ICT ONE-SHOTS (FRIENDSHIP)

Mahi bhai discovers the term 'Mahirat' (Mahirat)

"Here're the things I usually carry around in my kitbag..."

Mahi smiled indulgently. Just looking at Cheeku showing the camera the things he carries in his kitbag with that air of frank professionalism made him smile. He kept smiling throughout the whole video, till his cheek muscles had started to hurt.

Near the end of the video, ABD put in a guest appearance, and Virat said, grinning, "And I cannot practise without this guy."

Whether it had been ore-planned or not, it looked genuine and pretty sweet. Apparently, the people of the country thought the same, since the comments section was already full of people prasising ABD and Virat's relationship, and 'stanning Devirat.'

Now what was Devirat? wondered Mahi, as he searched it up on Google. Come to think of it, what exactly was stan?

He found out soon enough that stanning Devirat meant people who're fans of Virat and de Villier's friendship.

Cool enough, thought Mahi. Though no doubt a little weird. Like why do you think someone would be a fan of two celebrities' friendship?

The Indian public was decidedly weird, and no one could help that.

Mahi would be lying to himself if he believed he wasn't a little bothered at that dialogue of Virat's.

The one about him not being able to practice without ABD.

Well, he used to think he was the one Cheeku had a problem practicing without. Cheeku had certainly given him such an impression.

For the first time, Mahi wondered if Rohit's perpetual problems with ABD didn not have a little bit of justification in them.

Later that day, he happened to open Twitter (a very rare occasion indeed) and saw a violently coloured collage that read:

'Best brothers in the history of IPL:

Hardik and Krunal Pandya

Rahul and Deepak Chahar

Irfan and Yusuf Pathan

AND

Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers'

Mahi's brow creased. The post had a hashtag too—there is was again—#devirat.

Hmm...

This thing Devirat, it was starting to piss him off now.

"Good evening, Mahi bhai," said a VERY polite voice above his head.

"What d'you want, Jad?" sighed Mahi; him speaking in that extremely polite tone definitely meant he wanted something.

"Nothing," said Jaddu in his usual laughing voice. "You seemed busy, you didn't even notice me coming in, so I thought it'd be best to start off with wishing you."

"How nice of you," said Mahi drily. "Sit down."

Jaddu did. "Virat has come up with yet another plan of giving the security the slip and escaping the bio-secure bubble."

"He called?" asked Mahi, quite failing to rise to Jaddu's bait of telling Virat off. "Why didn't you give me the phone?"

"He said he'll call you later," said Jaddu.

"Oh," said Mahi. "Right."

"What are you bothered about?" Jaddu asked curiously.

"What makes you think I'm bothered, Jad?"

"You look like you are," commented Jaddu.

"Well, I'm not."

Jaddu discreetly peered into Mahi bhai's phone and took in the soppy collage and the soppier caption, and a light went off in his head.