MidReal Story
Brothers' Bond: Love, Life, and Loyalty
Scenario: Aakrith, the youngest brother decided to sneak out at night. Vatsal, the middle brother tries to stop him but Aakrith blackmails Vatsal to sneak out with him as well. When they come back, Kabir, their eldest brother is standing there with a dangerous look on his face. He had been worried sick whole night. Aakrith and Vatsal gets the scolding of their life from Kabir
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Aakrith Sharma
Aaku, youngest of three brothers, has a close relationship with his brothers and a protective nature towards his mother, short black hair, brown eyes, mischievous and caring.
Vatsal Sharma
Vatsy, middle brother with a responsible yet adventurous spirit, close to his brothers and protective of his family, short black hair like Aakrith but with brown eyes, caring and sometimes reckless.
Kabir Sharma
Kabir Bhaiya, eldest brother with a serious and protective demeanor, works as an engineer in the US, tall with broad shoulders like their father but with their mother's eyes and hair color.
I was in my room, reading a book, when I heard the front door creak open.
My mother’s voice was low and urgent.
“Shut the door quietly, Vatsal.
You’ll wake Aakrith up.”
I heard my middle brother’s voice in response.
“Don’t worry, Ma.I’ll take care of it.”
I sat up in bed and listened as Vatsal tiptoed down the hallway to his room.
The door clicked shut behind him, and I heard the sound of his bed creaking as he lay down.
A few minutes later, I heard my mother’s door open and close as she went to bed too.
I waited for another half an hour before I got out of bed and crept down the hallway to my brothers’ rooms.
I knocked on Vatsal’s door first.
He opened it a crack and peered out at me with narrowed eyes.
“What do you want?”
“Can you come with me?”
I asked him in a low voice.
“I need your help with something.”
He opened the door wider and stepped out into the hallway, closing it behind him.
“What are you doing up so late?”
Vatsal Sharma, my middle brother, was the responsible one in our family.
I was pretty sure he was the only seventeen-year-old in the world who was genuinely concerned about his little brother’s well-being.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
I asked him.
He shrugged and ran a hand through his hair.
“I wanted to go to bed early, but I didn’t want to have to deal with you crying when you woke up tomorrow and realized you’d slept through the entire day without seeing your girlfriend.”
I smiled at him.
“Can you blame me?”
I asked him.
He turned away and rubbed at his eyes, yawning.
“Go back to bed, Aaku,” he said wearily.
“I’ll just be a minute.”
A minute turned into five minutes, which turned into ten minutes.
Finally, he sighed and said, “Fine, Aaku, I’ll come with you.”
“You’re a good brother,” I told him as I led him to the front door.
“I’ll do anything for you,” he replied.
“But if Ma wakes up and finds out I helped you sneak out—” he trailed off, shaking his head.
“She won’t find out,” I promised him.
He looked skeptical.
“Last time you promised me she wouldn’t find out, she took away my car privileges for a month,” he reminded me.
“I had to take the bus to school and got there late almost every single day.”
His words made me feel guilty.
Vatsal and Kabir had both been working so hard to prepare for their engineering entrance exams, and they’d both managed to get into good schools.
Kabir had gone on to study engineering in the US, while Vatsal and I had stayed behind.
Now that Kabir was gone, Vatsal was the one taking care of me when our mother was busy working at the hospital where she was a physician’s assistant and our father was working late at his government job.
“I’m sorry,” I told Vatsy.
“It won’t happen again.”
He narrowed his eyes at me and crossed his arms over his chest.
“You’re not even sorry,” he accused me.
“You’re just saying that so I’ll help you sneak out and meet your girlfriend at 9:30 at night.”
My mother had a curfew of 10:00 for us during the week so we could get enough sleep before our exams.
I thought it was an unreasonably early time for teenagers to go to bed, especially since it got dark later in India than it did in most other parts of the world.
“We were almost caught last time,” he reminded me as we left the house and climbed onto the scooter.
“Ma made me promise not to help you sneak out again,” he said as I started the engine.
“If she finds out I helped you, she’s going to be so mad.”
I put on my most desperate face and turned to look at him over my shoulder.
“Please, Vatsy,” I begged him, trying to keep the whine out of my voice.
“I really need to see Mira tonight.”
“You don’t need to see her,” he told me sternly.
“It’s not like this is your last night in India or anything.”
“But we have a date,” I said, emphasizing the importance of the occasion to get my point across.
“So what?”
he asked me, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s not like it’s Valentine’s Day or anything.”
I looked at him in disbelief.
“How can you say that?”
I asked him, shocked that he could be so oblivious to the significance of the night I had planned with Mira.
“It’s the full moon!”
I reminded him urgently.
“The most romantic night of the year!
And you know how much Mira loves the moon!”
Vatsal shook his head in disbelief, but he couldn’t suppress his grin as he rolled his eyes at me.
“Your girlfriend is going to be mad at me for helping you sneak out,” he said.
I made a face at him and said, “It doesn’t matter if she’s mad.
If I don’t go see her tonight, she’s going to break up with me, and if she breaks up with me, then I’m going to be so sad that I won’t be able to study for my exams, and if I don’t study for my exams, then I’m going to fail and have to repeat the year, and if I have to repeat the year, then I won’t be able to go to college with you, and then I’ll have to stay here with Ma and Bhaiya all alone—”
“Okay, okay!”
Vatsal said hastily.
“I get it.You don’t need to exaggerate.
I know how important it is for you to go on this date with Mira tonight.”
I felt a rush of gratitude and affection toward him as he climbed onto the scooter behind me so we could drive to the park together.
My middle brother was one of the smartest people I knew, but he was also a huge fool when it came to girls.
I was pretty sure that was why our mother had been so strict with us when we were growing up.
They’d been afraid that we would end up like Kabir, who’d had to take two years off after high school before he could build up the courage to talk to a girl.
Our eldest brother had always been serious and responsible, and he’d worked hard in school, but when it came to girls, Kabir had always been a little clueless.
He’d been so busy preparing for his engineering entrance exams that he hadn’t had much time for dating, and by the time he’d finally worked up the nerve to ask a girl out, he’d only gone on one or two dates before she’d moved to another city.
It seemed like he’d given up on dating altogether after that.
I felt bad for him, but I also couldn’t imagine living that way.
Girls were important, I thought.
They couldn’t just be ignored.
If Kabir were here with us right now, I knew he would understand how I felt and help me sneak out to see Mira.
I glared at him.
“Bro, she’s just my girlfriend, not your future bhabhi,” he said hastily.
“Anyway, how are you planning to get out of here without Ma seeing you?She can hear a pin drop from a mile away.”
“I was hoping you could help me with that,” I said.
“Yeah, fine,” Vatsal said after a pause.
He hated it when we asked him to choose sides between us—especially when our mother was one of those sides—but he also didn’t like conflict, so he usually agreed to help me get my way as long as I didn’t push him too much.
“I’ll turn off the television.”
I gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up as he went into the living room and turned off the TV, then went back into our bedroom to keep studying for his engineering entrance exams.
He was taking them next year, and he wanted to get into the same college as Kabir—even though he wanted to study computer science instead of engineering—so he needed good scores in order to be accepted.
“Go out the window,” Vatsal whispered, coming over to help me unlock the shutters when he was sure our mother was asleep.
“The tree is close enough that you should be able to climb down easily.”
“Thanks, Vatsy,” I said, feeling bad that he was helping me even though he had to get up early the next morning.
The exams were less than two weeks away, and even though our school didn’t have classes for eleventh and twelfth grade students to give them time to study, he had still been going to bed around 2 am for the past few nights.
He was usually the one of the three of us who went to bed the latest—our father had been like that, too, before he died—but even for him, this was a bit much.
“Don’t worry about it,” Vatsal said, lowering his voice when the hinges of the shutters creaked.
Our mother stirred in her sleep for a moment, but she didn’t wake up.
“Just don’t get caught, okay?”
“I’ll be back before she wakes up,” I promised.
Vatsal suppressed a smile.
He and Kabir both knew that our mother would be less concerned about me if she knew I was out on a date than if she thought I was sneaking out to smoke or drink.
I’d only done that a few times in the past, and I promised myself each time that it would be the last, but I was pretty sure that our mother thought I did it a lot more often than I did.
I wasn’t sure if she would be happy to hear that I was sneaking out to see my girlfriend, but at least this way she wouldn’t be sitting up all night worrying about me.
Just don’t wake me up when you come back,” Vatsal said.
“I need to get some sleep.”
“What if Ma catches me?”
“She won’ll catch you if you’re not making a lot of noise,” Vatsal said.
“You should wear sneakers instead of flip-flops to muffle the sound of your footsteps, and watch out for the stairs when you come back.”
