"Virat, stop irritating me," mumbled Rohit, half asleep.

"I'm not doing anything!" cried Virat indignantly.

"Who is, then?"

"How about you open your eyes and see?" came Ravindra Jadeja's smooth voice.

"Jaddu stop irritating me," amended Rohit. "Both of you go away. I'm tired."

"It's Diwali," said Virat. "And we just won a hard fought series."

"Exactly, and I batted 50 overs," said Rohit, opening one eye. "So I deserve to sleep."

"I would've batted 50 overs too, if you hadn't run me out," said Virat emphatically.

"But he did," put in Jaddu. "Hence you only batted two balls."

"Whose side are you on?" Virat demanded of Jaddu. "I thought we came here to throw pillows at Rohit so he comes and lights crackers with us."

"And I bet that was your idea," said Rohit drily. "Go away at once."

"ROHIT! COME ON, WE'RE GOING TO THE TERRACE!" hollered Shikhar, bursting in.

"Saints," said Rohit. "is there no peace in this place?" He covered his ears with his pillow, but it was an absolute futile gesture if there ever was one.

Shikhar laid something very heavy on Rohit's feet, who saw that it was a lumpy sack, presumably full of firecrackers.

Ash trudged in, dragging three more sacks, groaning about Shikhar's unhelpfulness, and something about four sacks divided among two people meant each person carried two.

"There," said Virat with satisfaction. "You have to get up now, double centurion."

"Jaddu, call Bhuvi," ordered Shikhar.

"Are double centurions everywhere in the world treated like this?" wondered Rohit out loud as he finally sat up (having no other choice).

Jaddu came in with Bhuvi, who was asking mildly, "Are we having a meeting tonight?"

"Yes, a Diwali meet," said Virat, grinning. "A top secret one," he whispered dramatically. "Mahi bhai doesn't approve of crackers."

"I—I don't like them much, either," stammered Bhuvi, alarmed.

"Surely you're too young to be thinking of air pollution and the like, Bhuvi," said Shikhar flippantly. "C'mon, guys, give a hand to Ash."

Ash sent him a thank you very much look as Virat and Jaddu and Rohit enthusiastically relieved him of the three heavy sacks.

"I don't like crackers, Virat," said Bhuvi timidly. "Can I stay back, please?"

"No," said Virat frowning. "We just won a series, Bhuvi, I want you to come," he added whinily.

"Ok," said Bhuvi unhappily, because he was genuinely unwilling to go and yet could not turn down any request, especially Virat's.

Virat grinned as Bhuvi bent to help him carry the sack to the terrace.

"Did you two buy the whole shop?" Rohit complained to Ash and Shikhar.

"Of course not," said Shikhar, insulted. "We bought three whole shops."

"Shhhhhhhhhhh," said Jaddu eerily, as they came parallel to Mahi bhai's room. "Quick!"

They dashed past on tiptoe, trying to hold back their laughter, and unluckily for Bhuvi, who had kind of been hoping that Mahi bhai would spot them and send them back, reached the terrace safely.

**********

Bhuvi hung back when Ash, who was, somehow fondest of crackers among all of them, lit the first rocket to start off the proceedings. Then Jaddu attempted to set off two rockets together; they lit up the sky above them in a blaze of red and gold, and Virat and Shikhar and Rohit cheered.

"Nicely done," admitted Ash, who generally steered clear of praising Jaddu, because he knew him too well.

Of course, Jaddu got bold then, and the admiration went to his head.

"Bhuvi hold this for me," he said.

"Must I?" said Bhuvi, stepping away from Jaddu. "Virat, can you hold it for him?"

"'Course I can, but why are you standing there?" asked Virat, mystified, noticing Bhuvi standing at the farthest corner of the terrace.

"I don't like fireworks," said Bhuvi desperately.

"How can you not like fireworks?" said Rohit. "Look at the sky—doesn't it look beautiful?"

Bhuvi obligingly looked at the sky, but to him the glitter of blue, green, silver and gold was not beautiful.

"They're—they're ok," he muttered, taking another step back as Ash lit a sparkler.

Thankfully for him, Virat offered to hold the rockets for Jaddu as he sparked off four in quick succession this time.

Bhuvi crossed his fingers and squeezed his eyes shut, wanting to shout out a warning to Virat that this was not safe at all, what if one of them burst and took his fingers with it?

Jaddu exchanged a glance with Virat and indicated at Bhuvi cowering against the parapet; reaching a conclusion wordlessly, they set off a pair of charkhis and sent them sliding to Bhuvi's feet.

"Open your eyes Bhuvi!" yelled Jaddu.

Something about that prankster tone of Jaddu made Bhuvi's eyes open quickly, and he saw two balls of fire hurtling towards him along the ground.

Bhuvi screamed at the top of his voice and froze for a moment, too terrified to move. When his legs would finally obey him, not hearing the concerned shouts of his friends, he fled towards his right blindly, straight at where the pair of candles where standing.

For someone who had pyrophobia since childhood, that was far too much, and he crumpled to the ground, sobbing.

Virat, who was the first one to reach him, the others at his heels, knelt down beside Bhuvi and tried to put his arms around him.

"What happened?" he cried, Bhuvi's panic starting to make him panic as well.

"I hate fire," sobbed Bhuvi, grasping Virat's shirt with shaking fists.

"Shit," said Virat, eaten up with guilt to see Bhuvi crying like this. "We're so sorry, Bhuvi, we didn't know."

"It's all right, it's not your fault," said Bhuvi, still in tears. "Stupid to be scared of fire..." he mumbled almost inaudibly.

Jaddu, who was feeling twice as guilty as Virat, but had less than half his tact (which was saying something, because Virat didn't have any tact), asked nervously, "Uh, why d'you—y'know—hate fire?"

"Don't bother him," Ash said sternly, offering Bhuvi the bottle of water he'd quickly fetched.

Bhuvi emptied half the bottle before he could speak.

"A house in my locality burned down to ashes in front of our eyes some years back," he told Jaddu, though all the others were listening silently as well. "I'm sure you haven't seen anything like that, Jad, it was so awful, I can't look at fire before feeling like I'm back there once again."

Virat squeezed Bhuvi even harder than he was already doing, since his voice was still trembling.

"I'm sorry," Jaddu said, staring at his feet. "Didn't mean to traumatize you like that, Bhuvi."

"I—I know," said Bhuvi, extending a hand to shake Jaddu's, because the latter did look upset.

After that, none of them felt like lighting fireworks much, though Bhuvi said he'd wait downstairs for them till they finished.

"Crackers aren't nice things," said Shikhar, quite overwhelmed. "They're risky and they cause air and noise pollution, and even Mahi bhai hates them. We should stop lighting fireworks."

"I'm not asking you to give them up, Shikh," said Bhuvi hastily.

"No, he's right," said Rohit. "I'm giving them up, too."

"Me too," said Jaddu and Virat, over eager to make it up to Bhuvi in any little way they could.

Ash answered last, because fireworks were the greatest joy in his life, but after a painful internal struggle, he said, "Yeah, so am I." Seeing that Bhuvi was about to speak, he added, "I know you're not telling me to...we're taking our own decision."

"So what are we going to do with these four sackful of crackers?" demanded Rohit practically.

"Give them away to poor kids," said Virat, trying his hardest to prove to the boy leaning against him that he wasn't a total jerk.

"Overkill, Vi," snorted Rohit.

"Leave them in the damp to lose their potency," said Jaddu, vying with Virat to win Bhuvi's favour. "Because nobody should light fireworks, not even poor kids."

Bhuvi laughed, as Ash said mournfully, "Such a wastage," and Shikhar and Rohit rounded on him, Jaddu sent Virat a I-win sort of look, at which Virat glared and indicated at Bhuvi and him sitting shoulder to shoulder, making it clear that Bhuvi trusted him more.

Jaddu tried and failed to think of a nice retort to that, but he tried to make it up four years later, when Jassi and Hardik came up to Virat's rooms on Diwali—where all of them had been lounging around casually—excited about going to buy crackers.

"We don't light crackers, kids," said Jaddu superiorly. "They cause air pollution and noise pollution and are risky to human life, too."

"So original," muttered Shikhar under his breath as Bhuvi sent Jaddu an approving smile.

Jaddu stuck his tongue out at Virat, who smirked and pointed at Bhuvi sitting right beside him again, making it clear that Bhuvi still trusted Virat more.