(Before starting this chapter I want to tell that i had forgotten to mention that i know that deepak chahar isn't with csk right now due to injury but i wanted to show his and mahi's bond so i decided to add him.)
The team reached the ground and after warm up everyone got ready to practice.
Rutu was getting ready for batting. Mahi saw that he was alone and decided that it was a good opportunity to talk to him.
"Rutu i want to talk to you." He said after going to him.
"I have to practice" rutu said and stood up quickly.
"Rutu listen to me it's important." Mahi said but just then deepak who had already seen mahi going towards rutu and knew that he would try to talk to him, came there and and said"rutu come, i will ball you bat" saying this he holded rutu's hand and took him away with him.
Mahi knew they were not going to listen to him for now and let them go away. He decided that he would have to talk with them after practice.
The practice soon ended and the team went to the bus. Rutu and deepak were still ignoring mahi, not even looking at him.
Mahi tried to talk to them in the bus but they would always manage to make some excuse.
Finally the team reached into the hotel.
After everyone had gotten fresh they decided to spend some time together, to get to know the new players and make the team bond strong. And since everyone were there, mahi again couldn't talk with rutu and deepak who had intentionally sat far away from him.
Now mahi was starting to fear that they were gonna be more difficult to handle than jaddu. And the fact that both of them were united in not talking to him, didn't help the situation.
The only time he saw suitable to talk to them was after dinner since the team was going to stay together till dinner.
After dinner everyone went in their respective rooms and mahi decided to go to Deepak's room first and fortunately saw that rutu and deepak were together talking with each other.
"I want to talk to you both" mahi said entering the room. Rutu and deepak got alert seeing mahi bhai there. Seeing that they were in his room, deepak knew that he and rutu can't escape now.
"What do you want to talk about?" Deepak finally decided to ask.
"About why you two are ignoring me."
"As if you don't know" he replied.
"Well maybe i know. I am so sorry that i didn't inform you two earlier." Mahi said.
"Don't even bother" deepak interrupted "that's what I had heard when you took retirement from international cricket, remember?"
"Deepak it's not like that" mahi tried to say but deepak again interrupted "then what's it like?"
"Deepak try to understand...."
"What bhai? What should I understand in this? That you are never going to tell us about any of your big decisions related to cricket? That you don't consider us younger brothers who you can share anything with just like you ask us to do?"
Deepak wouldn't cry easily but by now he was getting emotional.
Seeing this even rutu was getting emotional.
Mahi didn't know how to answer. It was true that he didn't tell anything to them, but that was because even he was for the third time in his life hesitating to face the situation. The first was when he retired from tests, the second when he retired from international and this was the third.
"Bhai you tell me that i can share anything with you since we are brothers, then why didn't you share this big news with us? We got to know through social media." Rutu said breaking the silence.
"Because i knew if i would tell one of you then you would tell all the others and try to convince me to stay captain for one more year."
Rutu and deepak looked at each other both having the same thought 'yes we would definitely do that.'
"And i didn't want that." Mahi continued. "But why are you two worrying so much? have only left captaincy, i am still a player. I will still be there."
"We aren't bothered very much about you leaving captaincy" deepak said "we know you are still going to be there and we can still ask you anything, we just feel betrayed that you didn't even think that we deserved to know directly through you rather than social media."
Rutu nodded in agreement.
Mahi went and hugged rutu and deepak, who didn't try to protest because they needed the hug now. "I am so sorry once again. I promise this time that i will always tell before taking a big decision."
"So you will never hide anything again from us?" Rutu asked.
"Definitely not" mahi answered and deepak and rutu couldn't help but laugh remembering how crazy social media had gone due to only these two words in 2020.
But remembering the craze of social media, deepak also remembered something else he had seen today and his smile faded a little. Mahi realized this and asked "what happened deepak? What are you thinking?"
Rutu also looked curiously at him seeing the sudden change in his mood.
Deepak was hesitant whether to ask or not but he realized he had a right to know, he was his elder brother after all.
"I was going through Twitter and Instagram today" he started "and read many posts that this....this might be your last season, it is not true right? It can't be right?"
Rutu also rembered that he had also seen that type of tweets and he also got scared and waited to hear the answer with hands behind his back and the fingers crossed.
Mahi looked at both deepak and rutu's scared face. To be honest even he wasn't sure. He wanted to play his last ipl match in Chennai. He had even promised it to his fans. The problem was that no one could be sure what would happen next year. Where the matches would be and what kind of situation they would be in. So right now he decided to now think about that.
"There's a whole season, you both know that right? There are so many matches. So let's not worry about the future and focus on the present, okay? The one thing that i know is that i am going to play this whole season and it's better to just enjoy our time together then worry about what will happen in future. Let's just focus on the 2022 ipl and try to defend our title, yeah?"
Deepak and rutu knew if mahi bhai dosen't want to say something, he won't so they just decided to enjoy their time together. Both of them nodded and hugged mahi once again.
The next evening there was a surprise party for mahi and jaddu. It was organized for mahi bhai to thank him for helping csk win so much and for jaddu it wa organized to congratulate him and wish him all the best for his new journey. Every CSK team member and specially rutu and deepak,who wanted to organize the best party for mahi bhai and jaddu had helped in plans and arrangement. And the whole evening everyone just enjoyed each other's company without worry about anything else.
(A/n: I was going to publish the third part toady only, but i had to complete some school assignments and so the third part isn't ready. Buy i will try to update it tomorrow. And i am sorry that i couldn't show some others CSK members such as dj bravo or ambati rayudu or robin uthppa etc, but i didn't get any proper idea on how to involve them and i wanted to publish this chapter today anyhow.
Maybe oneday if i start a csk book, i will show their reactions in it.)
