You Weak Creature with Girly Fingers!

The first time I met him was on my way back from college one day. It was a day like any other. And he looked like any other college senior. I was with two of my friends. He knew one of them and had a crush on the other.

I didn't really pay him much attention and he was busy talking to the other two. It was when I realized that the two of us would have to travel the same way by metro, that I looked up at him and smiled.
"Hey!"

"Hi...do you know this number by any chance? This person's been asking for my maths book from last semester. Check if its your classmate.." He seemed pretty friendly for a first talk.

"K..sure..temme what numba.."

I couldn't find the number in my contacts. I had two or three library books in my hand. He offered to carry them. Well, this seemed very gentlemanly, and for a half-mad girl like me, who found it very difficult to dedicatedly follow civilized human behavior, it was almost weird. I gave him a stupefied look,"No, I'm fine.."

Next I could see the metro zooming into the platform. A purple AC rack. He suddenly said mischievously,
"Hey, I'm lucky for you!"

"That's rubbish!"

"You are getting one of the rare AC metros! All hail, me!"

Honestly in my mind I was thinking," Why the hell does he have to flirt with me.. Hopefully and thankfully, I'm not the one he has crush on!"

I remember the metro was crowded and he did carry one of my books, but the smallest one, for which I called him 'weak'. Talk wasn't that easy. Mostly, I would look outside the window or talk rubbish, just to not let him pass the flirtish (as they appeared to me at that point of time) comments. As the journey ended that day, little did I know that this was only our first journey together.

As weeks passed, my outlook about him changed. And by the first month itself, he was my deepest confidant, my rock, my Brother. Together we have sailed through most hardships. Partners in all mischief, I have robbed his pocket well and returned  a good deal of slang with no hesitation. Initially, he proved to be a softie and would get annoyed and hurt. But by now he knows that its best to laugh away my abuses or just to pull my hair in reciprocation.

But all of these memories poured down on me suddenly and unexpectedly when I was travelling alone today. As the train reached Maidan Station, the new station map caught my eye. I remembered that it was just a few days back when he and I were observing together that new stuff had been installed here. I looked at the empty steel benches and remembered the ones at the back end of the platform where the one who would reach first would wait, before walking to college together. But that was towards the beginning. I realized suddenly, and it came to me as a shock, that there wasn't this irritating, thoroughly mad person standing beside me at the moment, whom I could call 'WEAK'.

The doors closed. The train moved on. His college is permanently over. He is getting ready to move to a far-off city for grabbing his MBA degree. And it's now that I realise how much I'll miss my brother.