The Indian cricket team had landed in India after their 2019 WC campaign ended in a semi final heartbreak.

As they were walking out of the airport, Bhuvi fell in step with Virat and whispered, "You should at least warn him about the rumours."

Virat glanced at Rohit, who was the only one in the team oblivious to the awful rumours that had been doing rounds recently.

"RIFT BETWEEN ROHIT SHARMA AND VIRAT KOHLI FACTIONS"

"BCCI REPORTEDLY CONSIDERING SPLIT CAPTAINCY"

"UNNAMED PLAYER CLAIMS THAT ALL IS NOT WELL WITHIN THE INDIAN TEAM"

Virat shook his head. "I don't want to give him the unpleasant news."

"But you do know that you're the one he's going to be mad at when he gets to know from a third party, right?"

"Probably," admitted Virat. "But I'll risk it."

As they had expected, media people were flocking in thousands outside the airport.

"Would you rate the semi final knock as your greatest ever, Mr. Jadeja?" shouted one. Jaddu walked past without a word.

"Mr. Kohli, do you think we would have got a different result if you had sent MSD before Pandya?" yelled another.

Virat's eyes flashed, but he was wise enough not to react.

They kept throwing questions, and no one said anything, till someone asked Rohit, "Mr. Sharma, how much of the split captaincy speculation is true?"

All the other members of the team turned to look at Rohit, hoping that he would at least pretend that he knew about it.

But Rohit's face only registered confusion.

"Split captaincy?" he said blankly.

"Yes!" shrieked another one, delighted to get an answer. "Mr. Kohli as Test captain and you as limited overs captain--"

Rohit looked horrified.

"--because there's a RIFT BETWEEN TEAM ROHIT AND TEAM KOHLI, RIGHT?" yelled a particularly malicious mediaperson in Rohit's ear.

Rohit shrank back.

Virat tried to catch Rohit's eye, now wishing that he had warned Rohit earlier. Don't react, don't react, don't react...

"The BCCI is supposed to be looking into your rift, which is past repair, as we were informed, isn't it?"

DON'T REACT, RO, shouted Virat in his head.

And then Rohit surprised everyone by throwing his head back and starting to laugh.

Within moments, he was literally roaring with laughter.

They had lost their dream World Cup three days back, and all people cared about was getting a spicy story--rifts and split captaincy and nonsense like that.

Rohit's laughter sounded slightly maniacal even to himself, and the thought of losing the 2019 WC started to bring tears to his eyes again, and as his laughter started to mingle with sobs, Virat dashed to him and grabbed his arm.

"Come on, Rohit," he said with unusual gentleness.

Rohit gradually stopped laughing as Virat dragged him to their team bus.

"Everyone is so stupid," cried Rohit.

"Don't mind them," said Yuzi fiercely. "Why would you mind spiteful people like them?"

Rohit's eyes narrowed slightly. "What--are you telling me you all already knew about this?"

When no one met his eyes, Rohit sighed. "Thanks a lot for not warning me," he grumbled to Virat.

"Sorry," said Virat, and seeing that Rohit wasn't really annoyed, he added unapologetically, "Don't start laughing like a maniac like that, Ro, you scare people!"

Rohit hit Virat across the head as they sat down on adjacent seats on the bus, and the rest of the team grinned.

"You show him, Rohit!" cheered Hardik, who could always be depended upon to uplift the mood.

"You Mumbai people had better not ganged up on me," warned Virat grimly, and that was, of course, the cue for Hardik and Rohit to yell, "Jassi!"

Amid the laughter of the team, Jaddu peacefully observed, "Those rumours aren't just spiteful, they're ridiculous!" because Rohit and Virat looked so much like best friends just then.

Everyone in the bus agreed wholeheartedly.

___________

As the rumours started seeming more and more believable, however, both Rohit and Virat started feeling uncomfortable.

It was like everyone had accepted it to be true. Even obvious.

Then in the press conference before the WI tour, it was clear that most of the journalists had come to ask Virat about that issue rather than anything related to cricket.

Virat categorically denied the rift; he didn't even feel angry as they badgered him with the same questions.

The only question that did bother him was, "Have you been in touch with Rohit over this period? Doesn't this make it slightly awkward for you both when you will meet?"

"See... I'll tell you something about myself. If I don't like a person, or if I'm insecure of a person, you will see that on my face, or in my behaviour towards that person," said Virat frankly, and Rohit grinned at that when he saw the conference later.

But the question bothered Virat inside because he actually hadn't talked to Rohit about this issue since they came back from England and went to different cities.

And won't it really be awkward when they would meet a week later?

Virat called Rohit immediately after returning from the conference.

"Nice interview," said Rohit, half teasing.

"No awkwardness, Ro?" said Virat directly.

"No awkwardness," said Rohit at once.

"Good," said Virat, more relieved that he'd care to admit. "In fact, this has given me a super idea."

"What?"

"Why don't we start giving the media stuff to go berserk about?" said Virat wickedly.

"Seriously, Virat?" groaned Rohit.

"Yes, suppose you tweet something like 'I don't play for the team, I play for the country.'"

"Ugh, no!" cried Rohit. "How cold blooded is that? How can I say that I don't play for our team?"

"You could say it a bit mildly," said Virat hopefully. "Like, not only do I play for the team--"

"Not the. My team," stated Rohit.

"You're impossible, you do know that, right?"

"I'm not going to call our team 'the'!"

"That's right, take everything on emotion," said Virat sarcastically.

Rohit maintained a stony silence and Virat conceded with a sigh, "Ok, say 'my' team or whatever, but do it."

"The media will be happy for days," said Rohit evilly.

"That's the spirit!"

So Rohit did that, and then Virat posted a picture captioned 'squad' without Rohit in it, and these led to mini internet storms and Rohit and Virat watched it all together with evil grins.

The day of the 1st T20 vs West Indies, though, they messed up while Rohit was playing dumb charades with Jaddu in front of a live camera. Jaddu was mimicking Virat rotating his bat and adjusting his helmet, and Rohit glanced back at Virat with a smirk and guessed correctly.

Virat, hearing his name demanded what happened, and Jaddu and Rohit, roaring with laughter, imitated Virat in front of him and Virat joined in too.

Social media was fine, but best friends couldn't pretend to be enemies in front of a live camera. They just couldn't.