Sudharma rejoined the company almost eight months later.
Different role.
Better designation.
More responsibility.
Same building.
People who once seemed intimidating had become ordinary managers with back pain and deadlines. Freshers moved around carrying the same nervous energy they themselves once had.
Nothing inside corporate offices changed fundamentally.
Only faces rotated.
His first week disappeared into induction meetings, system access requests, handovers, and awkward reunions with people pretending no time had passed.
Swara met him exactly the way she had always met him.
She walked into his bay during lunch hour, looked at his laptop screen and said:
“Still keeping desktop clutter like mental illness?”
“Nice to see you too.”
“Hmmm.”
That was all.
But later that evening, while leaving office together toward the parking lot, she asked casually:
“Nervous ah?”
“For what?”
“Starting again.”
Sudharma took a second before answering.
“A little.”
Swara nodded once.
Then quietly:
“You’ll settle fast.”
He smiled and nodded.
The months after that slipped back into rhythm almost dangerously easily.
Calls returned.
Lunches happened occasionally.
Tea breaks became routine again.
Only now both of them carried slightly older versions of themselves into conversations.
Swara had become calmer after the surgery.
Sudharma too had changed after the Masters break and the strange uncertainty surrounding it. He seemed less restless now. More patient perhaps.
Around office, assumptions resumed almost immediately.
“Season 2 started.”
“Corporate’s longest-running relationship without confirmation.”
“Someone marry these people.”
Neither reacted much anymore.
The jokes had existed too long to feel intrusive.
And perhaps somewhere underneath all that comfort, both of them had also stopped examining the exact shape of what existed between them.
The reunion happened almost by accident.
Vinay created the WhatsApp group after complaining for nearly six months that everyone had become “old and useless.”
People responded slowly at first.
One lived abroad.
One had kids now.
One was pretending to prepare for UPSC for fourth year continuously.
Dates shifted three times before finally settling on one Saturday evening at Harish’s rented villa outside the city.
By the time Sudharma and Swara arrived together, half the group was already drunk.
Music played unnecessarily loudly from portable speakers near the lawn.
Someone was arguing passionately about old appraisal ratings.
Someone else was burning paneer on the Barbeque.
Vinay spotted them immediately.
“Ayyo finally. Corporate power couple arrived.”
“Shut up maccha,” Sudharma said automatically.
Swara took one look around and sighed.
“None of you grew up ah?”
“Why should we?” Vinay replied proudly.
That became the mood of the evening.
Old friendships resumed through mockery faster than affection.
The drinks kept moving.
So did stories.
People repeated old office incidents as though nobody had heard them before. Someone played songs from college days. Someone cried laughing over forgotten manager impressions.
At one point Sudharma realized he had not laughed this freely in months.
Maybe years.
Swara sat beside him for most of the evening without either of them consciously deciding it.
Sometimes speaking.
Sometimes listening.
Sometimes simply existing inside the familiar chaos of old friends.
Late into the night, smaller groups slowly began disappearing.
Some fell asleep inside bedrooms upstairs.
Some near the television.
One fellow apparently slept near the staircase itself.
By around two-thirty, silence had finally started reaching parts of the house.
Only the balcony outside the first-floor hall still remained lit.
Sudharma stepped outside with a cigarette and found Swara already standing there.
“Stealing fresh air ah?” he asked.
“Escaping idiots.”
She took the cigarette from his fingers naturally and inhaled once before returning it.
The city stretched far away beyond the villa compound wall.
Distant lights.
Occasional traffic.
Cold breeze carrying faint smell of smoke.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Below them, someone laughed loudly in sleep.
Swara smiled faintly hearing it.
“Harish still snores like tractor?”
“Improved slightly. Earlier sounded like earthquake warning.”
“Hmmm.”
Then unexpectedly, Swara asked:
“You ever think about those two years?”
Sudharma looked sideways at her.
“Which part?”
“The part where we stopped talking.”
He leaned against the railing slowly.
“Sometimes.”
“Same.”
She said it casually.
Without accusation.
“What happened?” Sudharma asked after a while.
“To us?”
“Hmmm.”
Swara thought for several seconds before answering.
“Nothing happened re.”
That was true.
And also not true.
Life had simply entered and taken space. Rhythms changed. Priorities shifted. There was no fight to blame.
Which made the distance harder to explain.
“I used to think you’ll call one day randomly,” she said quietly.
“You also could have called.”
“I know.”
The breeze strengthened slightly around them.
Somewhere nearby, a dog barked continuously for no visible reason.
Then Swara laughed softly.
“Imagine if you had called.”
“You would have shouted.”
“Correct.”
“Then nothing lost.”
“Hmmm.”
Again silence.
Sudharma looked at her then.
Properly.
Standing beside him under weak yellow balcony light, hair moving slightly in the wind, holding a drink she had stopped drinking several minutes ago.
And suddenly, he leaned forward and kissed her.
The moment lasted barely seconds.
Swara froze immediately.
Then stepped back.
Shock flashed across her face so openly that Sudharma himself came back to awareness abruptly.
“What the hell—”
“I…”
For the first time in years, Sudharma genuinely did not know what to say.
The silence after that felt entirely different from all their earlier silences.
Swara stared at him.
Sudharma rubbed his forehead once instinctively.
“Sorry.”
She still said nothing.
The city remained absurdly normal behind them.
Wind continued.
Someone inside the hall turned in sleep.
And standing there inside all that ordinary night, Sudharma realized apology was not the truthful thing sitting inside him.
Fear was.
That he had broken something irrecoverable.
Then quietly, before he could stop himself, he said:
“I love you.”
Swara looked away immediately.
Neither moved after that.
Minutes passed.
Neither spoke.
Eventually she finished the remaining drink in one swallow and said softly:
“You’re drunk.”
“Little.”
“Hmmm.”
Then:
“Sleep re.”
That was all.
Swara walked inside first.
Sudharma remained alone on the balcony another fifteen minutes before finally following.
Most people were already asleep across the hall by then.
Vinay snored loudly from one corner mattress.
Someone had left half-eaten chips near the sofa.
Normal ridiculousness everywhere.
Swara had already taken one side of the large floor mattress near the window.
Without looking at him, she shifted slightly to create space.
Sudharma lay down beside her quietly.
Neither spoke.
Neither slept for a long time.
But by morning, when everyone woke up with headaches, missing chargers, and terrible tea, both of them behaved almost as though nothing had happened.
Shanbhogue Publications 
Leave a comment