Can Never Stop Looking out for You (A HulRat fanfiction)

Mahi bhai's request

Melbourne, December, 2014...

There are two kinds of people in this world—the ones who think the people they care about are always right, and the ones who have a clear enough head to judge right and wrong irrespective of personal opinions.

Rahul liked to think he belonged to the second category. At any rate, it wasn't as if he cared only for one party in this case. One was his childhood idol, a man he had looked up to all his life. The other was kind of a friend, a bit of a mentor even, but now he had realized, someone he had admired only because he played well.

____________

It was the worst day of his life.

He had utterly ruined his debut, playing two ridiculous shots; even he had no idea why he had played them.

India had managed to draw the match, but barely. If there had been even one session left, they'd have lost.

So, in the evening of 29th December 2014, KL Rahul thought his day couldn't get any worse. But of course, it could. And it did.

After dinner, the captain announced in an extremely quiet and serious voice, which could not be mistaken for a joke, that he was retiring from Test cricket.

The shock wave that passed across the room was discernable. Rohit, Dhawan, Bhuvi, Ash and Jaddu looked resigned, like they'd been expecting it. They also looked broken...like they'd hoped right up to then that Mahi bhai would change his mind. Most of the others, like Rahul himself, just looked confused.

The only person who apparently wasn't perturbed, was the vice captain.

"Right," said Virat.

It took Rahul a moment to realize that he was acknowledging the retirement. And accepting his own captaincy with great enthusiasm. No, he was not showing enthusiasm. But anyone with a vague skill of perception could see that he was not shocked, not broken, not scared. He was the one who had actually gained from Mahi bhai's announcement, and he wasn't about to lose any sleep over it.

__________

But when the shock of the news wore off, Rahul found himself revisiting the awful shots he had played and the awful way in which he had fielded. 5 days ago, one of the most important things about himself had been self belief. He had believed in himself, which was the only way the son of two professors had dared to get into the arena of cricket.

Today, though, there was nothing left of that belief and confidence. He felt like a failure. He kept wondering how on earth his coach had been deluded enough to let him think that he was born for this level... because he sure as hell was not.

The white jersey was draped on top of the chair. Rahul's eyes stung as he grasped that the first time he had worn this jersey was probably also the last time he ever did.

______________

The thing about Mahendra Singh Dhoni was that he had never been able to put anything above Indian cricket in his list of priorities. Even if he was not captain anymore...not even in the team anymore....even if Virat had, in the past two months, behaved in a way he had never imagined in his worst nightmares, Mahi's most natural instinct was still protecting Indian cricket.

And he was worried about the debutant, who had performed nightmarishly and yet pretended to be unaffected by it. They were the most risky kind of people, the ones most likely to break under the pressure of playing in the national team—the ones who kept everything bottled inside himself.

When Mahi made his way to KL Rahul's room late that evening, he found the door unlocked, much to his relief. In what might've been considered as a pretty rude gesture, he pushed open the door without knocking...