Virat was on 49 when the catch came to Rohit in the slips.

It was a direct catch. Rohit got his hands on the ball easily.

Come on, he's on 49, reasoned a strange voice in his head. Almost without realising, on a weird impulse, Rohit let the ball go.

Oh no.

The Chinnaswamy crowd roared its approval. The MI players gawked at Rohit as if they couldn't believe it.

Rohit felt blood rush to his cheeks.

He had deliberately given the best batsman of the world a second life. It was too close to match fixing.

No one should realise it had been deliberate, of course. Rohit put on an according expression of regret.

While taking ground for the next ball, Virat turned to smirk at Rohit. But Rohit flashed him a grin of supressed triumph, which he was sure no one else would understand, but he was also sure that Virat would.

He did, too. Virat turned back to the bowler with a confused and awe struck expression on his face, the wind completely taken out of his sails.

What did Rohit think he was doing?

Virat felt an uncomfortable rush of guilt as he remembered how wildly he had celebrated Rohit's wicket earlier that day.

Damn it, why did Rohit have to bring in this stupidity in their rival matches?

___________

Virat and ABD took RCB over.

As MI captain, Rohit's feeling of guilt at having let his team down intensified fiercely. Then it mingled with a stab of jealousy as he saw Virat and ABD hugging on the pitch.

Rohit did not remember being jealous of anything or anyone in his life except that he felt jealous of nearly every close friend of Virat's except those in their old 2013 team. It was always playing subconsciously in his mind, he realised, that anyone would love to be Virat's best friend. Though an insensitive prick most of the time--and Rohit couldn't help a fond grin on his face even as he thought this--Virat was the truest, loyalest, nicest person in the world.

Yes, definitely ABD would love to be his best friend, thought Rohit glumly.

No matter how many times Virat had shown that he didn't want anyone else, Rohit couldn't help the jealousy, however stupid it was.

"You're such an idiot!" hissed a familiar voice in his ear.

Rohit jumped out of his skin.

Virat was staring at him disapprovingly.

"Yeah, nice to see you too," grumbled Rohit.

"What did you do that for?" demanded Virat. "We never used to do stuff like that!"

"I didn't do anything," shrugged Rohit. "If you mean the catch, it slipped from my hands."

"D'you think you can get away with a dumb lie like this?"

Rohit rolled his eyes.

"You're mad," he said, starting to walk off.

Virat followed him.

"Fine, but don't expect me to do the same thing for you next time," grumbled Virat.

Rohit couldn't help feeling annoyed at how annoying Virat could be, all the time.

"I wouldn't," huffed Rohit and stalked off to his team.

Virat stared at his retreating back, suddenly feeling overwhelmed.

Rohit was always there for him, somehow. Whenever he needed a shoulder to cry on, whenever things became too much, hell, even when he was in the danger of getting out on 49! He was always there.

Rohit was really mad, Virat decided.

But what would he ever do without him? he wondered.

As he hadn't thanked him at all, thought Virat regretfully, he did the only thing he could think of... taking out his phone and sending his best friend a message.

___________

That night Rohit saw the message.

"What would I ever do without you?"

Grinning, Rohit called him. "Where'd you get the line from?"

"Nowhere," said Virat defensively. "It came to my mind."

"Really?" said Rohit sceptically.

"Yes, really," said Virat, laughing. "I dunno how I get these inspirations at times!"

"That definitely calls for a celebration," said Rohit sarcastically.

"Where are you--in your room?"

"Yeah."

"Be there in two minutes."

Rohit and Virat went out for a long walk around Bangalore, and stayed out nearly all night.

MI had an early morning flight the next day to Kolkata but RCB was to remain in Bangalore, so Rohit kept groaning, "Let's go back, I'm tired, I'll not be able to wake up tomorrow..."

Virat turned a deaf ear to his protests.

"I'll wake you up. I'm good at punctuality," said Virat.

Rohit met his eyes and, through the mask of the grown up man standing beside him, he almost saw the 20-year-old Virat who had said the same thing to him so long ago, and they both smiled.