Virat wanted to be alone.

He had been alone since they returned to the hotel, but that peace was long shattered after the up and down trip to Burj Khalifa. And after that, Rahul followed him, half-asleep to his room.

Virat wanted to be alone, but he didn't want it so much that he'd send his favourite little brother away to his own room, specially when he'd spent a whole hour in prison.

No, he would never do that.

Once he had made Rahul lie down on his bed and drawn a blanket over him, however, the latter's sleepiness vanished in a blink.

"You're not annoyed of the ruckus we created in the middle of the night, are you, Virat?" he began.

"A little—" conceded Virat. "But only because you didn't take me and took that breat Rohit instead."

Rahul frowned contemplatively. "You don't mean that."

"Mean what?"

"Rohit being a brat," said Rahul.

"Oh, I absolutely do mean that," assured Virat. "Whose idea was it, his or yours?"

"His."

"I knew it," said Virat brightly. "Cause if it had been yours, you would definitely have chosen me as companion."

Personally Rahul thought he'd have chosen Jaddu, which would have been the only way to avoid the getting locked up part.

"Hang on a second—" said Virat. "How did you happen to be talking to Rohit in the middle of the night? Did he bang on your door and wake you?"

"No, I—I went to his room..."

"Why?" said Virat peevishly.

Now Rahul remembered why. In the chaos of the past three hours, it had completely escaped his mind.

"Rahuliya," whined Virat. "Why did you go to Rohit's room? You know he's a troublemaker."

"Some people might say you're a bigger troublemaker than Rohit," said Rahul.

"Are you one of those people?" asked Virat.

"No," coughed Rahul. (He'd heard lies didn't count if you coughed while uttering them.)

Virat, who evidently didn't know of this bit of trickery, beamed.

"You all right, Virat?" asked Rahul, after an internal battle of should I ask/should I not ask.

"Perfectly," said Virat, "why?"

"Y'know," mumbled Rahul. "Everything."

"We've had worse," said Virat. "Seriously. We've had a lot worse. This tournament..." He ran a hand through his hair, sighing. "What kind of toss dependent pitches are these, Rahuliya?"

"That's UAE."

"I know we didn't bat well," said Virat. "We gave the bowlers nothing to bowl with. But it was like the toss decided our fate before the match even began. My luck decided our team's fate before the tournament began."

"You know that's not true," said Rahul, twisting his fingers together nervously as he studied Virat's expression. It seemed very defeated to him.

"Why could I not win one toss? Just one out of these two?" demanded Virat to the heavens above. "Why does my luck—"

"You shouldn't blame yourself for your luck, Virat...seriously...they say people make their own luck..."

"Shall I practice tosses then?" said Virat sarcastically.

"That's a really good idea," said Rahul, looking much struck, and it sent off alarm bells in Virat's head.

"No, honestly, I was just—joking—" he began quickly.

"No, it is actually the best thing we can do...the balcony's a good place to be practising tosses," said Rahul decidedly. "Come on."

He'd walked to the balcony when he noticed Virat still lounging on the bed. And he needed to be distracted so badly right now.

"Virat. Come on."

Groaning from deep inside his heart, Virat complied.

********

"Heads," sighed Rahul. "You lose again."

"What's the score?" asked Virat cautiously.

"You've won 14 out of 57," said Rahul. "How is it even possible?"

"Because they're independent and identically distributed events," said Virat wisely. "IID."

Rahul looked up suspiciously. "Who gave you technical probability and statistics terms?"

"Oh, look," cried Virat, pointing at the sky. "What are those?"

"Shooting stars," said Rahul breathlessly. "Aren't they shooting stars?"

They gaped at the pitch-dark sky streaked with a dozen bright silver trails.

"I've never seen a shooting star in my whole life!" Virat had gone into hyperactive mode. "Rahuliya, look, aren't they beautiful—"

At his companion's lack of response, he turned and found Rahul with his eyes closed and hands clasped, mumbling something inaudibly.

Oh, shoot.

He'd forgotten the whole concept of wishing upon a shooting star.

The stars were disappearing into the horizon, but Virat quickly closed his eyes, clasped his own hands and mumbled the first thing that came into his mind:

"Let my Vamika be perfectly happy all her life."

When he opened them again, the stars were gone.

********

"Ok," said Virat. "What did you wish for? You were praying for an awfully long time."

Rahul looked at him devoid of expression.

"I wished for Vamika's—"

"Shhh!" said Rahul fiercely. "You aren't supposed to say it loud. Or it won't come true."

"Gracious, what nonsense," said Virat. "I wished for Vamika's happiness, you?"

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO SAY IT OUT LOUD."

"You're pretty superstitious for someone who pretends to be so sensible," said Virat, half-fond, half-exasperated.

No, 90% fond, 10% exasperated.

No, 99.99% fond, 0.01% exasperated.

Hell, who was he kidding?

100% fond.

"Wishing upon a shooting star is superstition," pointed out Rahul. "If you do it, you might as well do it properly."

Virat was forced to concede to the logic of that. However—

"What did you wish for, Rahuliya? What did you wish for? Why won't you tell me? Was it related to Athiya? Was it related to Bhavana? Was it related to your Test career? Was it related to brownies and ice-cream?"

A cacophony of most disappointed human noises rang in the corridor.

"It's our luck," wailed Hardik. "What else would you call it?"

"Was it related to—" Virat was still saying, so Rahul stalked to the door and pushed it open, just to escape Virat's whining.

"What's your luck?" he demanded.

Jassi, Hardik, Jaddu and Ash jumped out of their skins at Rahul speaking out suddenly.

"We bought a bunch of Chinese lanterns and lit them in the terrace," said Jassi, subdued, "but they all turned out to be malfunctioning. They didn't stay up in the sky at all."

"They just shot straight down," said Hardik mournfully.

Ash, who looked the least upset and most annoyed, said, "Well, I did warn you they might be a scam. Have you ever seen that bright silver Chinese lanterns?"

Virat, who'd come up to stand beside Rahul, choked.

"No, you were right, Ash bhaiya," said Jassi, really mournful.

"Just to be sure," said Virat. "You guys sent a bunch of silver stuff shooting down the sky for superstitious old women to assume they were shooting stars and start wishing on them."

Rahul went scarlet.

"Shooting stars? Do they even exist?" said Ash drily.

"You'd be surprised," said Virat. "Some people wish on them and believe you shouldn't say out loud what they wished for, otherwise it'll not come true."

Jaddu exploded. "That's a nice bedtime story," he managed to choke out between his waking-up-the-whole-hotel-and-giving-everyone-screaming-nightmares laughter.

Ash raised his eyes to the ceiling in a gesture of utter despair before taking Jaddu's arm and pulling him up the stairs. Jassi and Hardik followed, still drooping with sadness over their lanterns failing.

"Hey," said Virat, brightly, turning back to Rahul. "I have a new superstition. Wish upon a malfunctioning Chinese lantern, then speak aloud what you wished for, and then it comes true."

Rahul pursed his lips to keep himself for snapping.

"So my wish is going to come true...and if you want yours, you should tell me..."

"We'll see to it that Viratee is happy all her life anyway," scoffed Rahul, as if Virat had been stupid to waste a wish on that. "We'll kill anyone who makes her unhappy."

Before Virat could fin anything to say to that, Rahul had turned and was already walking off to his own room, muttering something about 'stupid frauds.'

"What did you WISH FOR?"

"GOOD NIGHT, VIRAT."

**********

KL Rahul's wish upon malfunctioning Chinese lanterns, 1st November, 2021, 4:44 am:

God, please make every single person in the country who is blaming Virat realize how much he has done for us. How we would we nothing without him. Please get the world to realize his worth. The world needs to appreciate Virat Kohli's worth.

 A/N: Dunno why I'm in a Rahuliya-mood right now. Also, I'm gradually becoming the goddess of random, senseless plots, don't you think?