The Foundation Stays

Impromptu flight: Part 2

If Jassi and Hardik hadn't been scratched all over their face and arms--from glass or nails Rohit didn't know--and bleeding from several of them, Rohit might have slapped them both. Instead, he had to restrict himself to mere words.

"Do you two have anything to say for yourself after the scene you just created in an international airport lounge?"

Jassi and Hardik were both studying their feet intently.

"I won't take silence for an answer," said Rohit. "I want to hear what exactly happened that we had to find you two breaking glasses at each other. Jassi, you go first."

Jassi looked up apprehensively. His lower lip was split open, bleeding. The livid bruise just under his right eye made him look tired and hollow. Rohit tried not to think of what would've happened if he'd been hit in the eye instead of below it.

They might have had a very different situation to deal with.

"I'm waiting," Rohit told him.

"Hardik said--he said I wanted your captaincy, Rohit bhaiya," Jassi said (or snarled). "You should have just heard how arrogant he was being--you might have broken a glass on his stupid head too."

"I was exactly the same with him as I was with you," snarled back Hardik, the newly-formed red scar down his cheek catching the light as he lifted his head. "When Rohit doesn't have a problem with whatever's happened, why do you have so many problems? It can't just be on Rohit's behalf!"

"Rohit bhaiya doesn't have a problem simply because he's too nice--and you're shamelessly taking advantage of him--"

"No one takes advantage of me, Jassi," said Rohit quietly, and truthfully. "And I'm very, very disappointed in how you've been acting lately."

The tears which Jassi might have been holding back a long time sprang to his eyes. Rohit instantly felt terrible, but he steeled his heart thinking of what he'd just said.

"You've made up stories inside your head and acting like they're the truth, Jassi. I think I've made it clear enough that Hardik isn't to blame for whatever's happened."

"You didn't make it clear to me." Those tears were running down Jassi's cheeks now. "Why didn't either of you tell me? You both knew, you both decided, but you left me to find out like this!"

Rohit and Hardik exchanged a look. 

Then Rohit tried to speak calmly, even as he tried to put his own confused thoughts into words.

"Maybe we wanted to get the World Cup out of the way...or maybe we needed to talk it out first..."

"It wasn't fair...it wasn't f--"

Jassi choked on his words, and that was when the steel inside Rohit melted. He reached out convulsively to hug Jassi, who held on to his shirt tight, mumbling through sobs.

"It wasn't fair of you to keep it from me, Rohit bhaiya--and it wasn't fair of you to decide--to agree--I just want you to stay my captain, always--"

Since Jassi's legs had pretty much given in, Rohit took him to sit on a bench as he said, "In a way, I hope I will be, just like Mahi bhai and Virat..."

"No," said Jassi. "No, this is different. In IPL...in MI...no one can steal--no one can replace--I can never--I will never accept someone who takes your place--"

Rohit looked around Jassi's head to Hardik, who was shrinking in his corner, mouth trembling. He kept one arm around Jassi and extended the other one.

Hardik took a single, uncertain step forward.

"Come here," commanded Rohit.

Jassi looked up as Hardik nestled on Rohit's other side, and scowled through his tears.

"Hold that scowl, Jass." Rohit pulled them both closer and said, like he'd done innumerable times years back when these two were kids, "Tell me everything about each other that comes to your mind."

"I think this is too serious for that, Rohit bhaiya," said Jassi stiffly.

"Try anyway," said Rohit.

"I think Hardik is an arrogant traitor," said Jassi.

"I think Jassi is a terrible friend," said Hardik.

"You could have judged that if we were friends," flared Jassi.

"Yep, this is exactly why I'm saying--"

"No countering each other's points," cut in Rohit. "Just speak your mind."

Normally, while doing this, they'd run out of actual accusations and resort to comical ones. Today, there came no comical accusation--everything was dire, and became direr by the minute till it turned out their layover wasn't that long enough by Virat's appearance.

_________________

"Hardik's coming all the way to South Africa?" Virat whispered to Rohit, mystified, when they were walking towards their departure gates. "Are they at least on the verge of making up?"

"Nope," said Rohit. "Jassi said he doesn't want Hardik to come to South Africa, and Hardik immediately went you-don't-want-me-to-come?-I'll-come!"

A snigger escaped Virat.

"It's the least funny thing I've ever dealt with," said Rohit severely. "The least you can do is pretend to be sympathetic."

"I don't have to pretend," assured Virat. "All my sympathies are with you."

Which Rohit needed, but which didn't much help when he found himself stuck for an eight-hour flight in a seat between two boys whose eyes shot spite and fury at each other. At least, Jassi's did. Hardik's looks seemed angry more out of defensiveness than actual rage.

Then there were the unkind quips they'd keep making at each other.

An hour into the flight, with Jassi and Hardik's bruises going from red to purple, Rohit was at the end of his tether, and when Jassi brought up the sore topic of Hardik's ankle the dozenth time, something fragile that was holding Rohit together snapped.

"Jassi," he said shakily. "You are upset about someone dethroning your captain, right? You are upset to the point that you are okay with being horrible to your best friend? And that makes me believe that that captain has certainly done something worth...something worth to be called a legacy...

"But I wonder--is this what you guys and everyone will remember as my legacy? My boys spitting trash against each other, blaming, shouting, almost at the verge of disowning each other...they're hitting each other amidst a bunch of strangers with glass pieces without even bothering how far those injuries could escalate... Is this what I have built for eight damn years? I wasn't supposed to be the spade who can make my family shatter to pieces...I tried being that mirror where you all can see how togetherness looks like... But yes, of late, I've been failing at everything, so I guess I'd--I'd count this in as well."

There was an edgy silence for a long while.

Finally, Jassi looped his arm around Rohit's and looked out of the window a bit wistfully. "You're not failing at anything, Rohit bhaiya. I'm sorry."

"To?"

"You."

"I'm not who you should be sorry to, Jassi."

Jassi's fingers tightened around Rohit's arm. He didn't quite look at Hardik, but glanced in his direction.

"To Hardik too," he mumbled. "Sorry for talking like that and, er, hitting you."

"Sorry for hitting you too," Hardik mumbled back.

There was an awkward pause. Rohit had kind of hoped for Jassi saying he was sorry for having been a jerk in general, but he didn't think Jassi had started to repent that yet, and Hardik had already leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Rohit recalled he hadn't slept in almost two days, and didn't have the heart to press for a conversation right then anymore.

His boys not spitting venom at each other anymore was the best he could have hoped for right away. And he hadn't slept in very long, too.