at least tried."

His rumbles of laughter gradually subsided and transitioned into quiet sniffs.

"Why didn't you tell me all this?" I asked.

"You were already too busy to worry about your stuff with the success of DantelSoft. Besides, you couldn't have done anything to help." Vinay shrugged, "Honestly, the only way to pass that exam is to steal the question paper from Professor Saxena's office computer."

He rubbed his forehead with his free hand before burying his face into it to hide his tears from me.

I rummaged my brain to find something meaningful to say, but nothing would suffice. I knew that saying sorry would only end rubbing more salt to his wounds.

I released his hand and wrapped both my arms around his broad shoulders. Vinay immediately lost some of his earlier rigidity, turning slightly to pull me closer and buried his face in the crook of my neck. The salty wetness of his tears formed a dark patch on the maroon fabric of the hoodie I was wearing.

When he had calmed down a bit, Vinay pulled away and offered me a weak smile.

"You're wearing my hoodie." He stated giving me a quick once over.

And despite the situation, I still felt blood rush into my ears.

Vinay glanced at his phone screen to check the tone and sighed as he rose, "It's past midnight Akira. Come on, I'll drop you home."

I stood up, studying Vinay's movements as he made his way to the steel ladder. It baffled me how quickly he could put aside his emotions and pretend like nothing ever happened. Years and years of practice I suppose.

I sighed, following him.

Vinay seemed to be more sober now for he scaled down the ladder without a missing a single step while I fumbled once.

As we walked down the driveway holding hands, an idea struck me out of the blue.

I stopped abruptly and tugged Vinay's hand. He paused, eyeing me warily.

"I know how to help you." I stated confidently, "I'm going to steal the question paper for you."

"No you won't." Vinay said quickly.

"Watch me." I smirked, sashaying out of the gate.

●○●

Three days to the Vinay's end semester exam.

Less than three complete sheets of questions that could change his life. He'd spent the last ten days studying endlessly, missing most of his classes because it would just be an utter waste of time since he had six months of course work to cover within twelve days.

"Ok, be careful while climbing the wall. The barbed wire is broken out there but you can never be too careful." I whispered into my phone although there was no around.

"I know," Vinay grunted, "I've done it at least a million times."

I raised my brow in disbelief before saying, "I'm not even going to ask why."

"Have you ever wondered why the chairs in the last row Professor Dang's classroom were always crooked?" he asked.

"I never looked at the last row Vinay," I replied in an uninterested tone, "And I'm sure I don't want to know why. Oh my God! Be careful."

I muffled the rising pitch of my voice with my jacket sleeve as I saw Vinay leap down the three meter high wall without a single glance downwards.

I had stayed back after college on the pretext of having a couple of doubts cleared by my electrical technology professor and then spent the rest of my evening in the library until Miss Banerjee had to shut the library for the day at nine.

I'd already swiped my ID card at the entrance in the evening so that my exit was registered in the security mainframe after which I'd waited, meticulously planning every step with Vinay from a cleared out corner in an unused classroom.

The faint pattering of incoming footsteps jolted me into alertness and I peered out of the classroom cautiously. Vinay couldn't possibly have made it to the second floor so fast, right?

The footsteps halted abruptly before I could make out who it was.

I swallowed, fear gripping my insides. Sucking in a deep, soundless breath, I texted Vinay to steer clear of the second floor until I told him that the coast was clear but it appeared I was too late. The very next moment I the corridor was filled with the soft thuds of his rubber shoes as he made his way to the unused classroom I had set up base in.

He was dressed in black jeans and a dark grey hoodie, with the hood pulled over his head and low over his face. A more boyish version of my outfit.

Someone's lurking in the shadows near the staircase." I breathed, my eyes darting around the seemingly empty hallway fearfully.

"It can't be any of the teachers or the security because I know for a fact that none of the teachers stay on campus after seven thirty and the watchman was huddled in his cabin with a blanket, watching some awfully loud Bhojpuri movie when I checked twenty minutes ago." Vinay stated, already inching soundlessly towards the dark, shadowy stairwell.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I heard Vinay whisper shout as he looked into tall shadows masking that end of the corridor, "Are you here to fucking tell on me?"

He thrust his hand forward and pulled out a very sheepish looking Harsh. My lips curled into a frown as I stepped out of the classroom.

"I want to help." Harsh gasped as Vinay's fingers wrapped around his throat.

"Vinay!" I yelped, "Leave him now!"

"Why should I believe you Harsh?" Vinay asked, his voice dripping with venom, "Give me one solid reason why I should knock you out cold right now."

"Vinay, he can't breathe!" I yelled, marching up to them with all the courage I could muster and pealed his fingers off Harsh's throat.

He doubled over, swallowing air in rapid breaths through his mouth as he massaged his neck.

"I overheard Uncle and you talking about the end semester exam and the deal he offered," Harsh panted, "I knew you were going to steal it when you sneaked out of the house tonight so I followed you. And I really want to help you Vinay."

Vinay regarded his cousin with a guarded expression.

"How do we know you're serious, Harsh?" I asked gently.

"Well, I disabled all the security cameras so you can rest assured that you're safe and none of this," he pointed his finger between Vinay and himself and said, "was recorded. Or I'd have a marvelous time filing an FIR against you."

Before Vinay could fire back a biting response, I jumped in between them again. Maybe it would be easier now that Harsh was here to help. Vinay wouldn't have to climb into Professor Saxena's office through his window after all.

"Ok, Harsh." I said, "If you really want to help, could you look for the question paper file with me on Saxena's computer?"

Vinay opened his mouth to protest but I glared at him.

"Whatever." He mumbled under his breath.

"Vinay, you know what to do right?" I asked, and he nodded stiffly in response.

We made our way stealthily to Professor Saxena's office and stood before the imposing Sal wood doors with a digital keypad attached on the side.

I entered pass.stdio123 into the keypad confidently and waited for the doors to open but the keypad simply showed a red click before resetting the lock.

"Shit!" I began to panic, "Aren't all the door passwords the same in this building?"

"They are." Harsh grinned, stepping forward and entering iostream.123, "They changed the password every month."

Why on earth did I never observe that?

Harsh held the door open for me and I entered, hearing the door close behind us with a soft click.

I fired up Professor Saxena's computer, entering his birthdate as the password. I'd seen him enter it several times and he hadn't changed it since I began college. Cybersecurity was becoming such a joke these days.

I attached my pen drive to the computer and began an overall document search through the start menu.

A long list of files appeared and I scrolled through them until I found a folder with two variations of the question paper set for Vinay and copied them into my drive before ejecting it.

Just as I was shutting down the computer, my phone started vibrating incessantly.

"The watchman is coming up for his rounds." Vinay said urgently, "You need to get out of there right now."

"Where is he?" I asked, raising my brow at Harsh to see if the computer had shut down properly and he shook his head.

"On the first floor." Vinay replied.

"What were you doing until now?" I whisper yelled, "You should have warned us earlier."

"I'm sorry ok." He protested, "I was having a sneezing bout so forgive me for trying to stifle them."

"Whatever." I groaned, "Is the coast clear for us to leave?"

"You can make to the emergency stairwell in time if you make a dash for it right now." He answered, sneezing again.

Shaking my head incredulously, I disconnected the call.

"You should run Akira." Harsh said, staring at the computer with one hand on the switch.

"But..." I started reluctantly.

"No, you have more to lose if you get caught." He cut me off with a grave tone.

"You have just as much." I shook my head.

"Please, this is my last chance to redeem my relationship with Vinay so let me." Harsh exhaled, "Please just go."

"Okay." I conceded, "We'll wait for you in the lane at the back."

Harsh nodded one last time before I darted out of the door and ran to the emergency exit as quietly as I could.

I didn't stop to take a single breath until I'd made it out of the building, my legs burning with the accumulation of lactic acid in them.

I found Vinay hidden in some shadows behind a row of abandoned cycles and threw the pen drive at him which he caught with ease.

"Thank you, Akira!" he said, pulling me into a tight hug, "Thank you so much."

"You better not mess up now." I smiled.

"I most certainly will not." He smiled back, before leaning in to kiss my forehead.

After a few minutes, Harsh sprinted out of the back door of the building and made his way towards us.

"Thanks, Harsh." Vinay nodded solemnly, offering him a reconciliatory smile.

Harsh nodded back in response before making his way out of the dimly lit lane.

I sighed. At least they wouldn't be ready to kill each other the next time they talked. It was a start.

●○●

Biden won!!

Anyway I'm glad that Vinay and Harsh are finally starting to get along. It broke my heart to make them fight all the time.

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QOTD: Any movie TV series recommendations? I'm in the  mood for binge watching XD.