A cliche story

Chapter 1

The sound of the clicking of the keyboard could be heard echoing from everywhere in the large hall. There were more than five hundred people in the hall, but all that could be heard was the sound of the keyboards from every cubicle - not a whisper or any other sound!

Sat at one of the corner cubicles, with a view of a lake on one side, and tall buildings on the other, the tall spectacled girl kept typing on her laptop, her eyes on the monitor, moving through the lines quickly to catch any typos in the code.

Tucking a stray strand of hair behind her her ear, she adjusted her glasses, cupping her chin and reading her 300 lines of code, her right hand scrolling the wheel of the mouse.

"Gotcha!!" She whispered ecstatically as her eyes landed on a typo, and she grinned in success as she quickly modified the typo.

"Now that you're finally done, can we go for lunch?? I'm hungry!!" Kavya asked, clutching at her stomach.

Nandini jumped in shock, her mouse falling down to the floor with a clatter.

But the hall was bustling with the sounds of people moving around and talking loudly as they made their way for lunch.

She checked her watch - it was half past one in the afternoon.

Damn! She'd spent the last 2 hours on this simple piece of code?

"Nandu!!!" Kavya whined as her tummy gave a loud rumble.

"When did you come here??" Nandini frowned at her, closing her laptop and finally turning her attention to her best friend who was currently sitting on the edge of Nandini's table.

Kavya shared the cubicle next to Nandini's, and she was her colleague, her best friend, and her teammate! They were working on a project together too!

"I came here half an hour ago, calling you for lunch! And you said ten minutes and haven't looked up since!" Kavya glared at her.

"Girls, lunch?" Niel peeked up from the cubicle in front of them, smiling.

"Yes yes... Let's go" Nandini got to her feet.

Kavya continued to grumble, but Nandini just tugged at her arm, and together with their other friends, they went for lunch.

"How's the marriage search going on?" Pritam, their manager asked, looking at his juniors.

"I am waiting for my sister to get married first" Niel shrugged.

"I am waiting for my boyfriend's sister to get married so that we can talk about our relationship at home" Kavya grinned.

Pritam gazed from Niel to Kavya and smirked.

"Same as usual Nandini?" Pritam asked her kindly.

"Either the guy is younger than me or much too older than me!" She scoffed.

The others murmured in agreement.

"I used to think that arranged marriage is easier, but now when I've seen all this, I think love marriage is the safest option!" Pavan murmured and everybody sniggered.

"Arre bhai aisa kya hogaya hai? Ek mahina bhi nahi hua tumhare shadi hue!! What's going on bro?? It's hardly been a month since you got married??" Pritam raised his eyebrow.

The others all turned to Pavan, some smirking, some looking curious.

"Just... Saying" he mumbled but didn't explain any further.

"At least you're married!" Sagar mumbled.

"You're 23!! You just started working!! You wanna get married so soon??" Neha gasped at him in shock.