More than all the stars in the sky - An Addicted Prequel

Just Friends

A few days later, Manvi walked into the twenty second floor of her office building. It was Virat's office in there. She had previously never been there. She looked around trying to take the surroundings in. It was much different than her office atmosphere. People were sitting around on bean bags, playing mini-golf or ping pong, munching on Pizza. Some were even sipping cold beer. 

"Can I help you?" A girl behind her asked.

Manvi swirled around nervously. She felt so out of place. It was Tanya, the girl who had met her at the coffee-shop earlier. 

"Oh? Meera right?" She asked. "You are looking for Virat?"

"Yes. The name is Manvi." she replied with a small smile.

"Right. Virat is very busy. His project just got approved. For the next couple of months or so, nobody will even as much as see him."

"Manvi??" Somebody called her out from far away.

Manvi looked at Virat and another guy walking towards them.

"Wow? Lost your way, stranger?" Virat asked turning her towards him.

"No. I had exams so I did not see you a lot. Just wanted to say Hi." she explained guility.

"Yeah. I know. This is my roomate, Karan. You have already met Tanya." Virat introduced them.

"Nice to meet you.  It must be so nice to have your friends around." she comments politely.

"Nah. They are very annoying." Virat laughed.

"He just gets annoyed that we beat him every single time in ping pong." Karan shrugged.

"Woah...Beat me? Dream on dude." Virat looks at Karan incredulously.

"Trying to impress your girl-friend, I see." Karan retorts laughing.

"Oh no! No girl friend. We both are friends. Pure platonic kinda friends." Virat puts his hand around Manvi's shoulders and tells him in a sincere tone, moving behind her, winking at Karan to get away from them. Manvi turns around and looks at Virat, to which he smiles down to her widely. 

"Right! I am going to leave you "friends" to catch up with whatever friendish stuff you normally do. We have to go." Karan takes Tanya by her hand and walks off.

"Why?" Tanya turns around and looks at Manvi.

"You want to sit in the lounge. They have lots of left over cake today from Martin's birthday party."

"Sure. Who is Martin?" Manvi asks as he takes her to the lounge.

"The guy whose birthday is today." Virat chuckles.

"Very intuitive..." Manvi rolls her eyes as he cuts her a big slice of cake. "Anyways, I came to thank you for that day. I don't know what came over me. I really thought of quitting." she told him. "But, you were there for me, Virat. Thank you."

"When Virat is here. Not to fear." he declares.

"You seem to be in an awesome mood today."

"My "friend" came to meet me. It is usually the other way, you know, me going around your college campus, your cafe, your apartment..." he explains her his problems.

"Really?"

"And my project got approved today. Its big."

"Congratulations. Tanya told me."

"She and Karan are my project mates." he tells her, eating her cake. "Isn't it yum!"

"Um..help yourself." she teases him as he digs in.