Playing the Field

It started with a click.

Not from a paparazzo. Not from a vlogger.
But from a single guest’s phone at the charity gala.

One shaky video, seven seconds long — blurry and dim, but unmistakable:
Shubman Gill and Kavya Singh.
Forehead to forehead, swaying.
So close, it looked like they’d kissed.

They hadn’t.

But the internet didn’t care.

---

The Dubai morning was bright. The internet was on fire.

#Shavya trended across India, the UAE, and parts of London before breakfast was done.

Tweets:

“Y’all saw that gala video?? That was not PR. That was soulmates.”

“Can we talk about Shubman’s hand placement tho 👀”

“Kavya Singh isn’t just behind the camera anymore — SHE IS THE MOMENT.”

Kavya stared at her phone screen in horror.

“Please tell me that’s not what I think it is,” she muttered, scrolling through Twitter.

Tina walked in with coffee. “Depends. Are you thinking the public now ships you like Virat and Anushka levels? Then yes. That’s exactly what it is.”

---

10:00 AM. BCCI digital media control room — a pop-up base in the hotel conference hall.

Rohit, Virat, Hardik, and BCCI’s media head sat around the table. Kavya and Shubman across from them.

“We can’t lie now,” the media head snapped. “This isn’t some slow-build reveal. This is viral.”

“We’ve always positioned it as a soft campaign,” Kavya said calmly, though her palms were sweating. “It wasn’t meant to feel forced. And it worked—”

“Worked too well,” Hardik muttered, grinning. “Y’all looked like a Nicholas Sparks trailer.”

Virat cleared his throat. “The point is — people believe it. Now what?”

Everyone turned to Shubman.

He looked at Kavya.
And said something that changed everything:

“I don’t want to pretend anymore.”

Kavya’s eyes widened. “Shubman—”

“No more staged shoots. No fake captions. If we’re going to keep showing up together… I want it to be real.”

Later, in the hallway outside the room, Kavya caught up with him.

“You ambushed me in there,” she hissed, stopping him by his arm.

“You’ve been pretending for so long, you don’t even know when it’s real anymore,” he said softly.

She stared at him. Heart racing. “And what if I’m scared?”

“So am I,” he whispered. “But I’m also done lying to myself.”

There was a long pause.
And then: “One condition,” she said.

He tilted his head.

“If we go real — we go slow. No camera stories. No captions. No BCCI posts.”

He smiled. “Deal.”

---

For two days, neither of them posted anything.

No tags. No vlogs. No captions.

And fans noticed.

“Where’s our #Shavya content??”

“Is it over? Why did she go radio silent?”

“Was it fake after all???”

Until Day Three.

Instagram Story – Kavya Singh
📸 Photo of a coffee mug and a note scribbled on a napkin:

“Don’t forget your charger this time. — S.”
💬 Caption:
“Maybe not fake after all.”

And just like that… the fandom exploded.