In Every Story of Mine (A Jassi-Hardik story)

Fettered

The very next morning, therefore, when the RCB and MI teams met on the practice grounds, Virat caught Hardik at his lowest.

He'd automatically raised his hand to exchange the greeting high-five they always did. Hardik stared for a bit, and reacted late.

"Oh!"—And he slapped Virat's palm.

"What's up?" Virat asked, surprised. "Still half-asleep or something? Wait, you're not Rohit."

Hardik's chuckle was weak, too. That got Virat more concerned. And his grin didn't reach his eyes at all. It didn't these days on the field and during the press conferences, Virat knew that—he'd seen it—but with his own ones?

"What's wrong, Harry?" Virat scolded gently. "You're not new to this. None of us are. Why are you letting outside noise get to you?"

"It's—"

"Yes?"

"It's got too loud to shut out," whispered Hardik.

It was like a blow to Virat's chest, leaving him winded. His unshakeable boy, who'd gone through so much, and always come out of it stronger, who—exactly like Virat himself—hated to admit defeat, especially from external factors...was speaking in a tone of...well, defeat.

"Outside noise can never be louder than the inside support, Hardik," he said, fiercely, and pulled him into a hug as fierce.

Hardik nodded, and held on.

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During the match, Virat hated the Chinnaswamy crowd, which he used to considered his home crowd, with more cold-hearted venom than he ever had, during all those times they cheered selectively for 'RCB' even during India matches, or sections of them mocked Rohit with offensive slurs when he was captaining India.

The relentless booing, the horrible slogans—

Hardik had been right—this was impossible to shut out.

At one point, when Virat was fielding on the boundary when Hardik was batting, Virat felt physically sick. He gestured at the crowd to stop it, but he might have been telling a wild beast to stop rampaging.

Wasn't it ironic, thought Virat, that the very people who claimed to love and 'idolize' him and Rohit didn't give a fuck about what their idols actually wanted?

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Hardik finished off the match with three sixes, making short task of the target. Virat could not bring himself to be unhappy at his own team's loss.

After the match, he stuck by Hardik's side like a leech just like he'd been doing the past two days. He'd understood by now that no assurance was going to be enough for Hardik—the feeling of 'I ruined everything' and 'nothing will be the same again' was too strong in him right now.

But he needed to talk. If he didn't talk and kept it bottled inside—which was very unlike Hardik, but which was what he seemed to be doing—it would only become worse.

So Virat tried distracting him.

Unfortunately, the first topic he chose was, "How are Natasha and Agastya?"

"Fine, I suppose," said Hardik dully.

"You suppose?"

"Natasha and I are thinking of separating."

"What?" Virat's voice rose. "What are you saying, Harry? Why would you say that?"

"I'm not joking, in case you think I am," said Hardik with a cynical twist of his mouth.