《Short Recap》
"You know what, you're right. I don't want to be anywhere around you." He said stepping backwards.
He grabbed his keys from the hook next to fridge.
"Where are you going Vinay?" I asked.
He ignored me.
"You do know that college starts tomorrow right?" I shouted after him as he opened the main door.
"Fuck it." He replied loud enough for me to hear before banging the door shut.
●○●
After Vinay stormed out of the house, a comfortable silence gradually settled in the air. Honestly, I was relieved right now. Vinay's reaction had played out much differently than what I had imagined. I don't know what I expected from him actually...maybe things to be hurled across the room and raised voices.
I certainly wasn't expecting controlled whispers and the fact that he held back from hurting me physically in any way.
Guilt overtook my mind. I felt like I had been placing him on a pedestal, like someone under observation. More like a lab rat than an actual person.
I sighed. I shouldn't have done what I did. I had crossed a line tonight. Baiting Vinay the way I did, just to get a reaction out of him was too low a thing for me to have done. If anything he deserved an apology and brownie points for the way he controlled himself. He had run away, but still.
Placing a vessel on the stove, I kept some rice to boil. That was the easiest thing to cook and I was too tired to cook anything so a bowl of rice and greens would do for tonight.
Wind whistled through the closed balcony door, and I went to open it to let the cold air in. Just as I opened the sliding door, raindrops started falling in a light drizzle. The cool showers were a welcome change from the blistering heat of the Indian summer.
I brought my dinner to the balcony and stood there watching the raindrops fall to the earth, cleansing the dust off the roads and trees.
Their periodic pitter patter filled my ears like music amidst the occasional thunder and lightning. It started with a slow rhythm and picking up pace slowly, rising from a faint sound in the background to a loud din that blocked out all the noises of the material world.
Before I knew it, the lights in the house went out, drowning me in the darkness. I wasn't afraid, I was used to summer storms like this. Instead I reveled in the comforting smell of wet mud and grass that filled my nose.
I moved to the kitchen slowly, letting my eyes get adjusted to the dark. Opening the small cabinet above the sink I rummaged for the candles I had seen in the morning when I'd scoured through the kitchen cupboards.
Grabbing two half used candles, I lit them with a lighter and placed them carefully in the living room.
I brought pillows and a blanket from my bedroom and set them down on the floor, in a corner so that I could sit there and watch the rain.
Icy cold gusts of wind hit my body from time to time, making the hair on my body stand up.
I smiled contentedly as the solitude engulfed me into its folds and the shadows dancing in the warm golden glow of the wax candles kept me silent company, as I started thinking about the possibilities and promises that the second year of college held.
One of the most talked about projects this year, was designing your own app I group's of three. It could be about anything, from a fantasy league to a food delivery app.
Literally anything, it didn't even have to be an original idea actually, for we would be graded on the ease of use, efficiency and user friendliness of the app. I really looked forward to working on this project.
Suddenly, the wild ringing of my phone pierced through the quietude, pulling me out of my reverie.
"Hello Akira? Are you free right now?" Mihir, my internship project head, asked frantically through the phone, "I need a really small favour right now."
"It depends on what it is, Mihir." I started reluctantly, "It's raining cats and dogs outside so I can't really go anywhere."
"That's fine because you don't need to step out of the house at all. It is a very stupid thing I need actually." He replied, relieved.
"Ok, what is it?" I asked, a frown flitting across my face.
"Thank God! Akira, you're a god damn lifesaver." Mihir replied gleefully.
Okay...I just asked what he wanted. I never agreed to do whatever it was. But I listened wordlessly.
Mihir continued, "You just need to make a presentation on the second quarter sales projection. Only about twenty to twenty five slides."
My jaw dropped.
"Wait what? Mihir, I'm just an intern. I don't have access to that kind of data." I started to protest.
"Data which I will send you. Don't worry about that. Just make the basic skeleton and I'll touch it up." He cut me off, "Look Akira, I really need you to do this for me. My laptop's dead and there's no electricity. It's a total disaster. And I have to present it tomorrow afternoon."
"Okay." I replied half heartedly.
"Right. Thank you Akira. This really means a lot to me. Just swing by the office in lunch break tomorrow." Mihir cut the line, without waiting for my response.
"Ugh" I groaned.
So much for a peaceful evening before diving into the hustle bustle of the academic year.
Mihir's family had been our neighbors back during my middle school years and he'd been my first crush. I'd grown out of it now, obviously.
He was currently in the final year of his degree course. Somehow, he'd found out about my stupid infatuation years ago and seemed to use every opportunity to try and talk to me. Honestly, it was annoying.
He just couldn't seem to wrap his head around the fact that those feelings were long gone. During middle school , he'd been the only decent looking male specimen in a two mile radius so naturally my raging hormones had made me fancy him.
I sighed heavily. I was in for a long night.
●○●
It was great to be back in college, blending into the sea of familiar faces around me. The first day back had been really good so far. We'd had only one class on the basic coding languages to brush up our skills before we moved onto more complex ones.
The rest of the day, had been full of announcements about college fests and registration for different clubs. We didn't have class till one thirty, so I'd spent the entire time working on the blasted presentation.
I sat under a large banyan tree with Roshni on the college grounds. Neel had gone to check the basketball practice schedule and have a word with the coach.
"Akira, I think that's enough. You've been working on that presentation all day." Roshni said, when she realised that I wasn't paying any attention to whatever she was rambling on about. "Go give it already. If your boss finds it inadequate, I'm sure he can alter it himself."
"Yeah, just give me a minute." I mumbled, biting my lip.
"Come on you bozo! That's not even your job. I'm telling you Akira, you're too good for your own good." Roshni said exasperatedly, as I typed away on my laptop.
TYCHE, the company I was interning in was a Bangalore based potential unicorn startup, started four years ago by three final year students from our college as a part of their final year 'Internet of Things' project.
Seeing great potential in their idea, the HOD of the computer science engineering department had encouraged the three students to work on it and see where it led them.
Today, TYCHE had grown on a massive scale and now provided cloud based data protection solutions to numerous companies both in India and abroad.
To give something back to the place where it had its roots, the founders of the startup employed six interns from among the students of our college, every year. I'd been the only to be selected from my batch last year, so you can't blame me for taking my job very seriously.
Besides, I was hoping that Mihir, being my project head, would put in a good word about me and I'd get a full time job at TYCHE. That was literally the only reason I was doing Mihir's work for him.
"Son of a bitch..." I muttered under my breath, pressing save.
"Exactly what I was thinking." Roshni agreed, "Now let's go submit that fast. I want to eat pani puri before the break ends"
"Let's go." I nodded, as I dusted my pant and followed her out of the college gates.
●○●
For those of you who don't know,
A Unicorn startup is a startup that is valued over 1 billion US dollars.
Tyche was the ancient Greek name given to the lucky spirit that would look over a city and protect it.
Don't forget to vote and comment!!