The attraction is what happens between you. It's not universal. And it's not conventional. And thank God for that.
- Rainbow Rowell
Thank god for that! No really. Because for me, that would be quiet a list if I noted down every guy I was ever attracted to.
So it began randomly. I was sipping on my cup of tea on a usual workday. It was around four in the evening, me and my friend who was a part-time intern at that time was talking about some random movie when she signed me to look behind me. I turned to see a guy, dressed in a white formal shirt and black formal trousers.
" That's the most good looking accountant I've seen to date." My friend whispered.
I didn't see the deal though, I mean he had looks for sure but wasn't he a bit old? In his late twenties, I thought. Never saw him in the company before for sure.
" Sure." I shrugged his topic off, just like that.
Sometimes I find how my own brain works super funny. Always being late at the party, always neglecting good stuff at first and realizing it later is my thing I guess. God knows, how many good things and good people have I missed because of my habit to date.
One morning, while I was grabbing my laptop, my eyes nonchalantly went to him. He sat across the table with the rest of the accountants and surprisingly enough, he was looking back at me. I passed on a casual smile, which he never returned. I don't know why and didn't mind it really, that time. I have at least ten different thoughts running in my mind at one time, and he didn't really have a place in any of that.
Until he decided to make one. The random eye contacts were the key. You know the feeling of being watched? It sounds creepy, but it is real. It's like, someone from somewhere is looking at you and you have zero clue about it. That's the time when the person looking at you gets to discover the real you. You are unaware, you are careless and there, you are just you. The unfiltered you.
He was looking at an unfiltered me for weeks. God knows what all he must've seen. It took me another couple of weeks to realize that I was being watched and before I even knew, I was sneaking a few glances at him myself.
Us humans are so typical, so needy for attention. It's like, you like the Dog only after he wiggles his tail at your touch. Otherwise, he's just a dog, like hundred other dogs out there.
I started noticing him after realizing that he had already been noticing me for a month now. Now, I was starting to see the deal. The deal with his eyes, his arms, his hair, and his smile.
The randomly exchanged smiles and interaction in the washroom only lead me to think that there were some sparks, about which I'm still confused to the date whether they were existent or not.
I remember talking to him for the first time in the loft during lunchtime. I was having lunch with the HR team and ranting about some random story, he was listening to me. Trying to pretend that he was not, but failing evidently. We used to have small talks. Exchange a few jokes. It's called the Strawberry period. Where everything's sweet and dreamy and you look forward to going to work a little bit more than usual.
You tend to take things very casually when they're in front of you. You have milk, flour, baking powder, and eggs in your fridge. So you'll bake the cake whenever you want. Sometime later maybe. They're not going anywhere after all. What if one day you open the fridge and all your ingredients are gone?
You regret.
You regret not baking the cake when you had the time when you had the ingredients.
That's what happened to me. I show up at work one day and he doesn't. The same thing repeats the next day and the day after that. He gets allocated to a client place.
And my bubble is busted.
I miss the eye contacts. I miss the small talks. I miss his face.
Somehow I find him in my suggestion box on Instagram one day. After debating for a good minute with myself, I send him a follow request. He accepts it within fifteen minutes and sends a request to follow back. I don't remember who texted whom first but I took no time to sense the mismatch.
Conversations with him were like plain potato chips with no salt. I thought he was an introvert, which is totally fine. I made a few efforts to make a conversation, I always do. Not just with him, with anyone. I try to make a conversation and succeed for most of the time. This time I failed though. I'm fond of people with whom I can talk and hear them talk. This was a one-way journey.
And I don't like to go that way.
So I skipped talking to him for a couple of days and eventually stopped talking to him. Until he decided to slide in my DMs on the day of a team event, asking if I was going to attend it or not. That day we texted each other back and forth and in the evening I tried my best to avoid him. I wanted to enter the turf and he was standing right next to the gate. Now in my mind, I was thinking of sweeping in like a breeze, without taking any halt, without making any eye contact, without exchanging any words.
I started walking, feeling his eyes on me constantly. Just when I thought I successfully made it to the gate, he called me up.
" Hi _, how are you?" With this smile brighter than the evening sun.
Why did he greet me? He shouldn't have! And even if he did, I should've given a fake smile and moved ahead. We're so careless. We just walk into situations without thinking much. Hope is the worst thing, the moment you start keeping it, you unknowingly start preparing to face pain that comes after the hope is broken.
I don't regret the whole thing though. I so enjoyed the strawberry period. I so enjoyed the interaction and talks. The small butterflies in my stomach. Maybe it was never meant to be, maybe it was a short term thing. Maybe I shouldn't have re-ignited the hope.
Maybe I should've stuck to not seeing the deal with him.
I still work at the same place and so does he.
I might have all the ingredients once again, some time. But this time, I might not be willing to bake the cake.
.
.
.
A/N: Hope you all had an engaging minute or two. I hope you all are safe at your home and we shall defeat this pandemic soon! I will try to write some KaVi stuff soon! Once a KaVi writer, always a KaVi writer :p
Thank You!
- Divyaa2612 :)