AbhiRa One-Shots - Mix & Match

6. Conference

"And the award goes to Dr. Abhimanyu Birla and Dr. Akshara Goenka who travelled all the way to join us here, from Birla Hospital in Udaipur." Dr. Hans Prakash Raj, organizer of the elite Soharse Medical Conference announced.

Soharse Medical Conference was an annual conference which celebrated the excellence of practitioners and surgeons of their respective fields by rewarding them.

And this time, one of the winners were Dr. Abhimanyu Birla and his junior intern Dr. Akshara Goenka who used a applied music therapy intricately to the field of cardiology. The combination itself was never tried and tested before but this innovation made them come out victorious and that is all that mattered.

Abhimanyu looked over at Akshara, his eyes twinkling with pride as he got up. He outstretched his hand just as she slipped her hand in his. Like a gentleman, Abhimanyu walked Akshara up the steps onto the stage.

He curled his large fingers over her petite hand. The feel of her hands in his —it felt right. Just perfect.

He kept stealing glances at Akshara who was beaming with joy as she accepted the trophy, clutching it tightly to her chest as she turned around to him, her almond shaped doe-eyes looking larger than usual for her tiny face.

"Thank you." Abhimanyu's baritone voice made her heart skip a beat as he brushed past her shoulder in order to receive the award.

"Would you like to say a few words Dr. Birla?"

Abhimanyu glanced over at Akshara before grabbing the mic and turning to face the crowd, with Akshara by his side, looking elegant as ever in her champagne colored floor length gown with the thigh slit, and the low back with 5" heels, matching with his all black tuxedo.

They both truly looked like a power couple. Except they weren't a couple. They were just colleagues. Not wanting to infringe upon the hospital's employee fraternization policy.

"Umm...to be honest, I am not very good with my words, I am only good enough to be a cardiac surgeon, but I'll still try." Abhimanyu spoke into the mic earning laughter from the crowd. "First of all, thank you. Thank you very much for his honour..."

~*~

It was the Conference after party and Abhimanyu and Akshara sat at a table full of their colleagues, eating, drinking, chit chatting as music played on the background whilst the dance floor was open.

"I didn't now you drank." Abhimanyu pointed out to Akshara who was enjoying herself a glass of wine.

"I normally don't. But I felt like drinking today." Her cheeks flushed. She did not think her boss, her senior doctor —the man who starred in every x-rated dream of hers —would point out her drinking of all things

But else was she expecting? He was her senior and she was just an intern. There was nothing that could happen between them, no matter how much she wanted it to.

He was easily 10 years older than her. The age gap was the least of her worries. It was just the —the yearning —the acknowledgment that she shouldn't look at him that way —be crushing on him —that tugged at her heart strings.

"Today is something to celebrate. The award. The recognition for our hard work." She added, trying to snap out of her dreamland.

"Well then, I will definitely toast to that." He raised his whiskey glass, clinking it with her wine glass before taking a sip and urging Akshara to take a sip too.

Just then, a tall, good looking doctor whom Akshara had bumped into earlier walked up to their table. Dr. Bajaj, Nishant Bajaj was his name as she remembered.