Chapter Text
Mahi had retired.
So had Sonu.
Just like they'd promised, years ago, over a shared dinner in some quiet hotel room where the AC rattled and the television played on mute. A pact made with eyes more than words — When one goes, the other follows. No drama. No announcement. Just that gentle nod they'd always understood.
And now it was done.
The celebration that night was blinding. Glitter in the air, lights too sharp, and happiness refusing to stay subdued. Everyone was shouting, hugging, pouring champagne into each other's mouths like it meant something more than it did.
But Mahi — he turned to look at Sonu.
Really looked.
Eyes catching the light in a way that felt unfair. Like age hadn't touched him. Like youth was still folded somewhere inside him, quietly breathing. He looked tired, sure — body worn, shoulders looser — but the spark was still there. And Sonu, for one terrifying second, wanted to touch his face just to prove it was real.
Instead, he smiled. Or something close to it.
He couldn't afford to admire Mahi in that moment. Not like that. Not in front of everyone.
It wasn't even about the crowd. It was about Mahi.
Because maybe he already knew.
He'd always been too perceptive, too still in a world that shouted. And Sonu knew — knew — that Mahi probably saw everything. The glances. The closeness. The unsaid.
And the stupid truth was: Mahi was beautiful. Not in some poster-boy way. In the kind of way that made Sonu dizzy if he looked too long. The kind of beauty that stayed with you in the quiet after matches, in the moments you forgot to guard yourself.
Maybe Mahi knew. Maybe he always had. He was beautiful in ways that made Sonu forget how to stand straight sometimes. And infuriatingly casual about it—like he hadn't noticed the way eyes followed him. Sonu's included.
So he looked away.
But the decision had already been made. In his chest. Quiet and irreversible.
He was keeping Mahi. In his eyes. In his life. Wherever that led them. In post-cricket days and shared silences. In photos that stayed hidden in folders named something else. In little rituals — saving the last bite of dessert, booking hotels with balconies, texting only him after every win.
And the cameras caught it.
That look. The one he didn't hide fast enough.
Headlines called it loyalty. Friendship. Brotherhood.
But Sonu?
Sonu knew exactly what it was.
It was the only promise he'd ever made that meant everything.
And the only one that might break him.
Sonu couldn't make sense of it.
If all of it had just been young love — the kind that dripped like sour candy, sticky and sweet and easy to call a phase — then why was he still like this?
Why did his stomach twist the same way now, even years later, even when he was old enough to be settled, married, dull in routine like the rest of them?
Why did the air still shift whenever Mahi came close?
He hated how his voice turned strange around him. How he reached for words and found none. How he kept checking doorways, mirrors, corners of crowded rooms — just to catch a glance. Not even a smile. Just... presence.
He thought maybe with age it would settle. Soften. Turn into something polite. But no — it festered differently now. Deeper. Like a scar he pressed just to feel something.
Back in their early India days, he'd been placed in a hotel room with the new captain. The M.S. Dhoni.
A name said a thousand different ways by a thousand different mouths. Aggressive, quiet, aloof, sharp. Everyone had their version of him.
Sonu didn't know which one to believe, so he chose silence. Just watched from his bed while Mahi unpacked. Waited for arrogance, maybe orders. He was ready to be ignored.
But the man just glanced over, nodded once, and asked, "You want the bed by the window?"
Sonu nodded. Mahi shrugged, took the other one, and started humming under his breath.
That was it.
Just that voice — low and lazy — and something that smelled like sun. He hadn't known what to do with that softness. Still didn't.
That night, they'd watched some mindless show on TV. Mahi laughed twice. Soft, deep. Sonu had pretended to scroll his phone, but really, he was memorising the sound.
Even now, he remembered.
He remembered too well.
The way Mahi's smile came easy when no one was watching. The way his fingers tapped on his thigh in rhythm with nothing. The way he listened when Sonu finally spoke, eyes too attentive, like Sonu was the one being studied.
He hadn't dared name it then.
He didn't know what it was now.
Only that it never left.
Cricket was behind them now.
And with it, everything they'd never said.
Sonu didn't know how to live in this world without Mahi at the center of it.
But how do you walk up to a man — and— and ask him to be yours?
"Could you please be mine?"
It sounded like a child's plea. And Sonu had already given him everything — his trust, his best years, his silence. What else was left?
It was raining when he boarded the train.
Not a storm. Just that steady, curtain-like kind of rain that made the windows blur.
Sonu pressed his forehead to the cool glass and let the water trail across the world. He thought, maybe he could be the rain — soft, persistent, a little bit lost. But would Mahi ever be the clouds?
Trains were peaceful in ways people weren't. They moved forward. They didn't hesitate.
They left behind cities, noise, and all the soft ruins of things no one talked about.
And that was the thing about leaving — it was a privilege.
Only the powerful got to leave without looking back.
And between the two of them, hadn't Mahi always been the powerful one?
Sonu wasn't sure if he had been loved. But he knew he had loved. Loudly. Desperately. In ways he never admitted.
Maybe love meant giving, but Sonu had given everything. And now, was he too easy to walk away from ?Had he handed over too much — every soft part of himself — and now had nothing left to hold Mahi with? Would Mahi leave, just because Sonu had already emptied himself at his feet?
Sonu let sleep drift him away from this land of possession and possessors.
Mahi had called him. After too many years.
A short message, Just: "Come to Ranchi. If you can."
And now, here he was — hours away from that farmhouse. The one with the sun-lit verandah, the dogs that always barked when Sonu arrived, the tea that tasted burnt and perfect.
He wondered what he'd say when Mahi asked how he'd been.
He considered lying. Or joking. Or dodging, like they always used to.
But the truth was, he wouldn't need to ask Mahi anything.
He'd know.
The house would tell him — in the worn-out mug by the sink, the books with dog-eared pages, the old bats lined against the wall.
All the quiet grief Mahi never said out loud would be right there, folded into the curtains and soaked into the floor.
And Sonu would understand. Because Mahi had never really needed words.
And Sonu had always, always been watching.