11:42 pm, 4th November, 2021

"Virat!" Hardik banged open his captain's door and yelled. "Get ready in...3 minutes. We leave at 11:45 sharp."

"Where?" said Virat in alarm.

"None of your business," Hardik told him with contempt. "Just get ready."

Jassi, who'd come in behind Hardik, shoved him. "We're going for a susrpise tour, Virat bhaiya."

"Hardik, Jassi" said Virat, patiently, sitting up. "You know we've a match tomorrow. We can't really go anywhere right now."

"Virat, stop acting dumb," scolded a voice behind Harry, which turned out to be Rahul, already dressed for going out. "You should know perfectly well what all this is about."

"I know it's for my birthday," said Virat, raising his eyebrows. "I'm just saying that we can't go out, remember how the people reacted after we had a simple Hallowe'en trick-or-treat party for the kids. This—whatever you've planned—is bound to be worse."

Rahul's eyes had narrowed into slits.

"You can just wish me and give you your gift, Scowliya," said Virat, getting fond at the old nickname.

"This tour was supposed to be your—" began Hardik.

"What's going on?" Rohit had come up now with Jaddu and Ash trailing him, arguing about something. "Jeez, Virat, why haven't you gotten dressed yet—"

"Rohit—" said Virat, with a deep sigh. What could he do to make these guys understand?

"No, I distinctly told you to settle the payment," Ash said in the background, sounding exasperated.

"You didn't, Ashley," insisted Jaddu.

"You mean to say we seriously didn't pay the guy?" demanded Ash.

"Not if you didn't," said Jaddu smoothly.

Ash took a couple of deep breaths and turned away from Jaddu. His patience was wearing thin at the moment, and was not helped as he saw Rohit and Virat glaring at each other.

With Mahi bhai having wandered out to goodness-knew-where (he'd been flatly against a Dubai-tour on the eve of a match and had told them in no uncertain terms that they were irresponsible), and another Rohit-Virat fight on the cards, Ash heartily wished Jinks was here.

Wait, Rahul and Hardik were also glaring at Virat, so it couldn't be a Rohit-Virat fight as usual. And even Jassi was staring at the ground, looking mutinious.

"Ok," said Ash, "what's wrong?"

Everyone burst into speech at once.

"Virat is saying we can't go on the tour cause of the match tomorrow!" shrieked Hardik.

"Rohit and I spent ages booking it," said Rahul furiously.

"This really isn't fair, Virat bhaiya," griped Jassi.

"He's doing it simply to be contrary," said Rohit in disgust.

"You're serious?" asked Ash, astonished.

"I can't believe you guys are being so stupid," said Virat, standing up. "We have a match tomorrow, we can't go out on an all-night tour."

"Sure we can," said Jaddu. "No one needs to know we went." He grinned. "Pretty sure we can pull that off, Vi, we've done worse."

"But that isn't the point, Jad—"

"You don't want us to celebrate your birthday, fine, we won't do it, Virat Kohli," said Rohit.

"You're just the limit, Rohit—!" started Virat. "Everyone else has a few greycells to understand why I'm—"

"No, we don't," said Rahul, turning away and heading for the door.

"Rahuliya!" Virat went after him, aggrieved. "Rahuliya, you can't—"

The wall clock in the corridor chose that moment to chime midnight.

"Look, it's midnight, Moi!" shouted Virat after a disappearing Rahul. "IT'S ALREADY MY BIRTHDAY, YOU CAN'T WALK AWAY FROM ME LIKE THAT!"

"Birthday?" said Hardik. "Really, whose birthday?" He followed Rahul, who hadn't even looked back.

"Ooops," drawled Jaddu.

Rohit and Jassi exchanged a look like, why not? and followed the other two.

"Ooooooops," drawled Jaddu again.

Virat was looking after the four of them, his mouth hanging open.

"Are they seriously going to be mad about this?"

"Looks like it," said Ash wryly.

"Wait, are you on my side—?" Virat asked Ash and Jaddu anxiously.

"No way in hell," said Jaddu. "I'm not going to say happy birthday. If anything, I'd say miserable birthday. Ash and I arranged the bus decoration."

"Which we apparently didn't pay for," mumbled Ash. "Happy birthday anyway, Virat. I won't say I'm particularly thrilled you turned down our plan, but I guess Mahi bhai would be proud."

Virat's eyes lit up.

"Why? And where's he?"

"He didn't approve of the plan to begin with," said Ash. "Seemed to think we were being irresponsible."

"Oh, he's the only one who understands me," said Virat, getting emotional. "Is he in his room?"

"Nah," said Jaddu. "He left."

"Left? Where?"

"No one knows," whispered Jaddu.

That put Virat in a pretty morose mood.

"This is the worst beginning to a birthday ever," he grouched, but then his phone chimed.

'Incoming video call from Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal and 3 others.'

"Ah," said Virat. "See you both later," he said superiorly, though inwardly he was glad there was someone who wasn't mad at him and willing to wish him.

**********

The next day, Indian cricket fans, scrolling down Instagram, wondered why only those of Virat's team who were not travelling with the team right then wished him.

Kuldeep did, Yuzi did, Jinks did, Shikhar did. Pujji did. DK did.

None among Hardik, Jassi, Bhuvi, Jaddu, Rohit, Ash did.

Rift, the particularly spiteful ones among them speculated.

Well, this time they were partially correct, because as a disgruntled Virat discovered the next morning, he'd become an outcast overnight. Mahi bhai still wasn't back, Rahul's death glares seemed to be finding him wherever he went, Rohit kept taking digs at him, Jassi avoided him and even Bhuvi, though he had wished him in a normal and given him a hug, looked at him through reproachful, hurt eyes.

"So much for me hoping for a wish on my thirty-third birthday," he told to the table in general during breakfast.

"Whose birthday are we talking of again?" demanded Rohit.

"You guys are just mean," said Virat, glowering down at his watermelon.

"We are?" Jassi asked, outraged. "We wanted to do something special for you, Virat bhaiya."

"Jass, kiddo, I know, it's just that it wouldn't have been right," said Virat, who was, if truth be told, more than a little hurt to see Jassi and Bhuvi turning against him.

"Yes, because you always follow rules, don't you, Virat?" said Rahul.

"He has to, now," said Jaddu, lips twitching. "He's 33. Gracious, how old."

"You're exactly one month one day younger than Virat, Jad," said Ash in a bored voice.

"If being 33 means you're going to become conscientious and sedate, Virat, I'm not sure I want to associate with you any longer," said Hardik in a truly spectacular accent.

As everyone looked at him, Jassi coughed into his watermelon something that sounded like, "Foreign wife."

Everyone laughed at that, though Rohit and Rahul stopped laughing when they noticed Virat was. You couldn't laugh at the same jokes as someone you were sulking with.

"I'm your captain," Virat told Hardik. "You have to associate with me."

"Bare minimum," said Hardik haughtily.

Virat's phone glowed with another hundred notifications.

"Well, if you guys are going to be mean, I'd better go and reply to my real friends," said Virat, also haughtily, getting up.

That stung.

Virat disappeared in the direction of their room.

Jassi and Hardik exchanged a glance.

"He's probably going to get into a video conference with Kuldeep, Yuzi and Jinks again," said Ash, who felt for Virat.

"So what?" said Rahul. "Let him—I'm sure if Kuliya or Jinks asked him to go on the tour, he would have gone." He turned to Rohit significantly.

Rohit nodded, mouth full of watermelon (the hotel was out of everything but watermelons that day).

Hardik and Jassi, however, finished their watermelons quickly and were to be found not long after sneaking up the stairs to the corridor of Virat's room.

The door was slightly ajar, enough for them to hear in, but not enough for Virat to see them.

"You should've seen Rashid's face, Jinksy—" he was saying, voice full of laughter.

"We'd better wait till the call ends," Jassi whispered.

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Hardik whispred back.

"Just go in and say happy birthday," said Jassi. "Because it is mean to not wish someone on their birthday. We'll just wish him, not do anything else."

They shook on it.

"Right then, bye, Jinks," Virat said after ten minutes, and just as Jassi and Hardik were making to knock, he added, "There's Pujji calling now."

His stalkers put down their arms and leaned against the wall to wait.

The call with Pujji went on another fifteen minutes, and no sooner had he bid goodbye to him than Shikhar called. Bhuvi had joined them by then, and Ash came along, pulling along an unwilling Rohit and a scowling Rahul.

Then Sachin sir must have, because Virat was all 'thank you sir, I know sir, same to you sir, yessir, yessir'...at that point Jassi glanced at his watch and found they'd been waiting over an hour.

"Bye sir," said Virat.

"Not another call," hissed Hardik savagely.

"Hello Yuzi—!"

That was the last straw for both Jassi and Hardik, who threw open the door together instead of knocking.

"You've already talked with Yuzi last night," said Jassi in indignation.

Virat stumbled back in shock to see a dozen people towering over him (he was sitting); before he'd recovered from the shock, two lanky kids threw themselves into his arms, forgetting the 'we'll just wish him, not do anything else', yelling, "We're sorry, Virat bhaiya!" and "HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAPTAIN!"

Laughing, Virat hugged them back and ruffled Jassi's hair, saying into his phone, "I'm calling you back, Yuzi."

Bhuvi settled down on one side of Virat, Ash on the other as Hardik defeaned them all by high-class English birthday wishes.

"Where'd Jaddu go to?" Virat asked, but nobody heard him (or pretended not to hear). "And Mahi bhai and Rishu are STILL NOT BACK?" he howled, his voice matching up to Hardik's.

"No," said Rohit, "which serves you right, I'd say."

That drew Virat's gaze to Rohit and Rahul, who had not hugged him still, and were hovering near the door, shoulder to shoulder.

"It's ok, he'll be back," said Virat, airily. "Now if you guys could excuse me for a bit, Yuzi wants me to join in the call; AB and Dev should be there by now."

"Dev?" spluttered Rahul. "Devdutt, again?"

"Yes, him and ABD." Virat glanced at Rohit out of the corner of his eye and was gratified to see that his best friend had gone red in the face with anger.

Ash and Bhuvi exchanged a dry smile as Rohit, looking like he was swallowing something particularly nasty, managed to say, "Can't they call you later? We're talking to you."

"Really, are you?" said Virat. "Aren't you and Rahuliya sulking at the door?"

Rahul, catching Hardik unawares, shoved him away and squeezed into the bed beside Virat. "Well, now we're not. Tell Yuzi you can't talk now, then."

Virat put an arm around Rahul, who didn't pull away (it may even be said he nestled closer), and looked up at Rohit, grinning, who found himself grinning back.

"Happy birthday, Vi. Happiest birthday," said Rohit.

Outside, a grrrring sound came nearer down the corridor.

"And there comes your cake," announced Rohit, stepping aside to let Jaddu wheel in a towering cake, violently coloured in stripes.

"You brought a cake for me?" demanded Virat.

"Yes, and not even an eggless one," said Jaddu. "So you cut it quick, Virat, then we can begin eating it."

"But I can't even eat this!"

"Indeed you can't," said Jaddu, "it's chokful of calories."

"You deliberately bought a cake I couldn't eat," said Virat accusingly, though he did accept the knife to cut it.

"That was the point," said Rohit. "The non fitness freaks get to eat it all."

"If you eat any more than you already do, Rohit, you'd be—"

"Virat," said Bhuvi mildly. "Let's not go into that now."

"If you say so," said Virat darkly, and had almost plunged the knife into the bottommost tier of the cake before he paused. "But I can't cut it without Mahi bhai and he isn't here yet—and it's past noon. Has he forgotten my birthday?"

"Is that likely, Cheeku?"

Everyone's head whipped around.

Rishabh barrelled into the room first to ogle at the cake, crying, "Happy birthday Virat bhaiya!" Mahi bhai followed, holding a brown paper package precariously, which he held out to Virat.

"I'm sorry it took so long," he sighed, flopping down on the bed. He was sweating rather a lot, noted his mentees.

"What took so long?" asked Rohit, peering over Virat's shoulder as he unwrapped the package. "Where did you go?"

It soon became clear where, because the thing inside the package was a gleaming brown figurine carved out of wood—two of them, actually—Mahi bhai and Virat, fist bumping during a match.

A gasp of what could only be called envy went around the room before Virat handed over the statue carefully to Rahul and flung his arms around Mahi bhai.

"I knew you'd get me a nice gift," he cried. "I knew—"

"Weren't you asking if he's forgotten your birthday three minutes earlier?" said Rohit loudly.

"Rohit," scolded Mahi bhai, patting Virat's back as he clinged to him, telling him all about how Jaddu and Rohit had conspired to get him a non eggless ultra unhealthy cake so he couldn't even eat it, and how he had stopped them all from going on a reckless tour at midnight because they had a match, and weren't they stupid, and wouldn't Mahi bhai scold them and give them some horrible punishment...

"All right, Cheeku, that's enough," said Mahi bhai finally. "No, I'm not going to give them a horrible punishment, and I'm sure the cake is eggless. Isn't it, Jaddu?"

"Yes, it is," said Jaddu meekly.

"There, you can eat a thin sliver then," said Mahi bhai drily. "Go on, cut it."

"I was waiting for you to come before I did," said Virat.

"Suck up," said Rohit promptly.

"It's his birthday," sighed Mahi bhai. "You two could not fight for one day."

Rohit pushed everyone to get to the front as Virat cut the cake.

So Virat was forced to feed the first piece to Rohit, to which the latter retaliated by smearing the rest of it in Virat's hair.

"ROHIT! WE DECIDED NO SMEARING ON MATCHDAYS—!" Virat scooped out another piece to attack Rohit.

"No," muttered Mahi bhai. "You two could not not fight for even one day."

so much