Rohit was pushing Samaira on the swings when KKR's bus pulled in. The captain descended first and alerted the whole building of his presence immediately.

"HELLO SAMAIRA!"

Samaira looked around in alarm and found Uncle Shreyas bearing down upon them at top speed, empty-handed.

"Hello, Uncle Shreyas," she said cautiously, before she was lifted up from the swing and thrown into the air.

Above Shreyas and Samaira's laughter, Rohit chided, "Don't be such a spoilt brat, Yas, get your stuff from the bus."

"HELLO, ROHIT BHAIYA!"

Shreyas threw out one arm to grab Rohit into the hug, too. Rohit gave him a concerned glance and caught a suspicious whiff in the air.

"Have you been--" He stopped, realizing a toddler was with them. "Sammy, can you run back to Mom for a while, I need to talk to Uncle Shreyas?"

"I want to stay, Daddy," said Samaira firmly.

"Let her stay, Rohit bhaiya," Shreyas said.

Rohit could hardly have refused the two of them shooting him stubborn looks, but Tilak appeared in the park at the precisely right moment.

"Look, Tilak bhai is waiting for you, go and see what what he wants," he told his daughter artfully. "He'll be most upset if you don't go."

Samaira gave Shreyas a squeeze around the neck and ran off to Tilak before Shreyas could protest.

"Sam--!"

"Have you been drinking in the morning, Shreyas?" Rohit cut in.

"Uh," said Shreyas, "just a little."

"It didn't seem just a little from the way you ran here without your luggage." Rohit looked up and down Shreyas and added, "Show me if you can walk in a straight line."

Shreyas tried, though he must have known he wouldn't be able to, and wasn't. Rohit caught his arm after he'd taken ten zigzaggy steps.

"What's wrong with you? It's barely past ten. Not that you should be drinking at any time of the day, but especially not in mornings, especially not just before travel and especially not in the middle of a tournament."

"I didn't realize it was already morning and time for us to travel..."

"Oh, so you were drinking all night? Who did you go with? And how did you escape the bubble?"

"I didn't go anywhere, Rohit bhaiya!" said Shreyas, getting shirty. "And I definitely didn't go with anyone."

Rohit noted the loathing in the last bit.

"Haven't you made friends in the KKR camp yet?"

"No," said Shreyas bluntly.

"Why not?"

"I don't want to."

Rohit had started to get anxious; he started leading Shreyas into the hotel, but said lightly, "What happened to the Shreyas who can make friends with anyone through a card magic trick?"

"I can still make friends with anyone through a card trick, but I don't want any in the KKR camp. It will be like accepting KKR as my team."

"Yas...KKR is your team."

"KKR IS NOT MY TEAM. KKR CAN NEVER BE MY TEAM."

"Shh!" said Rohit, horrified. "You don't shout such things for everyone to hear!"

A wary glance around told Rohit there was no one near the elevators which they were approaching. In particular, no KKR player. Shreyas would've been in an awkward mess if there had been.

This is why people shouldn't be drinking early in the morning, but Rohit didn't have the heart to point that out again, because he'd caught on to what exactly was bothering Shreyas.

"I don't care if anyone hears," Shreyas said stupidly. "I want to go back to DC, Rohit bhaiya."

"I get it, kiddo...come up to my room, then we'll talk..."

Shreyas rested his heavy head against the wall of the elevator as it rose. Rohit kept a hold on his arm in case he chose that moment to pass out. If he'd drunk through the night, there was no telling how much he had.

"I want to go back to DC."

"I know..."

Rohit tried to imagine him having to leave MI after seven-eight years of playing for them, captaining them, being a part of them.

He couldn't imagine it.

But there was something even more. Leading the change in a floundering team, dragging it up from ordinary to extraordinary. Spearheading the process. What MI was to Rohit was exactly what DC was to Shreyas, and not many people, even IPL captains, could fully understand that.

When they'd reached Rohit's room and Shreyas collapsed on the bed flat on his stomach, he repeated the same refrain.

"I want to go back to DC. I want to go back no matter what the means."

"You have to be sporting about the whole matter, Yas," said Rohit, staying by the table to make a hasty cup of coffee. Lemon would be the best for the hangover, but he'd have to wait till room service brought it up.

"Sporting?" Shreyas slurred mockingly, his head buried in a pillow. "My team left me and I'm forced to play for an alien team. What do I have to do to be sporting about it, Rohit bhaiya? Smile and think of KKR as my team?"

Rohit had added coffee power to cold water before he realized he'd forgotten to heat it up, and had to start all over again.

"At least try to think of KKR as your team, maybe. And you can leave out the smiling part."

"I can't," said Shreyas.

"Have you tried?"

"No, it's like they're already a bunch where everyone knows everyone, just like we are--we were--in DC...I don't want to be captain of a stupid bunch where they all know each other and I don't know anyone..."

"You haven't tried to get to know anyone, Shreyas. That's not their fault." Rohit went over to him to coax him to sit up and sip the strongish black coffee. "Drink, you idiot, you need to clear your head."

"I don't even want to get to know anyone," said Shreyas, draining the scalding cup in one go.

"And you won't, till you let DC go."

Shreyas burst into noisy sobs.

"We're supposed to play DC this Sunday. I won't play against DC, Rohit bhaiya, I won't!"

The boy didn't act like he was twenty-seven or anything remotely close, Rohit thought with a hint of worry, as he tried to get Shreyas to stop crying. Was it possible for some people to never grow up?

"I know your old team means a lot to you, Yas," he said, trying to sound gentle and not impatient, "especially after the huge role it had in shaping your career. But you're a professional cricketer and you've got to take these things as they come."

"Don't you get tired of being professional sometimes, Rohit bhaiya?"

"I do, but I don't suppose you've got a chance to be tired yet, since you've never been professional?"

Shreyas snorted through sobs. "My manager suggested I should stop posting pictures with Dhanashree because of the negative publicity. And now I have to pretend KKR's my team."

Rohit couldn't help a smile.

"You chose this profession. Though I wouldn't place the two in the same category at all. I'd say don't pay attention to mindless people's negative publicity about Dhanashree, because I wouldn't. But letting your old team go and accepting your new team is something you have to do. Anyhow."

"I thought I could drink and try to convince myself of that, but it didn't work. It just made me miss DC more."

"As if you didn't know that always happens when you drink?" said Rohit, but he privately thought it was not a bad thing that the idiot had let out his sorrow, albeit in a questionable manner. Keeping it inside would only have kept intensifying it.

"Yeah," mumbled Shreyas.

"When you go for practice today, I want you to start making friends in your team, all right? There must be a couple of them you could like if you weren't determined not to..."

"I like Nitish and Rinku," mused Shreyas. "They're fun. I think I could've been friends with them if..."

"No if," said Rohit.

"And Venkatesh seems a really nice person."

"Shubman says the same," said Rohit encouragingly.

"And I always wanted to pick Russel's brain about what he does to his body to be able to hit those sixes."

"If you want strength for hitting sixes, I'm right here, you know," said Rohit, nettled.

"You'll still be my number 1, Rohit bhaiya," said Shreyas with a cheeky grin.

Rohit rapped him on the head, but the grin made him grin too.

"I better be," he said. "I wouldn't have you liking your new friends better than your old ones. Anyway, how about you go now and talk to some of them?"

"I'm sleepy," said Shreyas, yawning. "Really sleepy. I didn't sleep all night."

"And whose fault was that?" Rohit pulled a blanket over him and went to dim the lights. "Sleep, I'll wake you up before lunch. But you have to eat with Nitish and Rinku."

"Deal," said Shreyas, and drifted off instantly.

Yes, there could definitely exist some people who never grew up, concluded Rohit.