Shubman's dad always said Shubman came out an old man - he had the patience and silence that would test even the toughest of saints. So to see this 24-year old finally behave like a lovesick teenager was not something anyone was equipped to deal with. To start with, he had been stuck on the phone all day.

It would have been cute but for the fact that on the other end was an exasperated Shikhar, who felt like a telephone operator from the World War, giving updates from the battlefield, if the battlefield contained a very cranky Ishan. Shubman would have tried to be calm about the entire thing, but he had heard stories on what went on missions, as with no way to see or touch Ishan, his mind groped on to the worst case scenario. He knew he was being unbearable, he knew he was coming on too strong toward a guy who had rejected him, but this wasn't even about that. Ishan was far from home, alone and wounded, and Shubman was thousands of miles away, unable to look, unable to touch. It was eating him from the inside.