The office always became quieter after seven-thirty.
Not empty. Quiet.
Daytime voices dissolved into low conversations near cubicles, rolling chair sounds, muted keyboard tapping, coffee machine complaints, and the occasional laugh from someone too tired to care how loudly they laughed anymore.
Most people who stayed back that late belonged to one of two categories:
people who genuinely had work,
and people who preferred delaying whatever waited for them outside.
Sudharma belonged to both on different days.
That evening, rain had started sometime around six. Not heavy enough to stop traffic. Just enough to make the glass windows carry streaks of blurred city light.
Sudharma was halfway through an escalation mail when a chocolate wrapper landed on his desk.
He looked up.
“You’re welcome,” Swara said, already walking back toward her cubicle.
“For what?”
“You looked like you were going to die.”
“I still might.”
“Eat first. Die later.”
He smiled despite himself.
That had become routine somehow.
Not the chocolate specifically.
Swara appearing near his desk without announcement.
Some days tea.
Some days complaints.
Some days silence.
They had joined the company within a few months of each other but properly started talking only during a production issue nearly six months later. One late-night escalation call had become another. Then internal jokes. Then familiarity.
From across the floor someone shouted:
“Machaa… just propose and finish it da.”
A few heads turned immediately.
Swara didn’t even look up from her monitor.
Sudharma replied before thinking.
“Why would I spoil a perfectly good friendship?”
“Ahhh,” another voice joined. “Friendship. Of course.”
Laughter.
Routine office entertainment.
Swara finally turned slightly in her chair.
“Can you all at least wait till release closure before creating stories?”
“You both already created the story,” someone said.
More laughter.
Then everyone went back to work.
That too had become routine.
People assumed things.
They denied them easily enough.
Outside the office, rain thickened.
Around nine-thirty, the cafeteria had only sandwiches left. Sudharma bought two anyway.
Swara stared at the plate after he placed it beside her keyboard.
“This looks illegal.”
“You want or not?”
“I want. I’m just saying if I die tomorrow, tell my mother it was because of this sandwich.”
“You tell her yourself.”
“Hmm,” she said, opening the packet. “Depends on sandwich quality.”
The floor slowly emptied.
One by one:
log-off sounds,
chairs pushed back,
goodnights exchanged,
cab calls made.
Their conversations usually began properly only after that.
Not important conversations.
That was the strange part.
They spoke about:
managers, parents, traffic, food, movies they never finished, career confusion, school memories, random fears at two in the morning,
and occasionally… nothing at all.
Sometimes calls stayed connected even when neither spoke for several minutes.
Neither found it awkward.
Around eleven-fifteen, Swara stretched in her chair and glanced toward Sudharma’s desk.
“You leaving?”
“In ten.”
“That means thirty.”
“Correct.”
She shut down her system.
“You eating dinner?”
“Haven’t decided.”
“You say that every day re…”
“And every day somehow I survive na.”
“Barely.”
She picked up her bag.
Then paused.
“Have You applied?”
Sudharma looked up.
“For Masters?”
He nodded once.
“Hometown?”
“y…up”
“You’ll go?”
“If I get in.”
Swara stood there for a moment longer than necessary.
Then she nodded lightly.
“Good.”
And left.
Sudharma watched the glass door close behind her.
Then returned to his laptop.
Outside, rain continued.
Inside, Swara’s empty chair remained slightly turned toward his desk.
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