Friday nights in tech were usually reserved for production rollbacks, not unexpected flirtation. Yet that evening, as the office slowly dimmed and the rain performed its usual Mumbai percussion outside, Radha found herself staring at her monitor, waiting. Not for a build status. Not for a Jira update. For a ping.

Sameer’s pings had, somehow, become the punctuation marks of her day as a reassuring rhythm between meetings, deadlines, and caffeine refills.

She surprised herself by typing first.

Radha N: hey dev-guru, did your "permanent redemption" streak survive another sprint?

A few seconds later, the reply arrived, just the right mix of confidence and mock drama.

Sameer K: barely. prod server coughed once but I bribed it with extra memory. also, evening Radha N, nice of you to message first 👀

Radha N: consider it a QA audit of your sarcasm module.

Sameer K: hmm... results?

Radha N: needs optimization. excessive humor calls detected.

Sameer K: ouch. filing a bug against QA for insufficient appreciation of developer wit.

Radha laughed out loud, nearly spilling her tea. Pixel, her cat and unofficial stress therapist, meowed disapprovingly from the couch.

“Relax, Pixel,” she said between chuckles. “It’s just… work banter.”

Pixel’s unimpressed stare said otherwise.

Outside, the drizzle softened, painting streaks of silver against the glass. The city below was alive with the low hum of rickshaws, the faint aroma of street chai, the neon reflections on rain-slicked roads. Radha leaned against her balcony railing, phone in hand, watching messages blink back and forth.

The conversation drifted easily, the way it does when two people stop pretending it’s about work.

They talked about food “Maggi counts as dinner, right?”, the eternal misery of ticket escalations, and the existential crisis of naming variables at midnight. Then, somehow, the topic turned to music.

Sameer K: what’s your go-to playlist when the world’s breaking?

Radha N: soft lo-fi. and a little Prateek Kuhad when I’m in denial.

Sameer K: dangerous combo. lo-fi and Kuhad are how engineers end up staring at code and questioning life choices.

Radha N: spoken like someone who’s been there.

Sameer K: guilty. happens every sprint review.

She smiled at her phone, realizing that somewhere between the bug reports and the banter, they had built their own little release cycle of chaos, laughter, and something quietly hopeful.

And for the first time in a long time, Friday night in tech didn’t feel like work at all.

Saturday morning arrived wearing its usual monsoon mood with gray skies, heavy humidity, and zero motivation. Radha shuffled to her desk with a mug of lukewarm coffee, opened Jira, and blinked at the newest ticket on her dashboard.

Bug: Coffee machine in pantry producing existential crisis instead of caffeine.
Assigned to: QA Legend
Reporter: Sameer K

She stared for a moment, then burst out laughing so hard she nearly spilled her drink.

Priya, perched across the kitchen table with a face mask on and a spoonful of oats midair, frowned. “That’s not the laugh of a sane QA. What happened?”

Radha spun the laptop around.

Priya read the ticket, snorted loudly, and said, “Oh my god. He’s flirting through Jira. Corporate love language unlocked.”

“Don’t start,” Radha said, cheeks tinting pink.

Priya leaned back, smirking. “Oh, I’ve already started. Next week, HR will introduce a new ticket category - Love Bug: Severity High, Priority Urgent.”

Meanwhile, across Bandra, Dev was performing his usual role as Sameer’s unsolicited life coach.

“You’ve got that look,” Dev said, leaning dramatically on Sameer’s cubicle wall. “Like a man who just merged code and emotions.”

Sameer groaned, rubbing his temples. “Please stop narrating my personal life like it’s a sprint retrospective.”

“Face it,” Dev said. “You’ve caught feelings through corporate fiber optics. Happens to the best of us.”

Sameer tried to look unfazed, but Dev wasn’t wrong. He could picture Radha’s reactions even without seeing her - her dry humor, the subtle sarcasm in her messages, the way she could roast him and debug his logic in the same sentence. It was absurdly endearing.

By Sunday afternoon, the rain was back, blurring the skyline outside Radha’s apartment. She was curled up on her couch, half-debugging test scripts, half-listening to Netflix drone in the background when Slack pinged.

Sameer K: hey, random question… ever been to the company café in BKC office? thinking of braving it tomorrow.

Radha N: not yet. I avoid offices like production outages.

Sameer K: same. remote life = freedom. also, rumor says café samosas are legendary.

Radha N: samosas might convince me someday.

Sameer K: then I’ll keep that as my secret QA bait.

She stared at the message a second longer than she should have, smiling despite herself. The idea of actually meeting him — the voice behind all the pings and tickets — felt both exciting and dangerous, like deploying code straight to production without testing.

She typed back slowly.

Radha N: careful, Kapoor. that sounds dangerously close to socializing.

Sameer K: purely professional. agenda: evaluating the best chai in Mumbai.

Radha N: agenda approved.

Outside, thunder rolled faintly as if signing off on their plan. Radha minimized the chat window, but the grin refused to fade. Maybe it was just boredom and caffeine dependency. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the beginning of something that didn’t need a Jira ticket to feel real.