Swetha felt like a stranger in a crowd,
surrounded by new faces, seen by none.
Whereas, Vishnu was lost in laughter with his friends, his world too full to make space for her...
It took him a five whole minutes just to say a simple “hi" to Swetha after which he drifted right back to his friends...
As the laughter grew louder, Swetha’s heart grew quieter... It hit her then, maybe this is it... she was just another girl in his story, someone to pass his time with, nothing more and nothing special...
Her pride flared up like fire... Before she could stop herself, she messaged Vishnu in private...
Swetha: romba busy pola
Vishnu: hey
Swetha: yen ippadi pandra
Vishnu: eppadi?
Swetha: you are avoiding me
Vishnu: appadiyellam edhuvum illa
Swetha: illa, Airport la meet pannadhula irundhey nee sari illa
Vishnu: I don't get you
Swetha: kovam irundha open ah sollidu... Naa unna paarkama, unkooda pesama poittenu dhan ipdi pandriyaa?
(There was a long pause as Vishnu kept silent. Swetha was getting restless and kept asking him to reply but got nothing from him. After a while, he pinged her that he got busy with some work and would come online later)
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At the same time, a couple of thousand miles away, Chandru's teammate Vinod pinged him in MS Teams. "Exception thrown by the bot, let's connect at 7:15 for further developement"
At 7:15 Vinod was showing the screenshot of the conversation and Chandru seemed tensed... His mind was only thinking about how to stop these 2 from connecting outside the chatroom...