Jay's POV:
"Vihaan! Nitin called me just now. He says he has completed the background music composition. Come let's go and take a look."
The half-done game which created problems with Amaira was now almost fully completed and waiting for its release. Adding soundtrack and marketing was the only thing left to do. If I'm satisfied with the music, we can get on with the making of the teaser. The game has already started gaining popularity with the posters of characters we released earlier. Everything was unusually going well in my life which scared me a little.
We reached Nitin's studio and waited for him in the lobby. He called us inside after we had the coffee his receptionist gave us. He showed us his composition and it perfectly matched my expectations. The game was about a God who goes to take revenge on the evil god, who along with his devils and demons killed the god's lover. Since it kind of had a tragedy behind the battle, I wanted a piece of slow and sad music rather than a piece of loud blaring music. However, at the same time, I didn't want it to be boring. The pep in the music should be alive but with a sad impact.
"Bravo! It was exactly what I wanted. What would I have done if I hadn't found a gem like you?" I exclaimed.
"Probably compose it yourself. Nobody else can even understand your demands let alone making the tune according to it." Nitin said laughing.
"Who? He? He doesn't even know to play the happy birthday song on a piano. Wait! No! Leave the piano. He can't even sing it properly." Vihaan teased and they both laughed at me.
"I hope you guys remember that I'm the boss who pays you both," I said.
"Aye aye captain," Vihaan said and saluted.
"Jay I wanted to ask you something. How did you come up with this game? It is too different from the rest of yours. None of your previous games had any basic concept. But this one has a unique tragic one which is very much unusual in the gaming industry. Maybe is it because you are married now, you brought in a pinch of love in it?"
"Psht! Love? I don't even know what is it. Everyone around me has or had someone they love except for me. I made the game with the idea of keeping a motivation behind killing the demons. In most of the games players just kill the enemies without any reason. But here, they would have their loved ones in their mind and fight with them for a reason. And that would make it more interesting."
"Aah!! Nice one. But be careful. Now that they have a men's rea behind the murder, they might be prosecuted. Then there will be no one to play your game." Nitin joked.
"But tell me why you said that you don't even know what is love? You got married four and half months before. You still couldn't woo your wife?" He added after remembering what I said earlier.
"I don't know man. We are tangled in a complicated shit. I don't have the energy to explain." I sighed.
"Is she still not paying you any attention?" Vihaan questioned.
"She does. Not so much, but a little. And that is what confuses me more. I don't know if I have a chance to get together with her." I answered.
"What is stopping you?" Nitin asked.
"We both are not yet aware of our feelings. We could not discover what our hearts crave. I'm still feeling guilty that I married another person's lover." I confessed.
"Okay. We can't ask her about it. So you tell. Are you in love with her?" Vihaan asked.
Do I love her? I don't know.
"I don't know, Vihaan. I think I'm attracted to her. Whenever my mind is empty she doesn't fail to occupy it. I constantly have the desire of wanting to speak to her and be near her."
"That is called as love Jay." Vihaan said.
Nitin hit Vihaan's head hard and said, "That is just infatuation. Not love. Now answer me this question, Jay." He said and directed his attention towards me.
"Amaira is someone who your parents found for you to marry. You both got married by chance and not by either of your efforts. The most common thing in an arranged marriage is that the couple starts speaking shy and flirtatious in the very beginning itself. If at all they had met in another situation, they wouldn't be doing that. Why? It wouldn't be decent to flirt with a stranger. But here just because their parents chose them as their potential partners, they start speaking like they are already married. Would you call that love?" He asked me.
I shook my head.
"Exactly. They assume they are in love. They flirt, get attracted to the other person, give birth to a baby, and live their whole life by getting used to all of it. But I will not say they were never in love. They would have fallen in love somewhere in the middle. Somewhere when they came to know how much the other person cares for them, they would have felt the love. Here caring as a duty and caring without having to really care will be the difference. The respect for their partner and for their life decisions, crying when they cry, laughing when they laugh, and even wanting to die for them is all what you call love." Nitin concluded.
"Thank you so much, Nitin. I told you I was confused and asked for clarification but thanks for stirring the puddle even more. I'm very much confused now."
"Tell me if you love Amaira based on the things Nitin said now." Vihaan asked.
I threw him a look and asked, "After hearing him are you confident that you love Disha? Are you confident that it is not an infatuation?"
He shut his mouth and looked down.
"How am I supposed to know if I love her?" I asked the love guru.
"I don't know that. You have to find the answer yourself. Analyse and evaluate the time you spent with her. Analyse if you're just physically attracted towards her beauty or if you have that emotional connection. Compare your life with and without her. Do something and find it yourself. Don't be like other couples who skip the beginning phases and directly go to the love phase. Acquainting is the first step. Befriending comes next. Attractions are a must but not the most essential. Be with her for a considerable amount of time and analyse the difference she makes in you. You will find the answer." He said.
I was hearing him speak, with my mouth open. Is falling in love such a difficult process? I don't think others find it difficult at all. Some people even fall in love at the first sight. Is it not love then?
The number of questions in my mind was as long as the Great wall of China.
"What happened after I left? Did you confess to Disha?" I turned the topic towards Vihaan.
His face fell. Not a good sign.
"I ran after her and asked to come back to my house. She said it was okay and that we should meet later and finish up the rest of the work." He said.
"Is that bad?" I asked him doubtfully.
"Yeah. I once again missed the chance of confessing to her. I'm losing hope." He said dejectedly.
"But she gave you another chance. She said that you both should meet up on an other day, right?" I asked.
His face brightened at the realisation.
"Oh yeah." He said smiling.
"Tch! Tch! Tch! That girl might have said that as an excuse to get rid of you that day. Friends are enough to manipulate nonsense. Stop getting your hopes high and wait patiently for her to call." Nitin said shaking his head.
I doubted Nitin right now. Is it because he is single, he is trying to make us all single?
I got the soundtrack he composed, in a pen drive and left the studio. We called it a day and went to our respective houses. I noticed that the front light was still not switched on. It meant Amaira was not yet home. I took out my phone and dialled her number.
"Hey. Will you be back late?" I asked as soon as I took the call.
"I'm inside the house. Cut the call and get in." She told and disconnected the call.
I opened the door and it was pitch black. I searched for the switchboard and switched on the light.
"Ah! Shit." I yelled frightened, seeing a ghost sitting on the couch hugging its knees.
I took a second glance and it was Amaira.
"What happened? Why are sitting in the dark?" I asked her.
"I'm jobless now." She said almost crying.
"Why? What happened?"
She told me what happened in her office today and I was infuriated by it. Are they even humans?
"Don't worry. You did the right thing. Simply resigning wouldn't be enough for people like them. Bashing him in front of everyone was the right thing to do. If you want, tell me. I'll go hit your team leader black and blue. " I said.
"But I'm jobless now." She whined.
If she is okay with that I'll happily provide for her. But I'm cent percent sure she wouldn't accept.
"Search for another job in the meantime while your resignation is still in process. Will it not take at least a month to release?" I asked.
"Yeah, it will. The thing is will anyone provide me a good job? I didn't get a promotion. So I've to start with the same designation or even lesser one than that." She ranted.
"Want to work in my office?" I offered.
"Really? Can I? Will you be okay with me designing games?" She asked expectantly.
"Uhm..No! You should have pursued computer science for that." I told shaking my head.
"I'm an arts student. But I'm good with computers." She boasted.
"How good are you?" I asked teasingly.
"I'm good at Tally, HTML, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint and I can even draw in MS Paint as I can in a paper. So I can draw the characters of your game." She said proudly.
I laughed. I was expecting something more advanced and was waiting to tell her that, it wouldn't be enough to become a game designer. But she was worse. She has studied computer only till tenth I believe.
"We have specialists who can do that Amaira. You can join the finance and management department of our company. Or the marketing. Get me your resume tomorrow, I'll see to it." She was not in the mood for a tease, so I didn't.
"Okay." She said sadly. She seemed to be interested in game designing. I can't teach her the whole but I'll try including her every time I designed games at home hereafter.
I suddenly thought of an idea to lift Amaira's mood.
"Amaira, would you mind playing a game of SUBg with me?" I asked eagerly.
"Sabji? Why did you name it Sabji? Will players cook vegetables in it?" She asked.
I threw her a glare and said, "It is SUBg and not Sabji. Soldiers Unknown Battleground. Short form - SUBg."
She thought for a second and said 'yes' to the game. I lead the way to my game room and she followed. Since both of us were playing, I gave my phone to Amaira and kept my computer for myself.
I pulled a chair and put it beside mine, in front of the computer table. I opened the game both on my computer and phone, gave a duo request from my computer, and accepted it on my phone. I pressed the start button and gave the phone back to her. Playing on the mobile will be more comfortable for beginners so I gave her my phone.
We were on the plane and I marked an area on the map to land. When I was about to explain her, she asked "It says eject. What is it?"
Before I could answer she pressed it.
"Aishhh!! Why did you press it? This is where all the pro players land. We are going to die empty-handed as soon as we land." I yelled.
"Sorry." She muttered.
"It's okay. Don't go anywhere alone. Just follow me and my commands." I said.
"Okay." She muttered again.
We hid inside a house silently. There was only a pistol and a pan in that house. I kept the pan and gave her the pistol.
We heard footsteps of someone approaching near us.
"Jay! Jay! Jay! Someone's coming. Do something." She shouted.
"Hey! Calm down and stand still. Don't shout and frighten me." I shouted back.
A player entered the room and he had a sniper in his hand.
Thank God! I'll have time until he takes target in it. I took out my pan and slammed his head repeatedly. Suddenly his teammate entered the room and he had an SMG in his hand. It was very dangerous in a short distance.
"Amaira? Try attacking this guy. I took half of his life. Just hit on his head once and he will be knocked down." I instructed.
"Huh?" She said.
"Hey!! Where are you? Amairaaa!!! Come here before he kills me." I yelled again.
"I jumped out of the window before itself Jay. Who will stand there and get killed by them?" She said coolly.
This girl will never listen to me, will she? I jumped out of the window not wanting to die soon.
"Where are you now?" I asked unable to see her there.
"There are a bunch of guys here. Come here." She called.
"Why would you go there? Are you a pro player or what?
"I may not be a pro player but I have the person who designed the game right beside me." She said proudly.
"Amaira I might be the designer but that wouldn't make me a pro. Nobody will die just because they were shot once by the designer."
I hid myself under a staircase and peeped into her game. There were three of them fighting in that place. Two were a group and one individual. All of them seemed to be a pro. This girl has only a pistol in her hand.
"Jay aren't you coming behind?" She asked after realising I was not there with her.
"Nope." I said.
She started panicking. She tried running away but they noticed her presence. The individual guy was already dead and the two of them got a noob to play with.
She closed her eyes and started firing without aim.
"Heyyy!! Aim and shoot." I said but she paid no heed.
I leaned over and held the phone above her hands. I played it for her with her hands. She had a grenade with her and I threw it on them. Thankfully they had only little life left after fighting with the previous guy. They both died at once.
"Yes!!" I fist-bumped into the air and turned towards Amaira. She was smiling ear to ear and I gave her a hifi. Her hands were soft and smooth to hold. I interlaced my fingers with hers and looked at it. It was fitting perfectly into mine. I averted my gaze to her face and it was angelic up close.
A strand of hair was out of its place and I had the urge to tug it behind her hair. I raised my hand to her face and was about to hold the hair in between my fingers.
"Aah! Aah! Aah!! Aahhh!!" I heard someone moaning.
We snapped back to reality at the moaning sound. I turned to see someone hitting me with a pan who was hiding under the staircase. It was today that I noticed that the soundtrack, while someone was losing their life in the game, was similar to a moaning sound. How the hell did I approve of this? It was so gross to hear without the picture.
He was hitting me with a pan to have fun rather than killing me at once with a gun. He thought I had lost signal. Annoyed by the disturbance he caused in our sweet moment, I took out my pan slammed his head hard. It was a headshot and he was knocked at once.
'This is what you get for interrupting us, dear.'
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Author's note:
Dear silent readers,
I spend a whole day writing these chapters with a desire to connect with you through my writings. My parents, my eyes, and my phone are fed up with me for spending the entire time typing something, sitting in a corner.
I would be very happy and motivated if you could connect back with me by voting and commenting on this book. I see you reading with interest. If you have come so far, it means that the book isn't too bad. So please do not hesitate to vote or comment. I follow my active readers and be a good friend to them. Join us if interested!
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