He hadn't dreamed of cricket in a long time.
Or maybe he had—
but it always came wearing the wrong uniform.
A crowd booing.
A bat breaking.
His father turning away.
But this time was different.
He stood in a narrow gully.
The kind you could only find in old Delhi colonies.
Dust curling in the afternoon heat.
Terrace walls painted with peeling blue.
One uncle yelling about a broken potted plant.
And in the center of it all—
Him.
Ten years old.
Barefoot.
A plastic bat in his hand.
Chalk stumps drawn on a wall.
A tennis ball scuffed from too many overs.
No pads.
No helmet.
Just joy.
He could smell the dust.
That warm, earthy scent that rose when you scraped your foot across the ground.
That smell of rust and sun and leftover school lunch wrappers in someone's pocket.
And in his dream, he grinned.
Because it wasn't about winning.
It wasn't about cameras.
It was about the sound the ball made when it struck the bat just right.
A crack.
A pause.
A cheer from the kid standing on a parked scooter.
He hit it.
Watched it bounce once.
Twice.
Roll past the slippers used as boundary markers.
Someone shouted "six!"
Someone else ran after the ball into a neighbor's garden.
He laughed.
He ran.
He was alive.
And then—
he woke up.
The ceiling in Tokyo above him.
Fan spinning slowly.
Bat resting near the window.
For a second, he didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Just let the dream linger.
Let the dust stay in his throat a little longer.
He sat up, rubbed his face.
There were no cricket grounds in that dream.
No lights.
No interviews.
Just play.
Pure.
Messy.
Beautiful.
He whispered into the still morning air:
"I used to be that boy."
And for once, the sentence didn't sting.
It smiled.
Later that day, he walked further than usual.
Not to the batting cage.
Not toward the school.
He just walked.
Found a narrow lane.
Not the same, but close.
Tokyo's version of a gully.
Clean.
Concrete.
But it had corners.
It had silence.
And it had a little kid kicking a rubber ball against a wall.
He paused.
Watched.
The ball bounced.
The kid missed.
Kicked it again.
No rules.
No expectations.
Just joy.
He sat nearby.
Not close enough to seem strange.
Just close enough to remember.
Hana found him there.
Didn't ask why.
Just stood beside him, hands in pockets.
"I had a dream," he said.
"Oh?"
"Gully cricket. Me. Ten years old. No one watching."
She smiled.
"That's a good dream."
"It smelled like dust."
She blinked.
"That means you miss it."
"Do I?"
"Dust stays with you."
They didn't move for a long time.
Just watched the kid play.
The ball thudded against the wall again.
Again.
And each time, Aarav's shoulders loosened.
His chest rose a little higher.
Like that ten-year-old version of himself had never left.
Just… waited.
That night, back in the apartment, he pulled out his journal.
No big words.
Just one line.
Maybe I was never meant to be a star.
Maybe I just loved the sound of the ball hitting the bat in a quiet lane with no audience.
He stared at it for a long time.
Then added a second line.
And maybe that's enough.