It was cloudy that day, but the stars were listening.

Story so far: The office decided to do something for the employees. With a capacity of close to a ten thousand, there is a drive to maintain a work-life balance and with rising health issues to the employees for the time being spent at the office, it is quite important for the management to cater to the employee safety. The same couldn’t be agreed upon for the facilities that were being provided at the badminton court. But they admin was doing whatever it could in its purview, the view in which badminton was last on the priority list. A sort of fest was organised that spanned over a period of month with different games taking the most precedence and the last day had the food stall and a DJ. The group was not too impressed by the food and the mini games that were kept in the court didn’t interest the lot at all. So, they decided to drop by at the badminton court with their fingers crossed hoping it to be empty since it was a Friday and there was this fest that was going on which meant there were more people with free time to cut and since the ground was occupied but the food stall and the alleged fun games. Luckily, the court was empty and they were playing a game among the three of them when a couple people descended down the stairs.

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It was the Friday afternoon and as they had anticipated the court was quite empty. Neil was out of practice and he needed a bit of time to adjust to the game, but otherwise he was quite brilliant at the game, far better than Aryan who was playing the game regularly for over a year. But since Neil was cramped with work and all other responsibilities there was no time for him to spare for a game of badminton. While they warmed up, they decided to play a game and thought someone else might join them for the fourth slot. After a game or two, a couple of people descended down the stairs and Aryan fell a short to hit the shot he had very well rehearsed in his mind a millisecond ago.

Siri, Aryan and Neil saw the people who were descending down the stairs and they have never seen them before. And they were pretty much new to the campus itself and they decided to drop by since they had a love for the game. Aryan was playing cool, however he wasn’t on the inside, perhaps it was the ‘great’ food he had eaten a while back at the office special canteen for the day, or may be it is called butterflies. However, he has a funny way of showing it, or perhaps hiding it. Neil was his usual self while Siri was acting herself as well. What the trio did was give these new people to play because that is how it was. The game has to be played in rotational basis and however there is no system to it, but it was advisable since there will be waiting to play and it would be not-gentleman/gentlewomanly to stay on the court like a moron and keep playing without letting others play. But since the duo was completely new to the court, they weren’t exactly sure what they were supposed to be doing. Meanwhile, Aryan and Neil were warming up on the empty place outside the court. This was done to avoid giving the racquets to the new people since that was a common occurrence where people would just come up as if they owned the court and start asking for racquets and shuttles as if they were their own. So, if the people were practicing, they will have a reason to not lend the racquets. But the duo on the court upon offering the whole court asking them to play on the other side of the court which later turned to the game of doubles. Lucky for Aryan, she was on his side of the team, hence more the butterflies and more pressure on him to show off his skills in an attempt to impress. Siri on the other side senses the over-action that was being done by Aryan on the other side pretending to play all simple shots as complexly as he ever would in turn making a fool of himself. She even advised him to play normally, as if Aryan ever listened. Perhaps, maybe he should have. Because after a few games they decided to head back to their work leaving the trio in the same places. But by the time the trio was also exhausted as well, except maybe Aryan who claims his source of stamina comes from the junk food he gobbles down into his artic of a tummy.

However, Aryan wondered about they ever meeting again as they left and maybe perhaps then he could possibly make his move whichever that move is. Because if history served right, his only move was being silent, be it being asked to share something or even the viva as a matter of fact. No wonder he has been single all his life and there lies the question so as to how he would be able to change any of that and break the life long singularity status. Thanks to his invisible stars they did come across again, the very same day.

( To be continued … )
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