Scented Roads

(13) The water cooler guy

Ala

Wounds are a part of Ala's daily routine. There were times when she got severely injured, on other days it would just be minor cuts and injuries. She would stab her toe while running out of the house to catch the bus, if not that then falling from the bed, slipping and falling on the road, getting caught in a Bush -these were her favourite things to do in life.

Being an avid day dreamer, Ala knew all her problems arose due to her absent mindedness. But there is no cure for her except meditation.

The mind of a day dreamer works in another dimension altogether while their body exists in the present. And the best way one can control their mind is through meditation.

Ala, while thinking of how life is sometimes unfair to her, walks inside the nurses office with her swollen finger.

'Today has been a disaster.' She thinks to herself, sighing deeply.

She is a fresher in her office. Most of the freshers in the corporate world are made to do clerk jobs until 'their' junior is hired.

With her pointy heels, Ala would run to every corner of the office picking papers and reports and sometimes even food from the canteen for her superiors. The job has been absolutely horrid, but much worse was this particular day.

Ala has been hired in the HR department as a junior recruiter. And today was THE day. From setting the conference hall to managing the two hundred selected candidates, it got busier by the second.

And during one of her runs, she tripped and fell near the staircase, twisting her finger in the process.

Pain isn't the issue, getting scolded by her manager and having a concerning swelling on the finger is.

She was waiting from the past five minutes in the empty nurses office when the...

The water cooler guy walled in...

Wearing a doctors coat.

That... darn it...

Ala wants to run out of the office, and hide for a few days in her house.

She has been prone to meet everyone who has seen her in an embarrassing moment.

Earlier this week Ala was running around to get pen refills for her department, like the good clerk she is. She stopped on her way to drink some water.

Looking around she found that there were no paper cups to drink with. Time was running, her boss was shouting at her in her head, and she was thirsty. So she did the first thing that came to her mind.

She switched on the tap, and used her hand to drink the water. Messy but it worked.

There is nothing wrong with drinking that way. Plus she made her ancestors proud.

However a situation is only not embarrassing until you don't have audience.

Ayaan Borak, was our audience for that day.

Ayaan was observing the poor girl make life decisions with weirdly cute expressions and decided to be the gentleman he is. He emptied his bottle in the dustbin and went to her, offering her the bottle.

For he had no idea how embarrassing a girl would feel receiving help from a ahem handsome ahem stranger while she was being unsophisticated and messy.

Ala was so embarrassed that she turned beetroot red. She hid her face and walked away from Ayaan Borak as if her life depended on it. There's nothing to be embarrassed of if nobody has seen you. But the moment someone has, its...

Almost traumatizing...

Or maybe my protagonist is silly.

"Hey! Good to see you again" Ayaan says, with a cute grin on his face. Ala doesn't understand how some guys have such adorable grins. The moment she grins at someone she gets comments like:

What is that abnormal look on your face?

Tooth ache?

His grin though, It is as if he is ready for a photoshoot. The perfect doctor from a TV show.

These are the type of guys that cause major love triangles in a korean drama. They make you rethink life and imagine every part of your life to be like the one in your favorite book.

It takes minutes for Ala to realize she is staring at him. Gawking, to be precise.

Wait!

He said "Good to see you again"

Does this means he REMEMBERS!??

Ala cries to herself. But then realizes she has to be the mature twenty one year old that she is!

She is here to get treated. And treatment is what she shall talk about.

"Are you the nurse?" Ala asks, composing herself.

He laughs.

Ala wants to roll her eyes at his laugh. So what if she stares or asks a foolish question? He should be considerate!

"That's what you ask after staring at me for like ten minutes? It's funny" he comments.

Ala almost slaps herself for getting distracted by his looks.

"Auzibillahi minash shaitan ir razeem" she whispered.

He laughs again.

This time Ala doesn't say anything. She finds herself thinking of something she wouldn't normally think...

....

....

He's cute

"My finger" she said, before he or her distracted mind could make another remark. She shows her right hand to Ayaan and he calmly looks at it.

"Looks like you broke your finger", Ayaan while saying this touched Ala's hand to examine her swelled finger.

Ala's eyes widen.

The touch is light, gentle but firm.

She wants to take her hand out of Ayaans grip. Or maybe not. I mean islamically speaking she does, but if she has an option she would've stayed that way for a long time. It gave her butterflies in her stomach. Like she had always romanticized.

I shouldn't be feeling like this.

She gets a glare at her first attempt to free her hand. "Let me examine!" Ayaan scolds her at her second attempt.

It is a minutes worth interaction but as Ayaan examines her wound Ala feels like time has stopped moving. The knots in her stomach, they were the type she has only ever felt when she had a crush in eleventh grade.

She keeps blinking awkwardly, looking everywhere but at Ayaan. Her brain
has not been processing any information except for inappropriate remarks and the weather. It is so warm!

Ayaan frees hold of her hand and Ala shivers. The feeling of his grip still lingers on her hand but she feels cold now. Her feelings have been distracting her from the pain she has in her finger.

"Let's take you to the hospital, we need an x-ray to see if it's a fracture or a sprain. Fractures are extremely painful so I don't think it's that but let's get the tests done first and then analyze." He says.

Ala, without thinking about what is appropriate and what isn't, follows behind him. While walking in his shadow she continuously blushes. She isn't the type to be affected by boys so easily, maybe it was their first meeting that instigated the blush. Maybe it was that short physical interaction or maybe just the fact that he was tall, cute and gentle...

But Ala knew that whatever the reason has been, she has never being attracted to someone like she is to him.

Or maybe it's just this moment that makes her feel this way.

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