Tissue For This Issue

Chapter 6

Week 9; 31 weeks until Baby J!, Priya smiled as she wrote in her planner.

"Baby J, huh? You already have names picked out?" Shardul asked as he rolled his chair up to Priya.

It was lunch time, and mostly everyone in the office had either gone to the lunch room or out to a nearby restaurant. While Priya's morning sickness had decreased, she had started to feel more sensitive to smells within the last few days and had started taking her lunch at her desk or with Alekha in the HR office. Alekha had dragged Ram to a lunch conference today, so Priya had decided that she would enjoy some quiet time and eat at her desk.

"Well, kind of," Priya said before swiveling her chair to face her manager. "You see, I've had the letter J floating around in my head for a bit, and so I started thinking of some potential names. It's still very early, but no harm in picking some out, right?"

"Yeah, definitely. And knowing how you are, of course you'd have already started listing some names even when there's months to go until the baby arrives. Now, spill the names!"

Priya chuckled and flipped her planner to a bookmarked page. "Don't give me that much credit, okay! All I could come up with so far was Jai if it's a boy and Jiya if it's a girl. I also really like the name Pihu if it's a girl, but I couldn't come up with a boy name that starts with P."

"Those are nice names! And luckily for you, there's no one to stop you or veto the names-," Shardul stopped himself as he realized what he had said. "Err...too soon? I'm sorry for bringing it up."

"Don't apologize! It's true; Yuvraj chose not to be involved, so his input on the baby's name doesn't matter. And besides, it's not too soon. Have you seen Alekha? It's like she was practically waiting for us to break up so that she could trash talk him."

"Isn't that her default?" Shardul laughed. "But speaking of Yuvraj, has he been bothering you lately?"

Priya sighed. "A bit. Sometimes I see him coming my way, so I'll put my headset on or start a conversation with someone, but it hasn't always worked. Sometimes he'll just start talking to me, I guess with the expectation that he can pretend like he didn't break up with me. I usually tell him coldly that I'm busy and continue with what I was doing before."

"Yikes. He's really trying his best to find opportunities, isn't he? Just last week, Ram told me that he wanted to help you set up the remote materials. Thankfully, Santosh was there and Ram could ask him instead."

"Ram did that?"

"Of course! He knows how uncomfortable you feel around Yuvraj, so he told him to help out with the network issues. Which isn't really a lie; you know there's been an influx of those recently. I'm also going to try and make sure he doesn't approach you as often as he does. Maybe tell his manager to give him some more work so he stays busy."

"Thank you so much, Shardul Sir. Now that I think about it, I'm kind of glad he broke up with me. Not only did he open my eyes to how annoying he can be, but he's also the reason why I've gained you and Ram Sir as my friends."

"Well, at least he has some redeeming qualities!"

---

"Argh, please don't crash on me again!" Priya cried as she stared at her computer. She and her team were working on an impromptu report that one of India Eatz's investors had asked for. However, her computer would freeze up any time she made any edits to the slides and had even crashed altogether a few times.

"What's wrong?" Shardul asked as he walked up behind Priya.

"Sir, I think this report is cursed. I've been trying to work on it all day, and it freezes any time I do anything."