A love lost, A life gained

A glimpse of the future

Yuvi had moved on from intimidation to now planning a full on attack on the newbie. Saurav had tried to catch him a couple of times but had failed due to extreme usage of brains he is sure would never have been used for anything apart from mischief. First came the classic salt in water, which you know, he should have seen that one coming when he volunteered to do a water run. As it is he was busy with actually strategizing instead of babysitting and had not noted the overly cheerful mood he was in. He had actually even been friendly to Mahi all morning which should have been another obvious sign. Sourav was starting to think he was getting old at this point.

"Hey Mahi?"

Mahi looked up immediately towards Yuvi, though they were the same age, Yuvi was his senior here, "Yes?"

"Want some water?"

Mahi nodded, a bit relieved that there were no more glares coming his way. He was getting just slightly tired of it. However the first sip proved otherwise. Half of it was his fault, too thirsty to take a normal sip, he had taken a big gulp. It was salty enough to put the Pacific Ocean to shame. He immediately spat it out though some of it had already slipped down his throat causing him to try and cough the salty feeling away. It was as if his captain had a camera attached to them all. Immediately Dada was beside him, already turning to scold Yuvi while patting his back.

"Yuvraj Singh, what the hell did you do?"

"What? Dada come on you don't even know if I did anything, do you have such little faith in me? I? Yuvraj Singh?"

"Yes. Yuvraj Singh, you are you, that is exactly why I want to know what you put in the bottle. You are in so much trouble young man,".

"He did not put anything in it Dada, I just choked on a big gulp. See he can prove it to you by drinking some himself,".

Yuvraj had underestimated the newbie. Faced with choosing between water that had enough salt to kill a man, and Sourav Ganguly, the one man nobody would want to cross on a good day, Yuvi chose death and immediately took the water from the newbie, who was watching him with a suppressed smile. He did not succeed at not gagging. Dada sighed and took the water, taking a small taste himself and cringing.

"I don't even want to know where you got so much salt in the middle of the field," he paused and pinched the bridge of his nose, why did he love this fool so much again, "Go, run five laps right now. After this you are carrying Mahi's kit bag to the room,".

Yuvi left with an appraising glance at Dhoni, the newbie had earned his respect, just a smidge. Mahi gave a half smile at the retreating back.

"And you!", Mahi startled as Sourav rounded on him, "Rule no. 1 is you do not lie to me, why did you not tell me straight up? Rule no. 2 is you do not at any cost follow Yuvi's lead when not on the field, I have enough headaches to deal with. Go take two laps, next time you lie I am not above making it ten,".

Mahi immediately started apologizing for lying at all but Saurav waved it off, the kid needed to loosen up honestly, "Go or Yuvi will eat my ear off if he finds out you only got two laps, he doesn't know he is the only one who has run more than five as punishment,", he sent the boy off with a pat on his back. He sat down tired already because he just knew this was just the beginning of the headaches upcoming.

"Enjoying Captain?" Rahul walked upto him, overly delighted at his state.

"Jammmyyyyyyyy I deserve a raise Jammy, I am too old for this," he whined while Jammy patted his back in mock sympathy.

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Maybe a few good things did come out of Yuvi's pranks. For one, while Mahi never outright retaliated, he was good at dodging them and sometimes even doing an uno reverse. Biscuits filled with toothpaste? Promptly offered to Bhajji first. Setting him up by saying one of the seniors is furious with him? Mahi without wasting a second ran upto apologize to the said senior, which just happened to be Jammy who had anyway taken a liking to him but his sincerity made Jammy feel bad. Yuvi ended up getting thoroughly chewed out by the chill-est person in the team. The best one came when he poured water in his shoes one night, and Mahi accidentally exchanged his shoes with Yuvi because they had the same number and type of shoe. The scream of disgust after experiencing wet socks was music to the ears of everyone, while Mahi just cocked his head to the side confused.