By Monday night, Mumbai was back in full swing, with its aquatic drama mode in full effect. The streets had transformed into mirror lakes, reflecting neon lights and streaks of headlights that stretched like brushstrokes across the water. The air smelled of wet earth and exhaust, thunder muttering somewhere beyond the high-rises as if the city itself was grumbling about yet another monsoon evening.

Radha sat by her window, a thin shawl draped around her shoulders, the rhythmic rain tapping against the glass like impatient fingers. Her laptop glowed in the dimness, perched precariously on her knees. She’d made a solemn promise to herself at seven p.m. - no more work after this.

It was now almost ten.

Her code editor was still open, Slack minimized but not quite closed, like a window she couldn’t bring herself to shut. She told herself she was waiting for the last test to run, just tying up loose ends before bed. But if she was being honest, painfully, privately honest she was waiting for something else.

Or someone else.

Her eyes flicked to the corner of her screen every few seconds, scanning for that familiar green dot, the one that said Sameer K is online.

The rain outside deepened, thunder growling like an old engine. Somewhere far below, a street vendor yelled over the downpour, his voice carrying the promise of hot vada pav and cutting chai.

Radha sighed, half smiling. “Even the samosa guy’s got more initiative than me tonight,” she muttered.

Pixel, her cat, yawned from the couch unimpressed, unbothered, and slightly damp from trying to chase raindrops earlier.

She sipped her now-cold coffee, hit refresh on Slack again, and told herself it was purely for work reasons. Nothing else.

But the tiny, traitorous flutter in her chest suggested otherwise.

At exactly 10:47 p.m., the notification popped up — a soft ping that managed to sound far too dramatic for such a small sound.

Sameer K: you still awake?

Radha blinked at the message, then at the clock. Of course he’d pick the exact moment she’d decided to shut her laptop and pretend to have boundaries. She typed back, smiling to herself.

Radha N: define "awake." if you mean debugging in pajamas while questioning life choices, then yes.

A moment later:

Sameer K: same. except i’ve upgraded to the hoodie + existential dread combo. limited edition devwear.

She laughed out loud, nearly startling Pixel off the couch.

Radha N: classic. every dev’s fallback outfit for broken code and broken dreams. what’s the emergency this time?

Sameer K: none. shocking, right? no fires, no rollbacks. just… too much silence. figured i’d see if QA world’s still spinning.

She hesitated, reading that twice. It wasn’t like him to message without a reason tied to a bug or build. Something in the tone was softer, quieter like he was talking to her, not at her.

Radha N: spinning fine. pixel’s snoring, code’s stable, rain’s being dramatic as usual. you?

Sameer K: same rain here. power keeps flickering. feels like the city’s trying to set the mood.

Radha smiled at her screen, the rain outside syncing perfectly with his words.

For a long, quiet moment, neither of them typed. The chat box waited patiently, little blinking cursors hesitating like they were both deciding how honest to be.

Outside, thunder rolled over Mumbai’s skyline, and somewhere between the storm and the silence, two people who had never met in person sat miles apart, sharing the same weather and maybe, just maybe, the same thought.

Then another message appeared, one that felt less like a joke and more like a quiet confession.

Sameer K: ever feel like remote work makes life... quieter than it should be?

Radha’s fingers paused above the keyboard. There was something different in that line; the humor had thinned out, replaced by a tired honesty she recognized all too well.

Radha N: all the time. it’s like everyone’s on mute except your own thoughts.

He replied almost instantly.

Sameer K: exactly. sometimes i miss the chaos... the chai wala yelling, random team banter, someone arguing about tabs vs spaces, or stealing my chair just to annoy me.

Radha smiled softly at her screen.

Radha N: i don’t miss the traffic, though. or the smell of wet socks during monsoon season.

Sameer K: fair point. but i’d trade a traffic jam for real faces once in a while. even Rohit’s, and that’s saying something.

She didn’t type right away. Pixel jumped down from the couch and brushed his tail against her wrist, grounding her in the dim light of the room. The cursor blinked, waiting like it knew this reply mattered.

Radha N: funny thing… we talk every day, fix half the company’s chaos, and still don’t know what the other even looks like.

Sameer K: maybe that’s why it works. no filters, no awkward small talk. words first. faces later.

The honesty in that message hit her harder than she expected. Her breath caught, and before she could overthink, she replied.

Radha N: you sound like a poet tonight.

Sameer K: nah, just another sleep-deprived dev romanticizing bad Wi-Fi.

Radha N: same thing, really. poets are just people who stay up too late thinking too much.

He sent a smile emoji. Just one. Simple, quiet.

Outside, the rain began to ease, the thunder drifting further out over the sea. Inside, between two glowing screens, a silence settled not empty this time, but warm. The kind that fills the spaces between words and means more than either of them would ever admit out loud.

Then her phone buzzed.

Incoming call: Sameer K – Slack audio.

Radha froze, staring at the screen as the ringtone pulsed in rhythm with the rain outside. For a second, she considered letting it ring out. Then heart thudding, breath uneven—she accepted.

“Hey,” his voice came through, low and warm, the kind of voice that somehow felt like it had always been there.

“Hey,” she replied, hoping she sounded more composed than she felt.

“Relax,” he said, chuckling softly. “Not a work call. I just figured typing can’t compete with this monsoon background score.”

Radha smiled. “Bold assumption, Mr. Developer. QA still prefers written documentation.”

A pause. Then both of them laughed awkwardly at first, then easy, genuinely.

The conversation began with small things: Pixel’s newfound habit of sleeping on her keyboard, her obsession with South Indian filter coffee, and his ongoing war with Jenkins builds. He teased her about “QA paranoia,” and she retaliated with jokes about his commit messages looking like ransom notes.

Minutes stretched effortlessly into an hour. The rain outside had mellowed into a steady rhythm, syncing with their words. The topics drifted from tech talk to movie recommendations, from office gossip to old Mumbai memories. They talked about the smell of wet earth near Marine Drive, the chaos of Gokhale Road during floods, the comfort of cutting chai shared under leaky bus stops.

At one point, he went quiet, then said softly, “You know, your laugh sounds exactly how your comments read.”

Radha blinked. “Meaning?”

“Precise. But… unexpected,” he said, his tone gentler now.

Her pulse stumbled. She didn’t know how to reply, so she didn’t. The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was full of rain, of static, of things that didn’t need explaining.

After a few moments, he spoke again, the warmth still there but laced with his usual teasing tone. “Anyway, we should probably sleep before Jira files a new bug report titled ‘Two Employees Ignoring Circadian Rhythm.’”

Radha chuckled. “Fine. Consider this QA officially logging off.”

“Night, Radha.”

“Night, Sameer.”

The call ended, but the warmth didn’t. It lingered in the room like the aftertaste of chai - sweet, familiar, addictive.

The next morning, her Slack notification blinked to life:

Sameer K: bug report: brain malfunctioning due to last night’s excellent conversation. steps to reproduce… quick call QA legend again.

Radha smiled, her heart giving a traitorous flutter. She typed back:

Radha N: assigning back to dev. issue reproducible.

Later, during stand-up, Priya raised an eyebrow as Radha hummed while updating tickets. Two floors down, Dev caught Sameer grinning at his monitor like a man who’d just debugged the meaning of happiness.

Everyone at Codelink noticed the change in the air that day, two people’s quiet, digital chemistry woven into the hum of deadlines and drizzle.

Neither of them noticed that everyone noticed.