Shape of the Sun

Blood feud

30 minutes before.

Rajkumar discovered his unique taste in books quite early. 

He preferred the villains to the protagonists. These villains were the bad ones in the stories, the wicked people that wanted to ruin the protagonists' life at all times. Yet, they always failed in the end. It wasn't that they were poorer or unnecessarily untalented, no, the best villains were those occupying the highest places in life that the protagonist could possibly never reach. But it was not enough. In the end, they were dragged down from those places to become the scum of the earth, living terribly, while the protagonist got all the glory, enjoying the praise of all. How beautiful.

But all that Rajkumar had to say to that was bullshit, and he added another three words - lacking brain cells. That was right. In his opinion, most of the villains in those stories always talked for too long, always expended emotions too long, always did a lot of nonsense too long enough for the protagonist, that was supposed to be long dead, to have the time to unlock some hidden potential and rise again to save the heroine, or the day, or the world, or whatever shit needed some saving in the story.

However just because he preferred them, it didn't mean that Rajkumar liked them. Hell no. Why would he live his whole life as a character that served to play a foil for another person, when he could be the master of his own story? Rajkumar didn't want to be a villain or a hero, he wanted to be the damn author writing every fucking page of his life.

But the thing was, life itself didn't let him.

On his and Choti's seventh birthday, when his father had called them to his room and told them that they had a half-brother, he realized that he was already a villain for someone else, somewhere he didn't know. Not only was he legitimate, but his existence alone was also putting someone else in pain, making them suffer. And so from that day onward, Rajkumar decided that if he had to be a villain, he had to be one that used his brain cells. Every single one of them. He didn't spend his life centered around another person. How banal was that? Rajkumar had never understood what happened to those people if they won. The end? Happy ever after? What did they plan to do with their lives after killing the hero?

Stupid.

Rajkumar decided not to box himself and for certain reasons, he went abroad to pursue medicine, which he actually liked. However, his long absence caused him to have fewer opportunities compared to Choti, to encounter a certain someone.

Right now, Rajkumar was looking at Prithvi and he felt uncomfortable all over, more upset than before. He had come upstairs to the bar to grab a drink, pissed that he had to uber it here after Choti's car suddenly failed, and he had barely arrived when he got a text from Choti with hotel booking details. If Rajkumar couldn't still put two and two together after all these, he thought his college education had to have been wasted. Damn, how dare Choti play him like this? He swore that he'd pay it back.

Rajkumar had ordered his drink and after a few sips, he noticed his half-brother. At first, he had been merely curious about what Prithvi was up to, that was until Manmeet walked across the hall below and he noticed his gaze. Rajkumar knew what that look meant. It was what a man had on his face when he wanted a woman, and it made him feel irritated. It was as if he could understand what Prithvi was thinking when he had a gloating look in his eyes, and the look of finality there affirmed that it had to be some logic that he couldn't deny.

Rajkumar hated it. No matter the future, Manmeet Chatterjee was still his woman now and Prithvi's possible future sister-in-law. Why did some people always want things that didn't belong to them? Why was Prithvi testing his patience?

But what was irritation soon turned into anger on noticing Prithvi's clenched fists and his expression. What was this that he was seeing? Was this the proverbial protagonist trying to rise up from the ashes? Prithvi was challenging him? Rajkumar sneered in his heart at how wretched and shameless people indeed were. Even though he had left this brother of his in relative peace, he still had the guts to feel wronged.