The Cursed Shell

47

"So, how are your wounds?" Dhawan could barely listen to him while his complete focus was on the cloudy night sky. The clouds scattered the moonlight causing a beautiful view which attracted him.

"Dhawan?" Dunkirk's voice finally brought his attention away from the sky when it became louder.

"Uh, yeah?" Dhawan immediately turned his head towards him.

"Oh, sorry for the loud voice, I was asking about your wounds", Dunkirk said, and then turned his gaze towards the sky too, to see what Dhawan found in it.

They were both sitting under the night sky of a lone beach in Goa. It wasn't the time of having fun in beaches, but Dhawan liked lone places, and that beach was one of such places at the moment.

"Yeah, my wounds are good now," Dhawan said, looking at the bandaged wounds he got in  the undersea tower. "It has been a month since I got them. They are slowly recovering."

"I won't call it slowly recovering!" Dunkirk chuckled. "It has been just a month since those events and you have already recovered so much. Even your fractured knee is okay now! How do you get recovered so fast?"

Dhawan raised his shoulders and eye-brows.

There was silence for a few seconds.

"So, what are you going to do now?" Dhawan asked.

"Ahh, nothing much," Dunkirk said, still trying to find what Dhawan saw in the sky, "I would just go back to my country with my new adopted daughter, Krystene. And then I would ask Duke to apply for a promotion, and then I would work on a case on those holes in the agency stated by Joshua Lamb. You?"

Dhawan knew that Dunkirk was not completely honest on this. None of the agents ever are!

"I am thinking to retire", Dhawan said.

"What?" Dunkirk crossed his eye-brows and turned towards Dhawan with a shocked expression. "But why?"

"I just," Dhawan said, still looking at the sky and wondering something, "I just want to. A life is not big enough to live all the dreams of yours. But why not just spend it living at least some of those dreams? And I am a family man now! I've got a son, a brother, and my son is dating your daughter at the moment. So... I think I should ensure that his date doesn't get ruined."

Dunkirk laughed.

"By the way," Dhawan said, "thank you for adopting that girl. She needed a family, like I, Crunchy and Brute did."

Dunkirk sighed. "I always wanted to have a daughter. I had lost this chance a few years ago. But now, when I have one, I am worried. I am worried if I would not be able to take care of a child. Because this is what I have no experience of."

"You will, I know," Dhawan said, keeping a hand on his shoulder. "Well, if you ask about me. Then I am not at all worried on this point. I can take care of Brute. And even Crunchy is with me!" Then he petted Crunchy who was sitting beside him. "He would try his best to be a good uncle. And even Brute is mature enough to do most of his stuffs alone. At least I don't have to be a father who has to change the diapers of his kid."

"By the way, what about Crunchy? Isn't he gonna date anyone? Any girlfriend?" Dunkirk asked.

"He is a gay," Dhawan said, and turned his eyes towards the sky again, "and he was dating a male cat a few months ago."

"Oh," Dunkirk said and turned his eyes towards the sky too, still trying to figure out what Dhawan was seeing. "By the way, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, sure", Dhawan said with his gaze still stuck at the sky.

"What are you looking at?" Dunkirk finally asked.