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

Their old normal, finally

Shubman was not pleased with the room arrangements in England when they arrived for the summer tour of 2024.

IPL had just got over, and their national team was all together after a long time. And when they reached the London hotel, all in a great state of excitement, they were allotted room keys from the reception, in an pre-decided sharing arrangement.

Shubman frowned as he saw Tilak's name against Ishan.

"Okay, what is this?" asked Shubman. "The first tour after IPL, we don't deserve this..."

He was looking around to find their captain, and there he was, coming in.

"Right, I'll fix it," said Shubman.

"Shubi, we're becoming seniors now, act like it," Ishan tried to say.

But Shubman did not seem to hear him at all and strode over to Rohit bhai.

"Rohit bhai," he wailed. "Why aren't the room arrangements flexible?"

Rohit jumped back as Shubman nearly knocked him over by mistake.

"Um, I'm not sure. If you want to swap yourself and Tilak, it's fine..."

"If you're not sure about the arrangements, how do you know Tilak was with Ishan?" demanded Shubman.

Rohit resorted to the very useful 'I am deaf' tactic.

Shubman muttered something, then called over to Ishan, "We're changing."

To Ishan, Shubman had always been the most adorable boy he'd met. No matter how old he grew....well, maybe twenty four wasn't that old, but it was older than eighteen certainly... in the very inside, Shubman never seemed to change from the adorable child he'd first met.

Everyone didn't, but Virat bhai and Rohit bhai saw that. Ishan did, too.

"Did you hear?" Shubman shouted, sprinting across the room to Ishan. "He said he doesn't know about the arrangements and yet he knows the arrangements."

"Yeah," said Ishan, smiling.

When Shubman reached him, Ishan impulsively grabbed him in a hug.

Bizarrely, it was the first time they'd hugged in months, since, well, the incident...

And when Shubman initially stiffened with surprise, then squeezed Ishan back hard enough to crack his bones, Ishan couldn't imagine why he'd ever been so stupid as to ban hugs with Shubman.

They were pretty much the best thing in the world.

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

Ishan was warm and familiar and comfortable and home.

The hug brought rushing to Shubman's mind an unending line of memories from the day they'd met six years ago... going from strangers to friends over a single conversation... discovering one after the other shared interests, favourite TV shows, favourite movies, hobbies... and going from friends to best friends in shockingly less time...the pranks, both the public and secret ones, the birthday celebrations, the trips, the countless photos to keep them in record...winning the Asia Cup together, winning the World Cup together...

Then Ishan gave his cheek an affectionate pull, right over the dimple, saying, "Love you, Shubi," which swirled the million flashes in Shubman's head to a one night, them ecstatic with a once-in-a-lifetime victory, hardly unable to stand with the amount they'd drunk, and Ishan saying, "Challenge you?" and a heated kiss before everything went downhill.

For a crazy moment, Shubman got an urge to say, "You know sometimes best friends kiss as trial? Want to try?"

He choked it back before he could say it.

You are a disaster, he told himself.

But Ishan loved him anyway, whatever way may it be, and that made him feel the richest person in the universe.

"Love you too, Ishu," he said, beaming.

Ishan beamed back.

And in that moment, it felt like, together, they'd snatched back their old normal from whoever had taken it from them.