Yash woke up sweating.
Not from the fever—it had broken sometime before dawn—but from the memory of Shubman’s voice echoing in his head.
“Maybe I do.”
The words hadn’t been a hallucination.
He’d been too aware. Too still.
Shubman had said it.
And then run away.
Yash stared at the ceiling, heart thudding, throat dry again—but not from sickness.
This time it was confusion.
Because he knew what he felt now.
He didn’t want to play this PR game anymore.
He didn’t want to pretend.
He wanted Shubman Gill.
And maybe, just maybe, Shubman wanted him too.
Except when Yash finally saw him again—late morning, at the breakfast table surrounded by teammates—Shubman was smiling like nothing had ever happened.
He didn’t even glance at him.
Didn’t ask how he was feeling.
Didn’t say a word.
Yash stood frozen by the juice counter, staring at him across the room, something icy flooding his chest.
So that’s how it was going to be.
Erase it.
Deny it.
Act like it didn’t break something open.
Later at practice, Yash laced up in silence, refusing to look Shubman’s way. Not out of anger—out of self-defense.
Because the moment he looked at him, he knew he’d crack.
He wasn’t ready to be that boy again. The one who hoped.
The one who waited.
So he kept his head down, batted harder than usual, ignored everyone—even Ishan, who raised an eyebrow at his unusually sharp mood.
“Someone woke up on the wrong side of Gill?” Ishan teased, catching him off guard.
Yash’s swing faltered.
“I’m fine,” he muttered.
Ishan gave him a long look. “Sure you are.”
Break time.
Yash sat under the shade behind the nets, sipping water, trying to focus on his breath. The heat. Anything except the memory of those hands pushing his hair back like it meant something.
Then he heard it.
From around the corner—near the benches.
Shubman and Ishan.
Their voices were quiet, but not enough.
“Yash is acting weird,” Ishan said.
“He’s emotional. It’ll pass.”
Yash’s grip tightened on his bottle.
“You sure he didn’t catch feelings?” Ishan asked, laughing a little.
There was a pause.
Then Shubman said, “He knows the rules.”
Silence.
Then more quietly: “None of this is real.”
Yash felt the air leave his lungs.
He stood.
Walked away.
He didn’t speak to Shubman for the next 36 hours.
He didn’t need to.
Shubman noticed anyway.
At the airport two days later, the distance felt colder. Shubman tried—once—to ask if Yash was okay.
Yash nodded, not even looking at him.
The dismissal stung more than he expected.
Later that evening, in the new hotel room—separate this time—Shubman stared at his phone longer than usual, hesitating to text.
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SHUBMAN: “You alright?”
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He didn’t send it.
Instead, he closed the app.
And sat in the silence of his room, haunted by the way Yash hadn’t looked back at him even once today.
During the next interview, fans noticed too.
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@gillsviupdates: “Yash looks… off? Less smiley. Less soft.”
@batsandbiases: “Something shifted between them. And not in a good way.”
@cricketteaindia: “Sources say they’re not rooming together anymore 👀 something happened??”
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Something had happened.
And it wasn’t going away.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
[End of Chapter 7]
YOU ARE READING
Not In The Script...
RomanceIt was supposed to be fake. But the jealousy felt a little too real. When a staged romance between Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal explodes across headlines, they're forced to play along. But as the lines blur, feelings twist into something neithe...
