For the first time since I could remember, I was calm in front of him. Not just bewildered and too stunned to speak, but calm and composed enough to push his pillar of a body off me.

It was like standing alone at the seashore in the dark of the night, watching the waves crash against the sand, brushing past my feet in all its foamy galore. I walked into it. The undercurrent made the sand shift wherever I stepped but I kept on going, wishing to be where the sky met the sea. I knew that you cannot be at the horizon. It was an illusion. Like I thought the quicksand below my feet to be. The only difference being that the quicksand was very real.

"I - You – WHAT?"

I tuned out my father's booming voice. Lately, I had been getting good at it. Mother stared at me in gaping wonder – horrified, to be specific.

Not what you would expect in every household, right?

Baba was unimportant.

Zara?

I looked around frantically until my eyes landed on her small figure peering stealthily from behind her mother. She wasn't looking at me – of course, she hadn't understood what I had implied. Instead, Zara's gaze was on our father, reading his every movement like the deer waiting for the hunter to strike.

The hunter and the hunted – I have been both.

"I – I took every precaution I could to be a good example of a man for you. What happened, Riyaaz? Where did I go wrong?" My father held on to the back of the sofa and leant against it for support. His voice was softer; his eyes lost and wandering, unable to find their way home.

"In thinking that all those beatings will make me forget who I am." I slumped down on the floor with my back against the wall and sighed. "You made me hurt one of my closest friends. Sure, I was the one who really did it, but you can't deny your most generous contribution in making me that way. You were almost successful in making me as bad as you are. But then I saw them. They did not deny themselves and they were happy. Ishan is happy with another boy, Baba, and I used to hate that it wasn't me!"

Baba clutched at his chest. "You can't do this to me, Riyaaz. I am old now, my heart cannot take this much longer."

I shrugged. "There used to be a time when I would have felt bad for you."

Just like an old, wounded tiger the gives a desperate chase to its weakest preys to sustain itself for a few more weeks, my father bounded across the room.

Should one be moving so much – one with palpitation of the heart?

"You will not speak to me like that, do you understand?" he held up my chin in between his fingers. "Not in front of your sister."

"- and sometimes I used to wonder how your home was, that it made you this way." I did not care anymore.

"Will you ever be a man if you live like this? You are young and impressionable. If you continue to be this way like a delinquent, you will never be able to become a father. Do you want that? Don't you want a normal family?"

"Baba, please, don't hurt him."

Zara, no. You are too close.

"Stay-" Baba raised his hand.

NO.

"-QUIET," the back of his hand would have met Zara's cheek if her mother hadn't caught it mid-air.

"I never want to be a father if it means I have to treat my children the way you do," I pinned down his hands with all my body weight. "There is nothing normal about this."

It's okay, I thought, looking at Zara's mother. Take Zara away from me, away from here. If that means it would keep Baba away from her, I'm fine with it. Let her have a normal childhood. I trust you.

"Are you still going to let Zara grow up around him? You're still letting Zara see this?" I could feel the angry hot tears scalding my impossibly hot cheeks. Zara had to stay away from this monster of a man. "She'll be better without him. Please."

"You imbecile, how dare you talk like that. Haven't you already learnt your lesson?"

"That's it, Ranjan. This was the last straw. I'm not tolerating you treat my kids like this." She seethed in rage.

Baba tossed a laugh of mockery at her. "And what will you do to stop me? As long as the three of you are living under my roof, I can do anything I see fit for my family."

"And what if we cease to be your family?" Her eyes burned. "Then you won't get to make the rules anymore."

"You would nev – hah! You would never do that. Listening to this brat now, are you? A woman and a toddler out in the streets – your parents' home, huh? Weren't they the ones who'd thrust you upon my shoulders? You still think they'd take you in?"

"That should be the least of your worries. Aren't you worried about your damn family name?"

"Shobha –"

"Shut up, Ranjan, you've said enough. Today you've tried to strike Zara, you've hit Riyaaz. You've been hitting the boy since forever and I just got to know that today!"

"He's not even your kid."

"Zara, come on, we're taking our things and leaving right now. Riyaaz –"

"I SAID HE'S NOT YOUR KID."

"You think your words matter anymore? Riyaaz is already of age and he is Zara's brother. If that's the only familial identity he is comfortable with, I will give him that. He's coming with me."

***

Zara's mother tried to wave down a taxi but it already had passengers seated inside.

So, this is really happening, I thought as I stood with a rucksack on my shoulders, the good half of a project in one hand (the other half was smashed flat on the floor of my room), and Zara's hand in another. The three of us had stayed locked up in our rooms, packing our essential stuff – it was mostly Zara's school books, my art supplies and tools, and some sets of clothes and IDs – having confronted Baba. He was still on the sofa in the living room – dumbstruck – even as we trooped out of the apartment with our stuff in tow.

Zara's grandparents had been called up and informed about our arrival. Mother hadn't looked very thrilled about it, and had additionally informed them that she'd rent a different apartment for the three of us in two weeks' time.

So we are really doing this for the long haul.

We were running low on energy as there had been no lunch and it was well into the evening, but none of us dared to breathe a word before we reached the grandparents' house.

I had never been here in all these long years. It wasn't that Zara's mother hadn't invited me to come over with them as they went to visit, but back then I didn't want to have anything to do with her side of the family.

The old woman let us into the house held onto Zara's mother and cried. I did not see even the hint of a droplet appear on her daughter's eyes. At long last, when she'd had enough, she said, "That's enough crying over a man, Ma," and pulled away.

"But – now, you'll have to live without a husband!"

"Sounds good enough," was her curt answer.

Zara's grandfather had taken an interest in scrutinizing my appearance from head to toe. "You've never come here before."

I had no reply for him except looking down at my feet and fidgeting nervously. I wish bowing in gratitude like the Japanese was a normal custom for us, but no matter what the media told you, the era of such displays of politeness here was bygone and curtsies were out of place.

He led me into the living room where we were to put up for the time being. There was a TV set, a bed, a tea table and a sofa – not too bad for a fortnight. I placed our bags in a corner. There were strings of dust and long, gangly thread-like spiders that you can squash between your fingers, but nothing that was unmanageable. I made a mental note to clean it up next morning.

The house was old and small, smaller than the apartment we used to live in. Every room had double- doors but not the huge, heavy kind. Zara's mother swung them open and entered the room with Zara following closely behind her. She began rummaging through one of their smaller bags, taking out comfortable clothes for themselves to wear at night.

It must be hard on her parents to feed so many extra mouths. Zara's mother would probably contribute her salary of the month, and Zara is still a child. But I'm not.

"I'll withdraw my application for the art trip, someone else can go in my place," I said, after quite a moment of deliberate thinking. "I'll get the refund and I will resume tutoring kids."

"You're doing no such thing."

I looked at her in confusion.

She handed the clothes to Zara and came up to the sofa to sit beside me. "You can resume tutoring kids once you return from the trip. Until then, study hard for your exams, fix your project," she looked pointedly at the wooden structure smashed on its side, "- and learn everything that you can, on the trip."

"But, given the situation, it would be better –"

"You have grown up, Riyaaz. I would've told you clearly if we could not afford something. I will be able to manage. You just be the Dadabhai Zara can continue to look up to." Zara's mother touched the bruise on my cheek that stood out the most. "Let me see if there's some ice in the fridge," she got up and left the room.

I just sat there on the sofa with my hands resting on my lap, and my knee jerking from time to time. I tried to wrap my head around whatever had been happening since the morning but it felt too good to be true.

I couldn't believe that we had made it out. The undercurrent had swept me off my feet and taken me to the gloomy depths of the sea, as black as ink. It brought me to a ghastly structure of a broken ship and taught me slowly how to breathe underwater. I could hear the roar of the storm brewing above me but I was safe here. So I stopped thinking about it and decided to just go with it as it took me.

Zara's mother was back with a cloth wrapped around some small cubes of ice.

"Riyaaz, about what you said earlier."

It was easy to understand what she was talking about without her really spelling it out for me.

The pressure of the water in this level of the sea is tremendous. Even if you can breathe underwater, can you really survive the pressure?

"I might have said some unpleasant things about it before, back when Divya got hurt, but I really want you to be happy and comfortable in your own skin." She looked at me while Zara's grandfather took her away to help her wash up. "I may not understand it completely but as long as you are happy, I am willing to try."

I had been wrong. Nature works in peculiar ways.

Did you learn to breathe underwater for nothing? You will survive the pressure of the water if you held out long enough. And when it is time, you will break through the surface and swim to reach the land.

The horizon is wherever you are standing. Right here. Right now.

***

These two chapters sized me up, punched me in the jaw, bruised my ribs and left me broken. Not my best but it took a lot in me to write. Have fun, lmao. And yes, the angst is finally over for real this time.

If you are interested in Haikyuu fanfics I suggest you read "In Another Life" on ao3 (archiveofourown.org). I read this a month ago and while writing this chapter, I remembered stuff from this fic and legit started crying last night.