It was 4 am. 

Shubman was hunched on the window sill, wide awake, staring into Bangalore's darkness outside.

Over the past two and half hours, he had locked off his phone, downed five glasses of too-sweet coffee (his favourite drink, but that had only made him more awake than ever), tried to rewatch his favourite F.R.I.E.N.D.S episodes (mostly those concerning Ross and Monica), dug up his favourite Chhota Bheem episodes and tried to watch them, too, and then when nothing worked, tried to watch the highlights of his favourite matches, and it still didn't work. 

Inevitably he opened a new tab, and turned to the Tweets. They were growing by the minute. RCB supporters, awake all night. Tweeting away. Not about their team's loss. Not showing solidarity towards Virat bhaiya. Not even about Shubman, who had scored the century and eliminated their team.

They targeted his sister.

Abusing her.

Threatening her.

Writing such stuff about her that--

His sister.

He had gone through them fifteen minutes, and had started feeling more than a little nauseous. He forced himself to lock off his laptop, too, and thus he ended up on the window sill, where he could reach no electronic device at all.

At least Di was safe, away from these people. But would she always be safe? Could she be safe, outside home, with people harbouring such dangerously violent hatred for her?

Tears froze on his cheeks as the curtains rustled. 

He reached for his phone again.

***

'Di, I'm sorry,' he wrote.

His sister's profile showed her typing immediately. Her being awake at this hour meant his family was not unaware of what was going on.

'For being my brother?' wrote Shahneel. 'You're apologizing for being my baby brother?'

That sealed it. Shubman went from silent tears to bawling his eyes out.

'I love you, Di. I love you more than anyone in the world,' he managed to type with shaking fingers.

'Tell me something new,' came his sister's unsentimental reply. 'Go to sleep, Shubi. It's late.'

'You're awake, late.'

'Because I knew you would be. Now that we've talked, good night.'

'I love you, Di.'

'GOOD NIGHT SHUBI.'

Bawling harder than ever, Shubman typed back a painful good night, and several dozen messages of how much he loved his big sister till he got back an, 'I love you too. Happy now? Now PLEASE let me sleep, I have work tomorrow. Good night.'

They didn't sleep before wishing each other good night. That was their rule.

He sent a final good night and put away his phone again. But of course he could not sleep that night.

After a couple more hours of staring out of the window sill, sobbing, the clock ticked 6, when he thought breakfast started at their hotel. [Actually it started at 7, but he couldn't be blamed for distorting an hour a bit.]

Glad for something to do--even if he was sure anything he ate would come straight up--they were issuing rape threats to Di--

He stepped out of his room in a bleary daze and bumped straight into Virat.

***

It was not unusual, of course, for Virat Kohli to be up at the break of dawn before anyone else thought of waking up. 

Presently, he was in a lousy mood. More due to the silence of the Chinnaswamy crowd after Shubman's winning 6 than the actual fact that they had been eliminated--elimination was far too commonplace these days--

And then Shubman came barreling out and collided heavily with him.

"Watch where you're going, Shub!" he said in exasperation, rubbing his forehead.

Shubman shrank back instantly.

"Sorry--sorry, Virat bhaiya--"

"Wait, wait--"

Shubman had almost darted away before Virat caught his arm firmly.

"Whoa, what's the hurry?" demanded Virat, astonished at this strange reaction. "Stop squirming!"

Shubman stop trying to free his arm.

"I would guess you don't have a girl waiting outside at six in the morning, but do you?" asked Virat. "If so, you may certainly go."

Then he noticed that the boy's face was flushed and swollen. There were clear tearstains on his cheek. Hell, there were even tears in his eyes.

"What's wrong, Shub?" asked Virat in a hushed sort of voice, suddenly scared.

Shubman went for the stupid, automatic reply--

"Nothing, Virat bhaiya."

Virat assumed a sterner tone.

"Shubman, you will tell me what's wrong right now."

The next moment Virat wished he'd spoken more gently, because Shubman sank to his knees and dissolved into violent tears.

***

Thankfully Shubman did not attempt to push Virat away as he knelt in front of him and enveloped him in a huge hug. Choking on sobs, Shubman's voice, as he spoke, was almost illegible.

It took Virat several questions, and several minutes of rubbing his brother's back and soothing his forehead in between, to gather the story.

"Your sister?"

"People claiming to be RCB fans?" 

"And my fans too? I see."

Shubman extricated himself from Virat's arms and harshly wiped his eyes.

"Virat bhaiya, I'm sorry for--I'm sorry RCB got--"

"Jeez, Shub, we're sportspeople," said Virat, and almost smiled as he remembered Bhuvi apologizing after 2016's final. He pushed away the memory and indicated at Shubman's phone. "Show me."

Shubman's hands were shaking so much, Virat took the phone from him firmly and had to dig up the tweets himself.

They were all over the news.

"These?"

Shubman nodded.

Virat read through the tweets in silence, keeping a firm around around a sniffing Shubman.

They were appalling.

Instantly, his mind flashed back to the day Vamika had been threatened on social media. He remembered the disbelief that anyone could threaten a nine-months old child with rape. He remembered his rage.

And he also remembered thinking, I'm sorry, Vami.

He had been broken, even after dealing with abuse on social media for a decade. Shubman, India's golden boy, had only ever received love.

Today, for the first time he had seen hatred, and he had seen it not directed towards himself, but someone he loved.

It was no wonder he was still sobbing and shaking. The poor boy was absolutely traumatized.

It was always the women.

Always the women.

Virat looked up to meet Shubman's eyes.

"Give me a day, Shub," he said. "I will have each of these arrested."

Shubman's bloodshot eyes widened.

"Arrested, really? You can do that, Virat bhaiya?"

"Not only can I, I will."

Virat cast aside the phone and glanced at the wall clock. It was barely seven, long before he could start making those calls and ask favours. Which was good, because there was a very miserable and very unstable boy hunched against him right then.

He lifted Shubman to stand up by the shoulders and pulled him inside the room (people would find it very weird indeed that the two of them should be crouched in the corridor early in the morning, or any time of the day for that matter) and got him to sit down.

"Let me tell you a story, Shub..."

Shubman looked up, still rubbing his eyes with a fist. The gesture, absurdly, reminded Virat of Vamika.

Hiding a fond smile, Virat draped an arm around his younger brother, and spoke.

***

It turned out to be not one story, but dozens.

An Indian cricket star, if famous enough, could never have just one bad memory with social media and the public.

And Virat did not just speak of his own traumatic experiences, he spoke of Rohit's, of Jaddu's, of Ash's, of Rahul's and Hardik's, of even Mahi bhai's. There were scores upon scores of them. He contrived to emphasize how the spiteful ones who resort to online harrasment could never actually amount to anything in their lives, how their threats were as useless as their very existence.

Shubman listened in dutiful silence. He was truly a very obedient, model sort of child, Virat found himself thinking, before he realized he was not Shubman's father. Well, he felt like he was, at any rate, so what could he do?

Virat spoke of how they had been affected by the incidents, and also how they have risen above them all.

Shubman had stopped shivering against him at some point. He seemed to have stopped crying, too.

"Fame is as dangerous as it is alluring, child," said Virat finally. "Treat it with caution, and always be wary of it."

"Ok, Virat bhaiya," said Shubman, deferentially.

"Now get a couple of hours of sleep before practice. You have to win the playoffs, all right?"

Shubman nodded in a confused sort of way. Virat waited till he had gone to bed before switching off the light and leaving.

He had some important phone calls to make.

***

When the confirmation came during late afternoon, Virat ignored Faf's dire warnings of missing the flight, and went to catch up with GT's team as they returned from practice.

"Guess what, Shub?"

"What?" asked Shubman, in the sappy tone Hardik associated with Shubman and Kuliya using with Virat (and himself with Mahi bhai, but he ignored that).

"They've arrested a dozen of those bastards."

"Already?"

"And there will be more," assured Virat, "and soon it will be all over the news. Look--"

Virat showed him the message and images he had received from the DCW officer. Shubman blinked at the phone and then up at Virat.

"You--you--actually got them arrested, Virat bhaiya?"

"Do they not deserve to be?" asked Virat quietly.

"Of course--of course they deserve to, but--how did you get them arrested?" 

Virat grinned. "Yeah, well, former national captains tend to have connections everywhere, you know."

You could almost make out the stars in Shubman's wide eyes as he looked at Virat.

***

23rd June 2013. Champions Trophy final.

Ravi Bopara's double wicket maiden. MSD and Raina.

India reeling in trouble.

Virat Kohli had rescued India that day.

Virat Kohli had been Shubman's hero from that day. Always

Ten years later, it was not India's Virat Kohli who was Shubman's hero.

It was his Virat bhaiya.

***

"Shubman--"

"Shubman?"

"SHUBMAN!"

Shubman jumped out of his skin. "Wh-what, Virat bhaiya?"

"How long d'you intend for us to stand here?" enquired Virat politely. "Cause, you see, I have a flight in two hours, and it's blazing overhead and I'm drenched, and assume you are, too."

It dawned on Shubman that he had simply been gazing at Virat bhaiya without registering for--who knows how long?

"Sorry," he said, going beet red, and stirred himself into action. "Wait a second, I will get you a blue lagoon, Virat bhaiya."

"A what?"

"An iced blue lagoon," amended Shubman, and bolted.

"I have a flight in a couple of hours, Shub--"

"Just one blue lagoon to beat the heat, Virat bhaiya!"

Shaking his head with exasperated indulgence, too exasperated to explain that it did not matter how many blue lagoons he drank, he should not be drinking blue lagoons at all when his flight was due in two hours, Virat followed at his heels.

The kids kept getting crazier by the day.

A voice that sounded suspiciously like Mahi bhai's spoke in his head. Emphatically.

"Yes, they do. But they're your kids."

***

A/N: Introducing a new character in my fictional world in the 50th chapter of this book, 1) because he's awesome and 2) because I don't know why I hadn't before, because I love Shubman from even before U-19 WC 2018 semi-final, which I know is one of the earliest a Shubman fan could possibly have started. I love Shubman forever. KKR's Shubman. And GT's, too, though it took time to get over the hurt. Above all, India's Shubman.

You know the first moment you see Shubman Gill bat that this guy is something special. I certainly did (:

And finally to the people abusing and threatening Shubman's sister, just get a life, you morons.