Scent of a Man (Ishman/Shubish/Ishdik/Shubman Gill x Ishan Kishan)

Scent of My Dreads

Summary: People are kinda like books with secrets written on the pages unseen.

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Note:

TRIGGER WARNING: DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF VIOLENCE AND MENTAL DISORDERS!!!

Hey everyone! This update is coming at you faster than usual, and I have my dear reader @Sherly_punked to thank for that. I promised to post as soon as possible if KKR won the IPL, and guess what? THEY WON! (WOOHOO!) So here the update is!

I won't waste any more of your time (though I do have a bit of a rant in the end note today), so please, dive in! Happy reading! 🤍

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Scent of a Man

Chapter 10: Scent of My Dreads

January 2001

It was a Sunday afternoon, probably around 4 pm. The sun was low in the sky, casting a soft, amber glow over the rooftop of the four-storey Bansidhar Apartments, where two dark-haired little boys were running around with a small wooden bat and a ball. Typically, children of their age, which was around eight or nine for the slightly taller boy and six or seven for the little one with bushy hair, weren't allowed on the roof of the building without parental supervision. But you see, these two had a reputation for being well-behaved for their age among the residents, so their mother didn't give it much thought when the older one asked for another ten minutes to play after she had told them to follow her as she was done with collecting the dry clothes from the hanging ropes. "Thik hain, par bas 10 minute aur", raising an eyebrow, she added,"Aur koyi railing ke paas nahi jana, yehi pe stair room ke bilkul samne rehna diwar ke paas, aur zyada daurna mat. Krunal, Harry ko sambhalke rakhna!" Both of the boys nodded their heads in unison, but as soon as the sound of their mom's footsteps faded away, the younger one made a funny face,"KRUNAL HARRY KO SAMBHALKE RAKHNA!", he scoffed. The older boy bursted into laughter, seeing this hillarious recreation of the words.

"Chal chal, ball dal, has ke hi 10 minute barbaad karega kya?", the younger one groaned. "Kya?", the older one immediately stopped laughing,"Ball kyun main dalu? Tere to abhi 3 overs ho gaye, maine 2 bhi dhang se batting nahi kiya!", he blurted out.

"Par tune kal 4 over batting ki thi aur main 2, aj main 4 over karunga!", the answer was already on the younger one's lips, as if he knew this would come.

"To kal mummy ne thodi der aur rukne nahi diya to main kya karu? Maine thodi kahata ki ball nahi dalunga tujhe?", the older one was ready with his reply too.

"Dekh, zyada hoshiyaar mat ban. Bat mera hain na, to main 4 over batting karunga!",the younger one didn't seem to accept defeat either.

"Ek nayi bat papa ne di ki chalu ho gaya, pehle jab tere pass bat nahi tha to tu to bas mere bat se hi khelta tha, maine kabhi kaha mera bat mera bat?"

"Chal chal, woh ek purana sa plastic ka bat deke itna kya mahan bana re tu? Yeh asli ka bat hain, samjha? Shukrguzaar ho ki main tujhe isse khelne bhi de raha hu!", the younger one yelled out, and immediately realised that he had gone too far.

Krunal once also had a wooden bat, a very special one, incredibly dear to him. He used to keep it by his bed and even hug it sometimes while sleeping. Hardik was much younger back then, yet he remembered that bat vividly, it was like Krunal's most prized possesion. But when they moved to Vadodara from Surat, somehow in the process of packing and shifting, that bat got lost. Hardik still remembered how when the last of the package boxes was opened and the bat was still not in there, Krunal ran back to their room and slammed the door, yelling and crying. He didn't eat dinner that night, and continued to whine for another week as dad declared that it was entirely Krunal's fault that the bat was lost because he was not careful about his stuffs, and that he also wouldn't buy Krunal another one as a punishment for his careless behaviour. Eventually dad did buy Krunal a bat, but the catch was- it was a cheap plastic one, not even an ounce of comparison could be made between that piece of garbage and the absolute masterpiece that was nowhere to be found.