ICT ONE-SHOTS (FRIENDSHIP)

Taste of your own medicine ft. Shreyas Iyer

During the last afternoon practice session on the eve of the KKR vs DC match, Shreyas and Rishabh kept barging into each other's camps. It wasn't like they were meeting each other after a long time, but it had been ages since they'd been on an IPL field together.

IPL time, to Shreyas, had always been majorly about Rishabh.

He was glad Rishabh still felt the same, even if their camps were different now.

Back in the hotel afterwards, Shreyas lay on the couch and contemplated.

It didn't feel strange, captaining KKR any longer. He felt completely at home. Every time it was DC he faced, however...

It didn't help that the DC camp was very similar to the one he'd left three years back. If it had changed, it would have been easier. But since it hadn't, every time he observed them from KKR's nets or sat with them, he felt like he had gone back in time. Straight back, three years.

He didn't notice the door opening till Venky's voice came.

"Coming for a walk, Shreyas?"

"No," said Shreyas.

"Coming. For. A. Walk. SHREYAS?"

Shreyas genuinely did think Venky hadn't heard his reply, so he said politely enough, "Er, no, I don't..."

"I heard you the first time," said Venky impatiently, "and it wasn't a question."

Shreyas got shirty at that. "I'm not going anywhere."

"So you're going to pine away after DC the whole evening? It's not even 6...start at 8 or something..."

Shreyas glared.

Venky shrugged back. "Come on, now."

Shreyas glared some more, though he started to get up, too.

"It's no use making faces, skipper." Venky hauled him up. 

"I have a name, can you please use it?"

"God, you're cranky. That's why they always say, don't start pining early in the evening."

*******************

Nitish, Rinku, VC and Suyash were all lurking around in the corridor, apparently to join in the walk. Shreyas didn't know whether to be pleased or insulted.

So he chose his usual route: be disagreeable.

"You check both sides before crossing a street, even if it's one way, Suyash..." "If you say another word of Tamil, either of you, I'll throw you in front of a moving bus!"

Two years back, he couldn't have dreamt of being this particular version of himself with this bunch of people. He didn't know when it had shifted.

"Ah, you wouldn't, skipper," said Venky.

"Think you're real smart, don't you?" Shreyas asked Nitish, as he tried to discreetly steer them into a coffee shop (he'd been issued orders to reduce his coffee consumption by his physio lately).

"Clearly, you're smarter." Nitish grinned and slung an arm around him.

Shreyas caught Nitish's wrist and asked, "Why do you wear appalling stuff like these? Even the street dogs are running away, see."

"Where?" asked Suyash, looking around.

"They ran away," said Shreyas. "That's why you can't see 'em anymore."

Nitish glanced at his flashy watch ostentatiously. "Needed to keep track of the time, that's all."

"Why the time, Nitish bhaiya?" persisted Suyash. "It'd be barely seven--"