Balarama glanced up from some documents he was checking to look at his brother. Krishna sat beside him, also supposed to be doing some official work, but he seemed to just be sitting, blankly staring at the words on the sheet in his hand. Balarama decided to just elbow him to get his attention. Krishna turned to him, brows raised.

"Forgotten how to read, have you?" Balarama asked with a slightly mocking expression.

Krishna didn't respond, and instead, he turned away entirely. Balarama grimaced a little, wondering if he was genuinely upset about something.

"What's wrong?"

Krishna shook his head without a word.

"You look like moody, six year old Kanha. Don't pretend now. What is it?"

"I really wish I was a moody six year old."

Balarama put the documents away. "You aren't. You're apparently an adult who suffers through the most ridiculous stuff. You were at Kurukshetra and you haven't spoken properly to anyone since your return. I'd yell at you for not speaking to me if you didn't look so broken all the time."

"You know what happened at the war anyway." Krishna mumbled.

"There's definitely something that I don't know and you're refusing to tell me."

Krishna chose silence once again, because his brother could read him like am open book even if he tried to lie.

"Come on, now. That war was unbelievable anyway. One more event, right? That's all. What happened, tell me?"

"You have no idea how annoying you are." Krishna whispered, gritting his teeth, but wanting nothing more than to tell everything to his brother.

"And you have no idea how annoying you are. Kanha, what's the point of pretending like this? You want to tell me, but you're afraid I'll be hurt? I can almost see that on your face."

Krishna remained still and silent for a couple of moments until he conceded, "It's not fair that you understand everything."

Balarama couldn't help but chuckle. "I'm not going to be hurt by anything. If you trust me with this, I assure you it's not going to hurt me. Your behaviour at the moment hurts me more." He paused for a moment. "Wow, I almost sounded like Yashoda Maiya!" Little Kanha would steal butter and then lie about it to Yashoda, and she would express her disappointment in his lying to her in a similar tone.

Krishna laughed, still making no eye contact with his brother. He was afraid he'd crumble if he looked up.

His brother, however, glared at him, annoyed, and lifted his face up almost violently. "You'll tell me now or I'll be beating you up."

Krishna almost smiled at his brother's excessively overused threat. He knew Balarama wasn't going to beat him up or anything. But he also knew he wasn't going to be able to hide anything any longer. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath.

Balarama wondered what intense monologue the boy was going to go on, for which he needed so much preoeration, but he refrained from making random comments at the moment, for once.

"After the end of the war, I spoke to Devi Gandhari. I don't need to tell you how pained she was by the war. You know how many children she lost and how, and the last thing I want to do is recall all of that."

Clearly, Krishna was already recalling scenes of limbs being ripped apart and all of that. Kurukshetra had been beyond brutal for the ones who had died, but the ones who had survived seemed to relive the war every moment of everyday. Balarama placed a hand on his shoulder and Krishna attempted a little smile, his eyes still closed.

"She was upset. I mean, devastated, and she was not very happy with me. She saw a war take her whole family, nearly all of the Kurus. So, she cursed me."

Krishna opened his eyes to see his brother's reaction but Balarama was great at responding to most things with a raise of his brows. He looked questioning and curious, apart from looking a little concerned. On the inside, though, because Krishna had said she had cursed him, Balarama was almost in a state of panic, because he couldn't imagine something happening to Krishna and him being unable to protect his little brother.
"Go on,"

Krishna smiled wryly. "It's not happening soon, but due to her curse, we're now destined to see the whole family, all of the Yadavas, die in front of our eyes. Our friends, family, children, everyone. They'll fight against one another and die, just like the Kurus. This will be how we see the end of the Yadavas."

Balarama frowned, slightly confused about his brother's constant use of "we" and "us" but he tried not to overanalyse every detail. "Kanha, you know everything has to come to an end in some way or the other. We are destined to see our end this way. You accepted the curse, didn't you?" Krishna nodded. "Now leave it to destiny. Would we have been immortal if not for this curse?" Balarama asked, smiling a little.

"It's not about my death, Dau, but the children. Everybody will die but those younger than me shouldn't be dying in front of my eyes. All the Yadava children will die before me. All my loved ones. I'll be seeing the death of every last Yadava that exists." He looked up at his brother and his eyes suddenly seemed to reflect newfound horror. He shook his head slightly, almost like he was in denial of some sort, and whispered an inaudible "No!"

"What?" Balarama was completely confused but he ensured not to look too affected by anything being said to him.

"Dau,"

Balarama nodded patiently in response to his terrified whisper.

"You won't be..." He could barely speak anymore than that.

"Kanha," Balarama wrapped an arm around him. "Calm down. Relax, and then tell me what you-"

He didn't follow the first instruction. "You won't die before me, right?" He was panting like he had just nearly drowned in the ocean and had been rescued a moment ago.

Balarama smiled rather sheepishly and looked down.

"Answer me!"

"You know the answer, Kanhaiya." he said gently.

Krishna shook his head, still out of breath. "I can't... I won't let anything happen to you. Dau, I can't live without you. It's not fair!"

"Kanhaaa!" Balarama chuckled. "Until you were born, I had to live without you, right? This is your turn to live for a bit without me, alri-"

"I cannot stand you and this is why!"

Balarama noticed the tears that had filled his brother's eyes. Krishna expertly kept them from spilling and in seconds, they were gone. Balarama was more worried about something else though. If everybody would die before Krishna, would there be nobody to hold him as he died?

"You won't tell anybody about this now." Krishna said, sounding more threatening than he normally would have. Balarama smiled at the tone and nodded with a hint of mock submissiveness.

"You're such an emotional, adorable child, I can't believe people actually place you on a pedestal so high-"

"I'm a child to nobody but you." Krishna said with a sniffle.

Balarama grinned at his child, shaking his head. "But you're also a massive show-off. Flaunting Sudarshana, killing people with bare hands, master of the use of all Shastras and Shaastras."

"I don't show off. I just don't pretend not to be what I truly am. Unlike some people." He looked up and down at Balarama.

"I prefer not to be the centre of attraction at all times. Then again, you can't not be the centre of attraction. You're the centre of the universe itself, aren't you?"

Krishna tried to come up with a response witty enough to counter that and Balarama continued to try and distract him from the Kurus and the consequences of their war.

×××××

A/N: first off, help me title this pls🫡

Wow this book has been revived one year later. I can't even find the thing I used as the fancy divider in the first chapter 😭

I know I keep saying this, but I hope the angst isn't boring you. I'll still be writing it, but I hope it's not overly repetitive 🫠

Anyhow, can you guess what this is leading up to- (my heart is breaking because of what this will lead to-)

There are more parts to this, definitely. The next part will be out soon too 🥹 But that's about all I have to say, so thanks for readinggg! Byeeeebdjsndjff!