Rahul turned over again, trying to go to sleep, but the ridiculously sharp pain on the right side of his abdomen had only got worse progressively over the night. And he had never felt this kind of pain, either. This type.

It had begun with a dull pain soon after their match with RCB, his nearly-hundred. Maybe it was judgement for bashing RCB again.

He should stop bashing RCB.

Every time he did, something bad happened.

After another hour in sleepless daze, he tried to remember where the RCB team was put up. The north wing, probably. Virat, if he recalled correctly (which he doubted) was somewhere near the top floor.

Ok, the idea of going to the elevator and then crossing the corridors to find Virat's room terrified him. But it was just three o'clock, and what on earth was he going to do till daybreak if he couldn't sleep? Staring at the ceiling swiftly became boring.

Mayank was in the adjacent room, but catch him going to that idiot's room.

Rahul dragged himself out of bed; the ache sharpened. What was this pain, anyway?

Coming back to Mayank: he did not know when to let something go. He never understood the meaning of peace and quiet. He considered a day wasted if he hadn't needled Rahul about something and made him lose his temper.

Normally Rahul was good at the art of non-reaction. With Mayank, with Hardik, even Virat at times. Earlier today, however, Mayank had been so annoying—about the Orange Cap, again, which was currectly in Rahul's possession—that he'd snapped, badly, and Mayank had still been grinning, which of course, only pissed him off more.

By the time he'd stepped out of his room, Rahul felt he would pass out any moment, the pain got so bad. Eventually he just—gave in—and knocked on the adjacent door.

Of course Mayank would lock his door tonight. Normally he never did.

Rahul knocked out, louder, scowling through the haze of pain.

If Mayank didn't answer within 5 seconds...

4...3...

...he'd never speak to him again, he decided.

2...

The door swung open.

"K?" said Mayank sleepily. "What're you doing here? Come to boast about the Orang—" He stopped as he caught Rahul's expression. He looked up and down his slumped form. "You're wearing your injury-face," said Mayank, guiding him into his room, switching on the light along the way. "Did you hurt yourself somewhere?"

"No," said Rahul, collapsing on the bed (which made the pain even worse, but after a threshold you really don't care about how bad it is).

"So?" said Mayank anxiously.

"I've no idea what triggered this...this awful stabbing..."

"Where?"

Rahul touched the spot where it was hurting. Mayank started to say something, but Rahul interrupted with a weak threat of, "If you make a joke about too many biscuits, I swear I'll—"

"Of course I wasn't," said Mayank. "I was about to say Aashi gets cramps like these every month, so I wondered..."

"Mayank--" Rahul began so dangerously that Mayank retracted his arm around the former and stood up hastily.

"Just a second, I'll be right back—"

"Where the hell are you going?" asked Rahul angrily.

"To call the physio," said Mayank. Sensibly.

So sensibly Rahul wanted to snap at him again.

So: "Be quick," he snapped.

Mayank dashed out.

_____________

When Mayank returned with the physio, they found Rahul curled up on the bed, knees drawn to his chest. That scared Mayank suddenly—Rahul never showed he was in pain. Not unless it was something extreme.

He followed the physio up to the bed, and automatically felt Rahul's forehead.

"What took you so long," griped Rahul, just for the sake of, Mayank suspected, griping.

"Andy sir was sleeping, K. It's not dawn yet."

Rahul mumbled something illegible as their physio felt his abdomen, frowning.

"What're you saying?" said Mayank, swallowing his cold feeling of rising terror. "Can't you be a little louder?"

"Where's Virat?"

"Sleeping, I assume."

"Can you call him?"

"You're not on your deathbed, Rahuliya," said Mayank angrily. "What's wrong with him?" He turned to Andy sir.

Rahul scowled at Mayank, but his eyes seemed rather dim to the latter. They waited for the physio to finish examining. After a minute or two of silence, he reached some conclusion and went away to get medicines.

Mayank sat down on the edge of the bed and for lack of useful things to do, felt Rahuls'forehead again.

"Will you stop doing that?" said Rahul, voice feebler than normal. "I haven't got fever!"

"What have you got then?"

"How do I know?"

"I've never heard of crippling pain in the abdomen like this—" mused Mayank, running his hand through his friend's hair absent-mindedly. "In men, at least," he couldn't resist adding.

Rahul laughed, then groaned, clutching his stomach again. "Sorry for snapping at you earlier, Mayu."

The grin vanished from Mayank's face.

Rahul—apologizing?

"—now can you please call Virat? Please?" added Rahul.

Mayank felt normal again; ok, so he was apologizing with a purpose. He took up his phone to call Virat.

"I suppose you want Virat bhaiya to shower his Rahuliya with attention," he said smoothly. "But you're sick, so no one's allowed to tease you about it. That's why you're asking me to call him—Virat, Rahul doesn't feel well. And Virat comes running at top speed to see what's wrong with his Moi, and then no one gets to claim you even asked for his atten—"

"Mayank?"

"Yeah?"

"Please get your head fixed by a psychiatrist."

Laughing, Mayank was about to dial Virat's number when Andy sir returned with a couple of bottles of pills, saying, "Sit up for a moment, KL—take these..."

Mayank helped Rahul up, who groaned so softly only the former could hear him.

"It's ok," whispered Mayank. "It'll be better soon."

Rahul's lack of reply as he took the medicines meant that he'd somehow been surprised.

__________

Rahul didn't get Virat's attention after all, because Andy sir had given him a painkiller along with three different pills and told him to sleep. He advised Mayank to leave the room, but Mayank used it being his room to his advantage and didn't budge.

As Rahul slept, Mayank considered messaging Bhavana, decided against—she'd go crazy with worry. Same with Athiya and Aashita. If he told Virat, he'd come flying through the hotel and wake Rahul up straightaway. So Mayank settled for informing Rohit, Jassi and Hardik, who were in the Delhi, and they'd worry but not go crazy like the girls would.

As it turned out, boys could go crazy just as well.

___________

"Rohit Rohit Rohit!"

"What what what?"

"Mayank says Rahul hasn't responded to the medication!"

"Are you trying something else?"

"Mayank says they're taking him to the hospital."

"Oh," said Rohit. "Hope they get the cause soon."

"What if they don't?" said Hardik. "What if it's an—unidentified cause?"

"Please, Harry, it won't be an unidentified cause. It's abdominal pain—that's common, a lot of simple illnesses have that as a symp—"

"Mayank says he was in awful pain today morning."

Rohit got up to put an arm around Hardik, because he looked welly truly dejected.

"Don't worry, Mayank will call you back in an hour to say it's something perfectly commonplace."

"Rohit?" said Hardik in his I-know-you're-going-to-say-no-but-I'm-going-to-wheedle-anyway voice.

Rohit thought he knew what was coming. "No. You're not flying to Ahmedabad, Hardik."

"What if it's something serious?" whined Hardik.

"Look, you're not a doctor. And the bio bubble thing is strict, I heard there's already been some trouble in the KKR camp regarding that—"

"If KKR's allowed, why aren't we?"

"I'll lock you inside your room if I hear one more word about this."

___________

A couple of news came almost together: Rahul was being operated for appendicitis and there were 3 confirmed COVID cases in the KKR camp.

If there's been COVID in KKR, the whole team will be isolated. And who was the team they last played against? Yes, DC, reasoned Hardik in his head. So DC and KKR will both be isolated. So it's likely IPL will be postponed.

Or at least, this is what Hardik told Rohit he'd reasoned to himself after he'd secretly flown to Ahmedabad.

"Don't tell me you predicted IPL was going to get postponed," said Rohit.

"I did, Rohit," said Hardik innocently, already having reached the hospital. "I did."

____________

The surgery went well, and it appeared Rahul was none the worse for it, because when Mayank and Hardik were allowed in, he beamed at them before frowning.

"Aren't you supposed to be in Delhi?" he asked Hardik.

"I'm never where I'm supposed to be," grandly.

Rahul raised an eyebrow as the two of them settled down on the edge of his bed.

"Want a Hello Panda?" Mayank offered him a chocolate filled biscuit.

Hardik was seeing a Hello Panda for the first time in his life, unlike the other two, who'd grown up eating them and he loved the name.

Rahul wasn't sure if he was supposed to be eating biscuits after a stomach surgery, but he felt perfectly fine, so why not?

Munching on Hello Pandas, Hardik told them how he'd given Rohit the slip, in spite of him locking his door.

"As I said, I'm always where I want to be." He winked at Rahul. "At the moment I want to be at my sick brother's bedside, so here I am."

"I'm not your sick brother," said Rahul drily.

"Mayank gave the impression you were," said Hardik defensively. "He gave the impression you were dying."

"He was acting like he was dying," said Mayank, defensive in his turn. "Call Virat, please call Virat—that's how dying people behave, K. You're just about the limit."

"Have you ever had an appendix operation?" said Rahul.

"Yes, long back in my childhood," retorted Mayank.

"Whatever. You used to howl if you got scalded by tea."

"When?"

Unnoticed by them, Hardik emptied the packet of Hello Pandas smoothly before joining in the conversation.

____________

After a couple of hours, someone thundered into the ward urgently.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" demanded Virat at the top of his voice.

Mayank and Hardik shrank back.

"We—kind of—forgot," tried Mayank.

"Rahuliya?" said Virat. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I told Mayank to tell you...about a dozen times," said Rahul in an artfully weak voice. "I wasn't feeling like...like fetching the phone from my room and all..."

Virat was at his bedside at once, cradling his head. "I'm sorry, Moi, I'm sorry—does it still hurt?"

Rahul said something to him in what Mayank considered his I'm-recovered-but-I'll-act-weak-just-so-you-take-care-of-me voice.

"Oh, all right, all right." Virat turned to Mayank and Hardik. "You two. Get out and leave us in peace."

They obeyed.

"Little suck-up," said Hardik darkly.

"Why settle for us," said Mayank, "when you can have Virat bhaiya's attention?"