Chapter XXIV
Line up: The Lunch Box Journal

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Story so far: Gautham hosted his birthday party at his house and they stayed over for the night. The next day they made a plan to go on time to the bus stop for a more specific reason. Read on to see what happened next…

They woke up just in time. But not in time to have their breakfast but in time to catch the earlier planned bus. They had a long walk to the bus stop from Gautham’s house. There was a much closer bus stop, but that wasn’t what they weren’t looking to catch. Akhil had taken his bike to Gautham’s house. He could have gone to office in that instead of going on the bus. He didn’t want to miss even an opportunity to see her. Even if it had for them to move all the way to next bus stop, they wanted to take the trouble. It wasn’t as if everyone in the group was crushing on her, well except Akhil. But it was sort of their idea of fun and this was an absolute way to pull Akhil’s leg. Well, they made in time to the bus stop. But she was nowhere to be seen. They thought they might have missed the first bus and she might have gotten into that bus. While they were about to feel disappointed, she was standing on the other side of the road waiting for the pedestrian signal to turn green so that she could cross the road and reach the bus stop. She was a sight to watch to those sore sleepy eyes. While Akhil’s cheeks turned red syncing with that of her cheeks. She didn’t notice the rest of the squad until then, but when she did, the blush wore off and was replaced with the feeling of creeped out. Though after they got in the bus, Akhil did no such thing as talking to her, instead sat on the last seat while she settled on the first seat because she was already creeped out by these guys who usually used to show up at the lunchtime in the office, but now they were at the bus stop.

While the distance between him and her had the whole length of the bus, they thought they couldn’t do anything. And they thought so, the bus was in a small accident and the traffic police made the bus stop on the side. Meanwhile, the driver, the traffic police and the person involved were discussing what should be done about this, all the others were advised to take up the next bus that goes on the same way. This was the second opportunity for Akhil to do something about the crush of his. While the whole squad encouraged him to break the ice and make a pleasant conversation, nothing of that sort happened even though the distance between them was reduced to a couple of rows. And this disappointed the lunch squad a bit, but they were hopeful that with Akhil’s skills, he can turn things in his favor as always.

Now that they were down by one party, they were eagerly waiting for another two parties which were lined up in the next couple week. An interesting fact was Aryan and Neil had their birthdays on the same day. That was sheer coincidence. But it was such a shame that both of them weren’t willing to come to the office the very same day. They didn’t tell anyone about their planned absence on the day of their birthday. They both were not sure whether the others knew what day was their birthday. If only one of them open the Leave Tracker, they would come to know the planned leave by either and that would simply be their birthday because neither of them takes a leave or were ever seen taking a leave out of the ordinary, unless …well that otherwise never happened. So, it would be pretty obvious.

(To be Continued …)

Did they do the same thing they did for Gautham? Was it another blast party? Or did they even came to office on their birthday?
– Check out for new updates coming soon on the blog –

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The Lunch Box Journal

ak, mmxviii