Anuj's claim to affection (A Karna-Arjun what-if story)

The shift

Karna's pov

For the next couple of days, happiness and triumph came easy in the Kaurava quarters in the palace. There were celebratory feasts, charity camps, guest offerings. Karna felt a new respect from the servants whenever he walked down a corridor. He even felt an, albeit somewhat grudging respect from Hastinapur's royal elders. But the grudge was there.

The King and the Queen were fond of him, but undoubtedly they were fonder of their nephew. The fact that Duryodhan took the result at the arena to be one of the greatest victories in his life did not imply it was the result they had wanted.

"It does not matter," said Duryodhan impatiently when Karna mentioned it. "Of course Mother and Father were supporting Arjun. You know what a suck-up Arjun is, right? They would probably support him in a duel with me, too."

"That's not true," said Karna, shocked. "Your father loves you very much--"

"It was a joke." Duryodhan rolled his eyes. "Stop overthinking and come and have some cake."

"Cake is all we have been having for three hours."

"Well, I was bored of the kheer and the sweets. Come up with an alternative that is not kheer, sweets or cake."

"Or maybe stop gobbling for half an evening," suggested Karna.

Duryodhan stuffed a huge piece of honey cake into Karna's mouth to shut him up. Vikarna ran in promptly to join in, attacking Duryodhan, and Karna's misgivings were forgotten for the time being.

In time, he came to accept that you could win respect in your rival's kingdom and family; you could not win love.

********************

Once he was at peace with it, the celebrations became brighter for Karna.

Yet he often found himself looking around while alighting stairs or in the shadows when he sneaked in the dark, places where Arjun most often caught up with him.

But Arjun was still in the infirmary, and Karna felt his absence, even if he had never really acknowledged his rival. His constant presence had become normal.

To his surprise, he actually missed Arjun.

And maybe he was a tiny bit worried. The last time he had seen Arjun, he had been unconscious in his older brother's arms. Everyone knew it was nothing serious, but all the same, if he could ask someone after his health--ask simply if he was okay--

But there was no one. The people who he spent his time with would never visit the infirmary and the ones who did visit the infirmary would not take kindly to his concern.

Could things ever be normal again between him and Arjun? Karna wondered. It had not been anything serious--Arjun was not fatally injured and would recover, soon, and Karna had not meant to injure him in the first place.

Maybe he could go and tell Arjun he had not.

But then he thought from Arjun's point of view. It was easy for victors to make peace. For the losing side, peace would always taste the bitterest of all.

If he had been the one defeated the way Arjun had been, he would have left Hastinapur in the dark. He would never want to come across anyone who had witnessed the contest. Least of all his opponent. Arjun could not leave Hastinapur, but he would not be able to help wanting to avoid him.

There was no going back, Karna supposed.

The realization was immediately accompanied by the conviction that he had done something horribly wrong, and again, as had happened so often on loop lately, Karna had to keep telling himself he had simply defeated an opponent in a duel without even intending to injure him--he had not done anything wrong.