After a very long time, when Nitish and Venky felt up to returning to the hall, they found the party still going on in full swing.

"Hi Nitish bhaiya, hi Venky bhaiya," said Rinku with bright eyes. "You're back!"

"And you didn't come looking for us!" said Nitish.

"Er--"

"Nitish!" scolded Venky.

"What?" complained Nitish. "He should come and looked for us--he shouldn't have just stayed on in the party--"

"HEY GUYS!" Shreyas bore down upon them. "YOU MADE UP! YOU'RE FRIENDS AGAIN!" He turned and bellowed to everyone, raising a glass in a cheers!-gesture. "NITISH AND VENKY ARE FRIENDS AGAIN!"

Everyone cheered at the top of their voice and swarmed over to hug the two in question. Venky, shaking his head, bore with it, but Nitish rounded on Shreyas.

"And why did you, being the captain, let the celebrations go ahead without the two of us being friends?"

"How could he help that, Nitish?" asked Venky.

"I DON'T KNOW, HE SHOULD KNOW, HE'S THE CAPTAIN."

Shreyas backed away, foreseeing trouble.

"And Rinku!" Nitish grabbed Rinku's arm. "And you too," he added to VC who was watching with wide eyes. "How did you guys lift a trophy and dance for--" He consulted his watch. "--four hours when Venky and I weren't talking?" 

"Well, it was unfortunate that you two chose this exact time not to talk," said VC, deadpan.

"When that unfortunate thing did happen, why did you not do anything?"

"Like?" demanded Shreyas.

Nitish turned to Venky, who was hardwired to support each and every of Nitish's hare-brained ideas.

"Like postpone lifting of the trophy till we'd made up," he said solemnly.

"How--" began Shreyas.

"If you didn't collect the trophy, we couldn't have lifted it," said Nitish.

"Yeah, as captain, you were the ones calling all the shots, skip," added Venky.

"No, I was not! They called my name and I had to go and collect the trophy!" said Shreyas.

"I fail to understand," Gambhir, who'd somehow been convinced to stay up late by Manish, said, "why you are bothering to justify yourself at this point, Shreyas."

"Because they always gang up and blame me for everything," wailed Shreyas.

"Who fault is it, this time?" asked Nitish.

Angky tried to speak up for the sake of justice.

"Nitish bhaiya, he couldn't have refused to collect the trophy--"

Nitish gave Angky such a look, he promptly melted into the crowd.

"He could have," said Venky. "If they could say DRS is down and give Jaani out, Shreyas could say I would collect the trophy half an hour later just as well."

"Exactly!" cried Nitish, throwing an arm around Venky.

"What I fail to understand is how it did not occur to either of you to not fight when the trophy lifting was approaching," said Dre Russ, throwing his arm around Shreyas, with whom he'd danced all night.

"Why did you fight again?" VC persisted.

"Why do you want to know?" asked Venky. "Just why do you want to know this badly? You are not a curious person, in general."

"Because," whispered Narine, "it could be a weapon for us."

"A weapon?"

VC caught on swiftly. "A weapon we'd use next season to stop two people from always siding with each other and winning every debate against us."

At the mention of next season, Nitish felt Venky stiffen slightly against him, so he hastened to shout at Shreyas again.

"Skipper, we're not done with you, you know!"

"IT'S BEEN THREE SEASONS, WILL YOU STOP CALLING ME SKIPPER!" exploded Shreyas.

"Fine. Fine," said Nitish. "What do you want to be called? Captain? Cap? Cappy?"

"I WISH TO BE CALLED BY MY NAME."

"YOU WOULD BE CALLED BY YOUR NAME IF YOU REFUSED TO PARTAKE IN CELEBRATIONS WITHOUT ME AND VENKY, CAPPY."

"DON'T--YOU--USE--THAT--WORD--"

"ALL RIGHT, KIDS!" Abhishek bhai shouted.

There was a momentary silence. Abhishek seized it and went on.

"If it's about the trophy lifting--we have the trophy, and we have our team. We can have another one right now. A mock trophy lifting."

"A what?" echoed everyone.

"A. Mock. Trophy. Lifting."

"We don't have Jay Shah and Roger Binny," put in Harshit, with a hint of malice.

Shreyas gave him a stern look.

"No, but we could make someone act them," said Nitish eagerly.

"Someone authoritative..." mused Venky.

"Gauti bhai, will you be Jay Shah?" asked Rinku.

"Do you guys have a brain or not?" demanded Gauti.

"I can give the trophy too," said Narine.

"Good idea, Jay Shah has a smile very like Sunny's," cried Angky, excited.

"FROM WHICH ANGLE?" asked Gauti.

"Please sit down," Russ requested Narine. "Have cranberry juice..."

"Thank you," said Narine.

"No, see, we're getting it wrong," Nitish said. "It's got to be two people Shreyas dislikes! He has to collect the trophy with the same expression he collected earlier! He has to dislike--"

"We all know who Shreyas is most pissed off at this moment," said VC, "though I don't suppose you two can give the trophy to yourselves, Nitish, Venky."

"Oh, and not you, Tamilman?" Nitish started.

"Venky stands in both categories," said Rambo.

"Yes, you two can give me the trophy," said Shreyas brightly. "And can run back to lift it!"

"I am not playing double agent," said Nitish firmly.

"Enough," said Gauti, tired. "I will be Roger Binny. Abhishek can be Jay Shah."

Abhishek looked at him.

"Do you want to get this mock lifting over with or not?" asked Gauti.

"This isn't a mock trophy lifting, Gauti bhai," said Nitish.

"I see," said GG. "What is it, then?"

"This is the real trophy lifting. That was the mock one. The mock one comes before the real one, anyway."

"Ah, if only I was the real BCCI Secretary...!" Abhishek sighed.

"No, bhaiya," said Rinku at once. "Never get into all that, ever!"

"He doesn't intend to," said Gauti with supreme contempt. "Hand over the trophy, Harshit."

Harshit obeyed only very reluctantly.

__________________

Accordingly, they enacted the scene.

Chandu sir called out as Harsha Bhogle, "Shreyas Iyer and the Kolkata Knight Riders!"

Shreyas marched up to Gauti and Abhishek bhai to take the trophy. His laugh was way more genuine than during the actual ceremony ("cause that was the mock," Nitish, draped in a KKR flag, insisted to Venky and Rinku on his either side in the centre of the podium).

Bharat Arun threw purple confetti in the air to imitate the purple smoke. Tendo threw golden confetti in the air to imitate the actual golden confetti. Shreyas went up, Messi-style again, and stopped beside Venky to jump.

Everyone in the room screamed themselves hoarse and cameras flashed into their eyes. Nitish reached over to snatch the trophy from Shreyas and offered one handle for Venky to hold.

Venky was laughing as he accepted it, and they jumped, holding it together.

Even Chandu sir was yelling.

Then it hit Nitish--he had finally lifted a trophy with Venky.

And he let his side of the trophy go, flung his arms around Venky and burst into howling tears.

Venky was so alarmed, he let his side of the trophy go, too. Shreyas and Harshit and Rinku all made a dive to catch it before it hit the ground. Thankfully, Rinku succeeded.

"Nitish, c'mon," Venky whispered.

"I'm sorry," sobbed Nitish. "I'm so sorry for everything."

"It's all right, it doesn't matter--we already talked--"

"I always needed you to be right here when we finally did lift the trophy--I'm sorry--"

"Nitish, stop crying!"

"You were crying! I didn't tell you to stop crying!"

Venky heaved a deep sigh and held Nitish back. Nitish extended one arm to squeeze Rinku, too.

"You two," he mumbled.

"On a scale of 0-10, how melodramatic are you, Nitish?" Russ asked.

"He's not melodramatic," Venky flared instantly.

Half the team raised their eyes heavenward, but neither Nitish nor Venky would have cared. All they cared about was that they'd finally lifted a trophy together.

For KKR.

__________________

Shreyas was silent as he gazed at Venky and Nitish and Rinku, and then his eyes turned towards VC, Russ, Narine, then Rambo, Harshit, Vaibhav, Suyash...

Abhishek bhai came up to him.

"What's up?"

"I don't know, really," said Shreyas. "All these years I've been so irrationally envious of the ones who got to stay with DC...and now it scares me...even to think that this is going to happen to some of them as well..."

Abhishek sighed.

"I'm pretty sure those two dolts fought about that," mused Shreyas. "D'you think that's what going to happen always, from now?"

Abhishek sighed again. He'd been doing that a lot that evening.

"You won't say anything?" asked Shreyas, mildly indignant.

"Rishabh isn't too far from you, is he?"

Shreyas blinked and looked ahead without seeing much.

"Nor is their DK bhai, or Rahul, or Shubi, or Kuldeep," said Abhishek bhai. "There are a lot of things we have no control over, Shreyas, but there are some things you should start believing in, too...you've got a lot of learn, you know..."

Shreyas' gaze went over everyone again, most of them entangled in a group hug, and his jaw set.

"No," he said. "I've already learnt that. I will never lose this team. Nor will any of them. Not really."

Abhishek bhai smiled.

Venky extended his arm and hailed Shreyas from the group hug, now that Nitish had stopped crying.

"What are you doing there, cappy? Come and join us!"

Shreyas ran to throw his arms around them all.

His team.