First Time (Part I)

Aaryan Khanna

Both of us had the pen-like black-colored structures in our mouths, ya see. Our eyes were downward. Sooraj had his back straight, with his arms on the backrest behind the two of us, whereas I had my back bent forward and my arms balanced on my thighs. Both of us took those fucking vapes out of our mouths together and blew out a puff at once.

The crescent moon was on top of our heads, surrounded by clouds. There were some stars too, and their faint light made the outline for the dark clouds looming in the sky over the apartments. The entrance of the park was on our left, with the pathway just behind our bench, and a thin boundary of bushes and herbs just between the bench and the boundary. All of it was in the shitty shades of black, since there were no lights around us anywhere.

“Remember why we first joined this gang, pal?” I suddenly said as I moved the vape in my mouth again.

Sooraj turned his head skyward, revealing the veins on his muscular neck, and replied, “Yeah.”

“It was around this time some years back.”

“Yeah…”

With my eyes lost in my thoughts, I said, “I… It was the first time we…”

“I know, man. Ya don’t need to repeat it.”

“Ya see, I want to. I wanna see when we started to get used to failing like this.”

Sooraj turned his head to his left, looking aimlessly that way. My head was still tilted down as I waited for the reply. He remained silent for some time, just staring at that way.

“… Yeah, let’s take a legit trip down the memory lane today.”

***

Rohit was in his room, shining brightly with modern LED bulbs. His wardrobe to the left of his bed was open, with clothes in it a little scattered, and the table in front of his bed filled with books and notebooks scattered around his turned on desktop and computer system. He was in the balcony on the left of the bed, on the other side of the open door. Light from behind him touched his back, whereas his face was dark with the darkness of the shitty night. He looked a little skyward. A little breeze of wind blew by him, waving his hair for a second before it settled down again.

He remembered Kritvik’s voice when he had said, “Maybe, you just… feel it. You just… get the vibe.”

“But… what if ya have never got that vibe from anyone in the world?” Rohit had asked him back, his voice breaking down a little bit. “Ya gotta feel it once to identify it again, right? What if… ya never felt that shit even once?”

Rohit thought to himself, “That motherfucker… must have caught wind… that something’s going on in my life.”

***

“So, from where should we start this shit?” I asked Sooraj.

“From where it began. Before even COVID. Half yearly results, class eighth.”

Sooraj was sitting on my left, his back straight and his face tilted skyward. My back was bent frontward, with my elbows on my thighs. I had my head tilted down and my eyes guiltily narrowed. “Yeah, then.”

“There used to be a time when we were kids too. Both of us… were completely unaware of this shit… these drugs, without which today we can’t fucking live.”

***

I was a couple years younger when I was walking down the same intersection filled with three to four story apartments on both the sides. I walked straight through it and crossed it peacefully. There was a smile on my little face. I wore a black thick sweatshirt with denim capris beneath, with black shoes and long thick brown socks.

It was evening, around five or six, and there was no sun. The weather was cool. The street was peaceful, with only cars, streetlights, and such shit. I had a green tennis ball in my right hand as I walked. It was literally fucked, ya see—it had dark spots and tattered to its skin at some places.

After walking a couple of meters, I turned to my left and stood in front of a house. I pressed the switch of the doorbell, and turned my smiling face upward. From the first floor emerged the little Sooraj.

“Yeah?”

“Come, pal. Let’s play cricket!”

Sooraj smiled. “Call others! I’m coming!”

***

“You were smiling that day, pal.”

“Perhaps the last time, right?”

“Mm.”

***

“What? We won’t play cricket?” The little Sooraj innocently asked my little self as the two of us walked down the street together.

I shook my head. “I befriended some cool guys today.”

“Who?”

“Rohit Sharma, Vikram Seth, and their gang which the two of them run together.”

“What?! A gang?!” Sooraj was astonished. His eyes widened.

“Mm-hmm!” I nodded with excitement. I then turned to my left at him. “They fight other gangs, pal! How cool it will be if we become a part of them! We’ll be respected by the whole school!”

Sooraj narrowed his eyes. “Man, I don’t think that it’s that cool.”

“It is, pal!” I said.

Sooraj turned his eyes to the front. “I wanna meet them too, but it’s not that cool.”

“Okay, man. Just befriend them like me. Then, we’ll have fun together!”

Sooraj smiled again. “Yeah.”

***

“Nah, we came a little bit too early on this one,” Sooraj said. “Gotta give the background first, man.”

“Yeah.”

***

“I had expected more from you.”

“You could have done better.”

“Make sure to score better next time.”

“I had more expectations from you.”

“You can do better than this.”

First it was a bald man in a light blue shirt, then it was an old woman with white hair and a yellow kurta, then it was a young female with dark eyeliner and dark green saree, then it was porcelain colored young woman in blue kurta, then another man with black dense hair and white shirt. All of them were my teachers—all trying to act like they gave a fuck.

I had my head tilted down, my face on the bunch of papers in my hand. On the first page were the marks, forty-eight out of eighty, along with my name, class, and other information on the top half of the page and mathematical calculations on the latter half of the page.

“You score sixty-three percent on average, Aaryan!” A man later scolded my younger figure. He was screaming at me, with some drops of saliva coming out of his mouth. He looked at me, frowning at my guilty figure. He was so fucking angry on me. He was my dad—a man with a dense black mustache and thick hair, half of them white. He wore a shirt-trouser combo.

The room was dark. Only the kitchen had a bright bulb on, which was not really sufficient to light the whole house. We stood in front of the kitchen on the left of the dining table.

“He’s really gone out of our hands,” My mom, who was working in the kitchen, added. She then turned around at me, pointing her rolling pin at me. “If we had been strict, he’d have never turned out this way!”

I had my head tilted down, silently listening to both of them screaming at me.

“Yeah! Don’t make me stop all of your games and stuff! We can live without an internet connection and a TV in this house!”

“All of it has made our lives harder anyway!” My mom said and turned back to rolling breads in the kitchen. A pot was being heated on the gas.

“Change the password of your phone and don’t tell him. That’s the only way he’ll start focusing back on his studies!”

“And if you go out to play for more than an hour, then you’ll see!”

Irritated, I turned to my left at my mom. “Mom, health is also important, and kids need to play to remain healthy.”

“All of that health can go to hell! We eat well, and we don’t need to play to remain healthy! Look at us!”

“Mom, kids are differen—”

“Stop answering back to us!” My father screamed.

I turned quiet.

He continued to glare at me with his angry eyes, like he’d eat me. “Shameless!”

“We didn’t even dare talk back to our parents, and look at this generation.”

“Times have changed, mom.”

“Then don’t make us go back to being the parents of that time to make you study,” My mom replied back.

***

I was sitting on a swing by myself—with no one around me, ya see—with my head tilted down. The evening sky was on top of my fucking head, with some clouds peacefully floating above. I sat at one edge, my head tilted down. The little me seemed really tensed because of what had happened, pal.

“PTMs after half yearly exams are the worst!” I murmured with a frown. “And why do they have to reveal our marks in front of our parents?! Don’t they even trust us this much?!”

“Hey.”

I turned my head up, and looked at the younger figure of Rohit. “Who are you?” I asked him.

He wore a blue check shirt with a black pair of pants. He had his hands in his pocket. “Ya seem fucking stressed about some shit, motherfucker.”

“I didn’t use to cuss at that time. I was a fucking kid, pal. So, just hearing those words from him kinda made me uncomfortable, ya see.”

“W-What happened?” I suspiciously asked.

“Ya seem my age. In which class do you study?”

I frowned in doubt at him. “… Eighth.”

“Well, motherfucker, I’m one of the leaders of the Black Reapers, the biggest and the most feared gang in this area. And, we need men around our age.”

“I-I’m not interested in joining.”

“I can help you cope up with this stress of yours in return, motherfucker.”

I continued to glare at him for a couple of seconds, accessing the situation. “… How?”

“Well, to be honest, it won’t help with your current state of affairs. It’s not a magic pill. But, motherfucker, it can… distract you and make you enjoy some time with yourself… away from all of your worries.”

“What… What do you wanna say, pal?”

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. He bent his legs and sat on my left. I turned my head to my left at him. He turned his head downward, taking something out of his pocket. It was a black pen-like thing. He took it out for a second, and then stuffed it in again. We then looked into each other’s eyes again.

“What was it?” I asked.

“Vape.” He said, his eyes widened for a second as he stressed at that word. He then continued to look at my dumb eyes for a few seconds, and then said, “D’ya even know what a vape is?”

“Mm-hmm,” I shook my head.

He closed his eyes in disappointment. “What the fuck, motherfucker?” He then turned to his left, then at the front, and looked if there was anyone else who was listening to our conversation. He then turned to his right at me again and said, “It’s a stress reliever. Using it can increase the amount of dopamine in your brain, which leads to happiness and less depression.”

I nodded.

“This can help you calm down when you’re really worried, and then you can handle the task with calmness and ease.”

“But, what is it?”

“It’s a vape.” He widened his eyes for a second again as he stressed on that word. “It’s a cigarette-like thing, but it doesn’t contain harmful substances like a cigarette. Also, it’s not addictive.”

“Uh, okay.”

“So, wanna try some?”

I gulped in. I turned my head downward, and then turned to his eyes again. I thought about it for some seconds, thinking about all the shit that could happen. “Perhaps, yeah…”

Rohit’s face turned into a huge grin. “Then, you’re in the team, right?”

“… Yeah.”

“All of the information he gave me that day was fucking fake. Was it addictive? Yeah. A fuck lot. Was it harmful? Yeah. Did it have nicotine? A fuck lot. That shit was just like a fucking cigarette, but in a pen-like shape. He fucking robbed the young me, and that got us here.”