Climb Every Mountain, With You (Shubman Gill x Ishan Kishan)

Necessity to escape

After being interrogated like a criminal in front of the jury for two whole days, his parents were convinced Ishan hadn't kissed Shubman for attention, Shubman hadn't forced him, the picture wasn't doctored to defame them, and that Ishan actually believed he was in love with Shubman.

That might have been a good sign. But it wasn't.

They put their foot down and his father said, "You are never seeing Shubman again other than a teammate, Ishan. No, don't argue."

Try and stop me.

"That is not possible, Papa," he said with a rare burst of courage.

His parents looked at him like he was something disgusting the dog had dragged in.

"What is wrong with you?" his mother demanded.

Nothing is wrong with me, Mumma. Maybe something is wrong with YOU.

Of course he didn't say it.

Somehow he wished he could have said it. He was sure Shubman would have.

He wished he was like Shubman. He always wished that.

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

Ishan felt like a prisoner in his own home.

His parents looked into his room any time they suspected he was talking on the phone. The one time he bolted his room from inside, his mother nearly broke the door down with her hammering. And he hadn't even been talking to Shubman right then.

He didn't feel like talking to Shubman till he had fought his way out of this mess, so he kept their conversations short.

Every time he stepped out for a breath of fresh air or for a cup of tea, either of his parents would ask in tones of deep suspicion, "Where are you going?"

When he gave the answer, it was clear it wasn't greeted with trust.

One time he snapped and said, "I am not going to go and meet Shubman in secret, all right, he's a thousand miles away!"

The row that followed was the worst. He decided to hold his tongue after that.

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

He felt his neighbours' eyes following him everywhere he went, even the shopkeepers. He was sure he could have ignored them if his parents had behaved a bit better. But he had a shrewd idea his parents approved of the looks given to him by the neighbours.

Serve you right. Teach you a lesson for kissing a MAN.

Raj tried to cover his back when he did call Shubman.

The ironical thing was, Shubman thought he was badly off because his parents were in denial. Because his parents were being nice to him.

"I am so sick of it," Shubman said one day. "You won't believe how blind-"

That was the second time Ishan snapped that week.

"Did you parents tell you they are sick of you, Shubman?" he snarled.

"What? No-of course not-"

"Did they tell you they are ashamed to have given birth to you? Did they tell you they can't step out of the house because of shame?"

"Ishu-!" Shubman sounded distraught. "What, what are you saying?"

"THEN DON'T FEEL TOO SORRY FOR YOURSELF, ALL RIGHT?"

Shubman was quiet for a moment.

Then he whispered, "I'm sorry....I'm...your parents...they're really..."

Ishan wished he hadn't shouted at him. But at the same time he was glad he had.

"Yeah, that's just like five percent of it," he said tonelessly.

"But-but how can they- they're nice people-" Shubman sounded lost now. "You must have misunderstood...."

"GODDAMNIT, WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO BE SO NAIVE, SHUBMAN?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," said Shubman, terrified. "I'm sorry for, uh, saying that-"

Ishan felt a wave of fury almost tearing him apart.

It wasn't at Shubman. 

He knew that.

He imagined how much harder it would be to deal with this shit if he had to add 'I hurt Shubman without reason' to the list.

It was painfully hard to calm himself down, but he forced himself to think of Shubman's innocent, beautiful smile instead of his stupid naivety and... Then, miraculously, the wave of fury sizzled out.

"I'm sorry, Shubi," he said, taking a shaky breath. "I'm all right. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Ishu-"

But Ishan kept his phone away. Shubman just did not get the magnitude and Ishan doubted he ever would.

It made him mad, but not so mad that he didn't know Shubman wasn't the one he was truly mad at.

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

As the days went by, Ishan felt like he was living through an actual horror story.

His parents were the monsters in the story.

He could not even remember how his parents used to be till before they got to know. He had a vague recollection. They used to be nice. They used to love him. They used to support his career. They also used to like Shubman a lot.

It was like they were completely different people now.

Or maybe to them, they weren't the completely different ones. Maybe they no longer regarded him as human. Certainly they didn't regard him as their son.

How could their son claim he was in love with a man?

One day when he had gone out for one of his usual walks for tea, he simply could not bear the idea of going back home.

He was practically in bedclothes, didn't have anything with him but his phone and purse and knew the idea that was forming in his head was little less than playing with fire.

But he set off for the airport anyway.

If he didn't escape now....

He couldn't think of what would happen if he didn't escape now.

So.

He escaped.