Chapter XXXIV
Finally Coffee, The Decipher: The Lunch Box Journal
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Story so far: While everyone seems to be finding a partner for themselves, while Aryan was busy sipping coffee at the coffee shop. What was his scenario on the marriage front? And what happened to the tattoo? What was the fuss about it? Was their decoding skills any good? Read on….
Amidst Gautham and Neil’s lovely romantic chats, they had a puzzle to decipher. The Tattoo. After laying down the permutations and combinations, even taking help of ENIGMA machine, and sending the photo overseas to Sameer to verify, they had concluded that it was Akhil’s name as the tattoo. But still, they wanted to poach the bear and see what the response was. Aryan was usually a spendthrift. While everyone else was saving money and investing in things that are important, he was busy maxing out his credit card on coffee, more coffee, and cycle accessories. But mostly coffee. As a result of which he used to get free coffees. Though his open invitation to grab a free coffee was never acknowledged, he invited his friends from the office, whom at first weren’t interested but the sound of a free coffee always rested well on the ears. So, Gautham and Aryan decided to poach the next time they hang out at the coffee shop.
Gautham after being insisted by Aryan to check the nearby coffee shop decided out the hangout. It was after their badminton game when they were standing in the line for the coffee, their refreshment, Gautham asked Akhil if he was free to join Aryan and himself for coffee since Aryan had free coffees to spare and the expiry date was fast approaching. Later that day after Akhil had agreed to come to the café since he was the furthest, they planned to meet after they reach home and have had their dinner. It was just a guys hangout time. Meanwhile, there were a lot of questions bubbling in the minds of the other two with regards to the girls Akhil was dealing with.
Later that day, they started as planned. Akhil called Aryan and said that he would pick him at his place and they could go from there since Aryan was along the way. While Aryan was being adamant to show off his bicycle insisted that he would come on his own and he did to Akhil’s dismay. He had hoped that he would have company while going and returning, but he didn’t abide by Akhil’s plan. They both reached the café at per their planned time while Gautham joined them shortly. And after having reached the café, he was still busy on phone talking to his future would-be. After he had agreed to wait for her to settle down, both the sides of the family were okay to go ahead for the marriage but the engagement and other marriage-related things were yet to be discussed. While the other two Akhil and Aryan waited for him to finish his call, they decided to give in their order or at least check what they could have.
The three settled down with their coffees after Gautham took his leave from this beloved. While Gautham and Aryan were trying to fish out the story of Akhil’s love life, the bait was successfully caught. Akhil went on to tell about all the stories since his childhood to the latest of relationships. It was indeed a great story to hear and apparently he didn’t realize but the whole coffee shop knew about his story. He was involuntarily loud and well, it was his normal voice, so they couldn’t possibly do anything about reducing the sound. While the barista knew from the pesticide poisoning to the longest 7-year relationship, he still hasn’t told the deal with Likhita and Srestha. When asked about the same, Likhita was just a good friend of his who is very close to him and that there was nothing in between them except friendship. But one of them insisted that you might be saying that there is nothing among you two, but there is something from Likhita’s side and she is hoping that she will get through to you someday. While Akhil argued that marriage is not at a possibility because of so many star factors and on top of that place, language and whatnot, hence it is never going to happen.
“So, what about the tattoo?”
“What about the tattoo?”
“The tattoo that is on her hand?”
“So, what happened was that Likhita wanted to get a tattoo and since she likes her mom very much, she got the tattoo by what she usually refers and calls her with”
“But it looks like your name”
“Haha, It isn’t. At first when I saw, I thought the same too. She told the tattoo guy about what and how she wanted the tattoo to depict her mom. But after he had completed making the tattoo, it looked a lot like my trimmed name, but in actual it is her mom’s name”.
“Is that so? But this (shows the photo taken by Aryan) looks like your name.”
“Both upside down, both ways, it’s like your name only!”
“I don’t know. It must have been a complete coincidence. But it is not my name. Why will she get my name as a tattoo? It is her mom’s name”
The other two didn’t want to argue further because they could see that Akhil was facially getting frustrated and angry at this cornering by both of them at the same time. So, they changed the topic to someone else, someone else like Srestha and what was the deal with them both. Aryan had insisted Akhil on bringing her as well for coffee. He had declined it outrightly to even ask her for the same. He has already told everything about each and every member of the group but asking her for coffee was somehow a big step for him. And yet again he had an answer ready for this as well. If he brings her to the coffee shop, she would think that he has some interest in her and that is not exactly friendship but along with it a little more. In order to avoid the misunderstanding that of him bringing her to the coffee shop means that he is interested in her romantically, he had decided not to even poach that scenario. Though Aryan had brought up the topic to her to drop by anytime if she is around or free at the office while she came along with Akhil to the coffee. But Akhil was apparently the boss and her bringing wasn’t acceptable by him.
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(To be Continued …)
Was the tattoo decipher accurate and the explanation apt? There seems to be two stories that Akhil had actually weaved around the tattoo. How is Gautham faring around his newfound love-marriage interest? How is Neil coping up with “being-online” contrary to his “living on the offline mode”. And Madhav, what is he upto?
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ak, mmxviii
