Did You Know Me? (Shubman Gill x Ishan Kishan)

Downhill

It was like Ishan's world went straight downhill from the moment he stopped talking to Shubman.

He entirely blamed Shubman for it.

Of course, on a different day, he may have been able to appreciate that his flight back home being delayed by seven hours was the fault of the airline and that the reason he tripped the instant he reached home and twisted his ankle was because his neighbours had arranged a surprise party and jumped out, screaming and waving cardboard world cups, and Shubman couldn't have done much to prevent either.

But it was all Shubman's fault, every bit of it, specially the part where he could not even crack a single smile when his older brother, who had sacrificed everything in his life for his career in cricket, came and told him, "Give me your best World Cup winner look, Ish. I'm going to frame this up and hang it in the clinic."

Ishan was glad he could pass off his tears as being overwhelmed.

"Oh, my dear," his mother swooped to grab him in a hug. "Our tears have dried out by now, why are yours still there? Hasn't it sunk in?"

"Okay, stay like that," Raj commanded. "Keep hugging him, Mum....come on, Ishu, is that your World Cup victor look?"

"I...I...can we do the photo later, bhaiya?" Ishan stuttered.

"Well, sure. Is it the ankle that's making you look like that?"

Ishan looked down at his ankle.

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "It's the ankle."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ishan started the two-week break before his next international commitment by disappointing every well wisher who came to visit him and asked for a detailed first hand account of his knock in the finals.

He couldn't say much more than, "So I scored, uh, fifty two, and Jaddu bhai hit the winning runs, and we, we won."

"He's chosen the wrong time to get modest," his father told their relatives.

"Yep, clearly," said an uncle. "Was hoping for an account like that of your double century's, son. How come the Word Cup victory turned you modest?"

"Chachu, let it go," said Raj, frowning. "You can go if you want, Ish."

Ishan smiled at him gratefully and slipped up the stairs.

The second thing he did to mark the beginning of the break was taking his cricket-days' photo album apart to pull out every one which had Shubman Gill in the frame, and God, he was there is every other one. How dare he be in so many photos?

At this rate, he'd be left with hardly any photo in his album.

The to-be-discarded pile was considerably thicker than the to-be-kept one. Ishan had just taken out the scissors and was raising it when a knock came on his door, followed by his brother coming in.

"Hey, Ish-"

Flushing, Ishan crumpled the to-be-discarded bunch and threw it over the edge of the table and said loudly, "Yes, bhaiya?"

"What on earth are you doing?" asked Raj.

"Um, just, uh, sorting the album."

"With scissors?" Raj gave him a you-don't-fool-me sort of look. "So, what's wrong with you? Mama and Papa have started to worry....and don't say it's your ankle."

Ishan sheepishly swung his ankle down.

"Come on, Ishan, spill."

"All right," said Ishan, getting mad. "You want to know what's wrong, bhaiya?"

"That's right," said Raj.

"I lost my best friend," said Ishan dramatically.

Raj stared, unimpressed.

"Ish, you were with Shubman like three days ago. You're going to see him again in two weeks. I don't think a two week break is anything to die over."

"You-you-" Ishan did not have words. "I don't mean the break, I mean our friendship, which is, well, gone."

His brother sighed deeply and put his forehead down his hand, all in a very exaggerated manner.

"You think your friendship with Shubman," he repeated, "is gone."

"I don't think it's gone, it's actually gone!"

"Are you stupid?" said Raj. "That's one thing that can never be gone, never."

"You don't know anything, bhaiya. Get out, I don't want to talk to you!"

"I know better than you do...." Raj paused to pick up Ishan's phone, that was glowing as it rang on silent. "And there, he's calling you."

"Let him call," said Ishan rudely.

"My, my." His brother actually dared to take the call. "Hello there, Shubman, congrats for the World Cup! Nope, he's here. Yep, still sulking. Sure. Sure."

"What did he say?" asked Ishan sulkily.

"Call him yourself and see," said Raj.

Ishan stood up and stomped on the crumpled heap of photographs.