Not A Simple Engineer Boy!

Forty Eight: Lagrangian Mechanics (Part 1)

'Do you know Rathna Sir, from the QC department?'

That was a message from Priya and Krithika panicked.

'Why?'

'Nothing, one of my friends from college was talking about him and I just asked you.'

'I guess I saw him in the last meeting.' she typed, lying through every line, 'I don't talk to anyone in the office other than you guys.'

'Yeah.' Priya texted back.

Why did she lie? There was no need to be terrorized by simple questions by her friends. Did she even consider them friends? If so, wasn't lying through her teeth would be offensive?

'A funny story, his name is spelled as Ratna Raj Rathore but he studied here in Chennai from high school. They had changed his name to Rathna Raja Rathore in all his certificates, so he just went along with it.'

That was a piece of unnecessary information but she enjoyed the tea from Priya.

'How do you know that?'

'Girl, you don't know the power of stalking, I even know the exact number of girls he dated in his college days.'

Priya could be everything, from an honest-to-heart employee to a bitchy stalker.

'How many?', she texted Priya.

She surely wasn't interested to know; her interests were somewhere between the expanse of the silky caramel skin of Xavier's flat chest and the particular rough edges on his back.

It felt so different that it stuck in her mind like a leech. She wanted to know more about it, about him, about Xavier L. Joseph. She had just scratched the tip of the iceberg; her knowledge was very limited and it bugged her. A lot more than she would've liked to admit.

Get a grip, it was a mistake, you fool!

'Six, all of them are married now. He was quite a ladies' man from his school days.', Priya's reply and her own accusing conscience brought her to reality.

'Hmm...'

She lay on her bed wearing her regular night dress, typing a nonchalant reply.

'He reminds me of Rashi.'

'Why?'

'Don't you know she likes him?'

What!?

'Is it?'

Why am I getting to know these details now?

'She blushes to beet whenever anyone even mentions his name. You haven't noticed?'

No!

'When have we even discussed details of this guy?' Krithika furiously typed.

And then it clicked in her mind, Rashi was working in the QA department, situated next to Rathna's department. He was probably the next-door senior whom Priya used cryptically to tease Rashi.

'Dude, the next-door senior!'

Priya confirmed her suspicion. She facepalmed, this couldn't get any weirder than it already was.

Considering Rashi's hopeless romantic nature, she already would be dreaming about living in a countryside cute house with Rathna, their two kids, and a beagle, a happy ending to their love story.

Then there was Rathna, who wanted to take her out for tea or coffee or anything.

And then there was her, who kissed her boss like her life depended on him- like lust was the only thing in front of her mind.

At last, there was Xavier fuck-Lucifer-ing Joseph- the said boss- who probably didn't care about her existence except for vexing her with his existence.

Could this chain of people get any longer? Probably five more people can join these endless unmatchable right swipes of the Bumble.

'You sleepy?' Priya's text jumped in the notification.

'It was a tiring day.' she replied and her phone pinged immediately with a notification.

It was from Rathna, 'I don't want to force you to date me or anything. That day we just clicked with each other...and I thought I could try my luck. But we can be just friends, no benefits.'

She sighed.

Why did he have to be sickly sweet and so genuine? Why couldn't he just be like other men, the one who called her ugly bitch when she had refused to date them?

'I don't want to hurt your sentiments, it's just that I am not ready for a relationship.' she replied.

'Goodnight, Krithika.' that was from Priya.

She waited for a long time, swapping between screens of endless memes on Instagram and Rathna's chat. She thought that he probably got annoyed and blocked her, but unfortunately, she still could see his profile picture on WhatsApp.

'Got it, Chakudi. No problem!'

A quick Google search informed her that it was a Gujarati term used as an endearment.

Stop it, focus on other women!

She wanted to type that, but she typed, 'Goodnight, Ratna Raj Rathore.'

She rolled her eyes when she saw his reply, 'Didn't expect anything less from you. Goodnight, Krithika.'

And she kept her phone aside, trying to sleep as her subconscious drowned in a dreamland of sparkling golden-brown dunes.

--

A/N

The start of "En Jannal Vandha" is my favorite part of the whole song, out of the three segments.

Do you have any particular favorites?

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