First Time (Part II)

Aaryan Khanna

“They fight other gangs, pal! How cool it’ll be if we become a part of them! We’ll be respected by the whole school!”

The younger versions of both Sooraj and I were walking down the street in the evening around five or six. The sun had set and the sky had started to turn darker. The wide street had apartments on both the sides—all painted white or brown. Sooraj, the dark-skinned guy who wore a red sweatshirt and brown pants, had his eyes turned at me.

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

“It is, pal!” I said. I turned my head to the front. I wore a black sweatshirt with a dark blue denim pair of capris.

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. “Yeah.”

The sky was turning darker and darker, and in about fifteen or twenty minutes, the sky was mixed with the shades of black. We both turned to our right and entered inside. It was the usual park where the gang still meets, with the giant tree on our left as we stepped in. He walked on my left as I started to see here and there, looking for the gang. Then, I noticed them at the right corner, and I smiled. I pointed with my right forefinger at them. “Them! They’re the Black Reapers.”

Sooraj turned a little to his right at the far corner. There was a gang of people in shades of white shirts and black pair of pants. Some were sitting on the ground, some were sitting on the edges of the footpath, and some were just standing.

I started to walk toward them, and he followed me.

He was one step behind me, defensively perhaps, as I walked and stood in front of them.

All of them were discussing something, and their indistinct chatter stopped just as I arrived. All eyes were on me now. My grin turned into a smile, and that too an awkward one.

“What?” Someone from the gang rudely asked.

A man, who had his arms crossed in front of his chest and stood with his back facing me, turned to his back at me. “Who are ya, huh? And what business d’ya have with us?”

“I-I-I was called by someone named Rohit for-for…”

“Rohit Sharma?” That guy asked.

“Yeah, perhaps,” I suddenly nodded.

He nodded his head and turned his head to the front. From the two people who sat in the middle of the gang at the edge of the park, one stood up. That asshole was in a blue shirt and black pair of pants—completely different from the rest of others.

“Ya want vapes?”

“We-We wanted to join the gang…”

“Ya can only join the gang once you show us your loyalty, motherfucker. Get to Park Town, tomorrow at nine. We’ll see ya there. Go home for now.”

“O-Okay,” The innocent me fucking turned back and started to walk away. Sooraj glared at Rohit for an extra second as he turned back and looked at him sitting down. Sooraj then turned to his back and started to follow me.

Just as we were leaving the park, he jumped a step or two and stepped beside me. Then, he asked me, “Hey, what was up with these guys?”

“Dunno.”

“They don’t seem fine. They are legit bad,” Sooraj looked at me, and I had my head to the front.

I then turned to my left at him. “What do you mean?”

“These guys… They were so rude and… and didn’t seem like good guys.”

“Yeah, they are just like that, perhaps.”

“And, you wanna be a part of those guys?”

“Y-Yeah.” I turned my head frontward. “They were so cool, pal.” My lips spread into a smile.

“They… were… but…”

I turned at him again, all excited and shit. “Alright. But if we join them, we’d be respected by everyone in the school! No one, not even those toppers will ever dare saying anything shit to us!”

“Perhaps… it was the first time… that I used the word ‘shit’.”

“But… why do you only focus on the good things?”

“And why do you only focus on the bad ones?” I dejectedly replied. I then turned to the front.

Just talking like that, we both stepped out of the park and turned to the left from where we came from and started to go back.

***

“I… still don’t think that they’re legit fine, man.”

It was a chilly night. The sun had gone down already, and it was a night filled with stars in the sky. Both of us were standing at the entrance of the wide ground. There was just grass and soil on the ground, with some bushes and trees at the edge, along with the cemented footpath. The park must have been about half a football ground. Behind it was a thick cemented wall, which was coming off, and on the other side was a building which was still under construction. However, there was no one inside at that time, and only the framework had been cemented. That shit seemed three to four stories high, with a stairway inside. On our back were apartments. The street was lit with brown streetlights, one on our right flickering continuously. The windows and the balconies of the apartments too were lit.

Both of us had our gaze fixed at the empty park. Sooraj asked, “Are you sure they will come here?”

“Y-Yeah, pal. They should.”

“They legit should. But… will they?”

I gulped in. “Shit! What if… they don’t?” I thought inside my mind as I patiently waited, standing there still.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

TICK.

Suddenly, I turned my head rightward. I noticed a group of boys—all in shades of red shirts and black pants—walking in from the entrance on the other end of the park. The silent park suddenly rose up in indistinct chatter. Those fuckers all talked and laughed as they walked to the inside of the park. Defensively, I narrowed my eyes and started to walk backward. Sooraj, who stood on my left, started to walk back too. Both of us stood right at the edge of the entrance, our careful eyes glaring at them. Sooraj turned his eyes at me. “Who are they?”

“Must be some other gang, pal,” I replied, suspiciously looking at them.

Sooraj turned at them again. “We should leave, or els—!”

“Hey!” Someone startled Sooraj by patting behind his back. Both of us turned backward. Rohit stood in the same dark blue shirt and black pair of pants along with white sneakers as he stood behind us, his hands on our shoulders, as he looked at the other gang’s members. “Those motherfuckers are here.” He then turned at us. “Well, what ya two gotta do is fight for us. Imma judge ya. If y’are truly loyal, ya will be selected. Got it?” He turned to me. “Got it?” I nodded. He turned to his left. “Got it?” Sooraj nodded too. He then turned to the front. “‘Kay, then. Go.”

“We gotta fight them?! Alone?!” Sooraj resisted his push and maintained his spot.

“Oh, fuck no! The others are walking in too, motherfucker!”

It was at that moment that both of us turned to our right and looked at the gang in shades of white shirts—all tucked out of their black pants—walking in from the entrance opposite from where the first gang had walked in. In the front was Vikram, all muscular and shit, like he always is. His eyes were filled with rage and he was frowning as he walked to the members of the other gang. They all turned at him, frowning and furious, and one of them walked in the front with his hands inside the pockets of his pants. Both of them stood at just an inch’s distance from each other.

“The fight will commence anytime soon, motherfuckers,” Rohit pushed both of us. “Walk in.”

***

“It was our first fight, wasn’t it?” Sooraj smiled.

Sooraj and I sat beneath the crescent moon, my back tilted to the front and my weight on the elbows on my thighs. I donned a black sweatshirt and a denim blue pair of capris. Sooraj was on my left, his back straight and his head tilted down in guilt, just like me. Both of us were feeling shit.

I smiled at Sooraj’s comment too. “Yeah, I was shit scared, pal!”

“Yeah. But… we were so…”

“… so desperate.”

“So desperate…”

“… desperate…”

Those words echoed in my ears. That shit made me realize, “Yeah, just how desperate we were to find our lost charms, were we not?”

“Just how fucked we were because of all that that was happening,” Sooraj added, his smile gone.

“We were just growing up.”

Sooraj smiled after hearing those words. “Sure we were.”

I smiled too.

“Yeah… both of us had lost some shit or the other… something that used to define us as humans, as individuals, and something that made us distinct from others. Our lives took it from us. It was studies for me, and it was cricket for him.”

***

A guy my age in a green frame of spectacles was smiling as both of us stood in front of each other, talking to each other and laughing. I was laughing hard as he added, “And your mom banged that milkman that night! Ya know why?! That was me, fucker!”

“Shut the fuck up, fucker!” I shouted back, still laughing. “Ya can’t even milk a gal and ya call yourself a milkman?!”

“Bitch, I milked yer mom! Ask yer sister when she comes out! I banged her so much my dick must have touched her inside yer mom’s womb too!”

“Shut the fuck up, man!” I shouted, both of us still laughing.

“Aye, bitches!” Another guy walked from behind. He had relatively darker skin-tone. “What the fuck shit hell bitches?”

“Huh?” The guy in front of me asked. “You sucked your mom’s dick so much that your tongue is fucking malfunctioning, bitch?”

“Shit the shit fuck hell up, bitch!” He stood beside me. “By the way, let’s bunk the math period today, man.”

“Huh? Why?” The guy asked as he corrected his spectacles.

“Not in the mood, man!”

“Pal, don’t skip math class.” I smiled and joked.

He turned to his left at me and asked, “Ain’t gonna fail like ya, bitch.”

“Ahahahaha!”

“AHAHAHSHHSAHA!”

“Clap!” The one on my right said as he moved his palm up, and the other one gave him a high-five.

“Ya know, pal, it doesn’t really hurt when your friends are joking about your mom and sister being a dick or some other shit like that, but… it hurts a shit lot when… when they joke about ya… Especially about something ya are going through, pal. That’s fucking… painful.”

I turned my head a little down—still smiling but a little depressed hearing that—as that guy pulled the glasses one by his arm just beside me.

“And it was not just one or two instances. And, he was just a friend. There were even toppers who… who were quite cheerful, ya see, and… sometimes… spilled their tongues a lot when they talked to me.”

***

“What? You hate math?” I was roaming with a friend of mine on the corridor with classes on our left and a glass window on our right, from where ya could see the surrounding buildings.

“Yeah, pal,” I replied with a smile. “That shit scares me now. So, can ya teach me math?”

He smiled and commented, “Obviously you failed, and that’s why you hate math.” He turned to his left at me. “Just practice daily. That’s all I can advise you to do.”

I continued to glare at him for a second, and then nodded. I then turned my head to the front.

“And it hurt me. And… perhaps… that was what made me do what I did that day…”

***

It was nighttime. The two groups—the one in reds and the other one in whites—stood facing each other about a dozen steps away from us. The three of us stood on the edge, just by the entrance, facing them.

The moon was shining brightly that night beside the clouds.

I turned to my left at Sooraj. He turned at me. Both of us looked into each other’s eyes. “Shall we?” I asked him.

Sooraj glared at me for a second, and then turned to the two gangs for a couple of seconds, perhaps accessing the shit we were in, gathering up the courage, and thinking of the reply. He then looked at me in my eyes again.

Both of us nodded at the same second.

Then, both of us turned to the fighting arena again.

Rohit smiled. “Best of luck to both of ya, motherfuckers.”