Wednesday morning didn’t arrive so much as crash into Radha’s life.

Her alarm had barely stopped ringing when she opened her laptop, still wrapped in a blanket, Pixel purring at her feet. The inbox greeted her with the usual Monday-level madness with error logs, client queries, and automated reminders pretending to be helpful. She reached for her coffee, took one slow sip, and that’s when she saw it.

A new email.
Subject line: “URGENT: Vega Extension Project – Kickoff.”

She froze mid-sip.

Vega Extension?
That wasn’t real. That wasn’t supposed to be real. Vega was done. Vega had been put to sleep, given a farewell ceremony, buried with honors. Vega was supposed to stay dead.

She clicked the email. It was from Rohit, which already meant trouble.

Team, great news! The client loved Vega and wants an immediate extension build. Radha and Sameer, you’ll be leading the effort. Meeting at 10:30 a.m. sharp. Bring the initial plan and high-level estimates.

Radha’s eyes widened. Her coffee went down the wrong pipe, and she almost choked.

Pixel looked at her like she had personally offended his lineage.

She wiped her mouth, reread the email, then reread it again just to confirm that the universe truly hated her this week.

“Perfect,” she muttered, letting her head fall back against the chair. “Exactly what I needed: divine intervention forcing us into the same project.”

She slammed her mug down and reached for her phone just as a Slack notification pinged.

She didn’t even have to guess who it was from.

At that exact moment, several floors below, Sameer stood frozen in front of the espresso machine, not because the coffee was terrible today, though it definitely was, but because he was rereading the same email for the fifth time.

Vega Extension Project.
Radha and Sameer to co-lead.

He closed his eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Dev materialized behind him like an omen.

“What’s with the face?” he asked, peering over Sameer’s shoulder at the email. A slow, wicked grin spread across his face. “Ohhhh. Oh this is chef’s kiss poetic.”

Sameer shot him a murderous look. “Don’t start.”

“Start?” Dev laughed. “Buddy, I’m already on season three of this drama. And this...” he pointed dramatically at the email “...is the mid-season twist.”

Sameer rubbed his forehead. “We agreed to take space. Actual space. Professional space. Outer space.”

Dev clapped him on the back. “And the universe said: ‘Nah... bro....Nah... humare yahan aisa hi hota he’”

Sameer groaned. “This is not funny.”

“It’s hilarious,” Dev said. “Fate just opened a fresh Jira ticket titled ‘Feelings – Reopen?’ and assigned it to you with high priority.”

“Dev....”

“Severity: Critical.”
“DEV....”

“Expected behavior: Radha and Sameer work things out.”
“Actual behavior: Sameer panics at the coffee machine.”

Sameer stared at him, deadpan. “I hate this office.”

Dev beamed. “And yet, somehow, this office loves you.”

By 10:30, the conference room felt nothing like the place where Vega had started months ago.

Same walls.
Same glass.
Same flickering ceiling light.

But now the air felt… weighted. As if every unspoken word between them was sitting at the table too.

Radha slipped into her chair, spine straight, face composed, hands folded a little too tightly in her lap. Sameer walked in seconds later, offering a polite nod that didn’t quite reach his eyes. They sat across from each other like two people trying to pretend last night’s messages didn’t still echo in their heads.

Rohit strode in with the energy of a man who loved pressure more than weekends. He clicked his marker, pacing in front of the whiteboard.

“Alright team,” he began, “the client wants the extension fast. Which means Dev and QA will have to coordinate even more closely this time.”

His gaze ping-ponged pointedly between Radha and Sameer.

“Like… very closely.”

Radha gave a professional, too-wide smile. “Sure.”

Sameer’s nod was equally neutral. “Absolutely. Whatever the project needs.”

Rohit narrowed his eyes he wasn’t buying it, but he chose to pretend for the sake of corporate sanity.

“Great,” he continued, “we’ll need daily sync-ups. Evening check-ins. Potential weekend work. Basically, Vega 2.0 on turbo mode.”

A low murmur went around the room.

Priya leaned toward Radha, whispering out of the corner of her mouth, “More like Emotional Torture 1.0.”

Radha elbowed her lightly, cheeks warming.

Rohit clapped once, startling everyone. “Any concerns before we begin?”

Silence.

Radha lifted her chin. “No concerns.”

Sameer echoed, “All good here.”

Their voices were steady, but under the glass table, Radha’s fingers twitched against her notebook and Sameer’s jaw tightened for half a second.

Everyone else heard words.

Both of them heard the storm brewing under them.

Rohit continued outlining deliverables, but for Radha and Sameer, the real question hung unsaid between their chairs:

What happens when distance becomes impossible?

The rest of the day felt like a carefully choreographed performance where two people were navigating a battlefield with white flags instead of weapons.

Every interaction was painfully polite, almost sterile.
Strictly work.
Strictly formal.
Strictly unlike them.

Their Jira thread read like two strangers forced into a group project:

Radha N: Updated the test plan for the API changes. Please review before 5 PM.
Sameer K: Acknowledged. Will review and push fixes by EOD.
Radha N: Appreciate it.
Sameer K: Noted.

Each line was a reminder of everything they weren’t saying.

Even Slack reflected the frost:

Radha N: Build failing on staging again. Check logs?
Sameer K: On it.
Radha N: Let me know if you need QA inputs.
Sameer K: Will do.

No sarcasm.
No emojis.
No warmth.

By mid-afternoon, Priya had seen enough.
She sent Radha a DM that practically screamed judgment:

Priya S: Did you two sign a peace treaty or something?
Radha N: What?
Priya S: Your Jira comments. They’re too… polite. Creepy polite.
Radha N: We’re being professional.
Priya S: Girl, you sound like HR. And not the fun HR who gives chocolate on Fridays. The scary compliance HR.

Radha sighed and minimized the chat, but her chest tightened.

This wasn’t professionalism.
This was distance dressed as discipline.
And the worst part?

She missed him.
The real him.

Downstairs, Sameer stared at their message thread with the same hollow ache, wondering when “professional” had started feeling like punishment.

Later that evening, the office felt like a museum with empty desks, dim hallway lights, and the steady hum of servers filling the silence. Radha stayed behind, partly because the Vega Extension documentation wasn’t done, but mostly because the quiet was easier than the noise in her own head.

Outside, the rain had returned in a soft, rhythmic drizzle. It tapped against the windows like a reminder of every moment that had happened before every storm, every late-night call, every almost-confession. It felt like the universe holding its breath.

She was reviewing a test report when she sensed movement in the doorway.

Sameer stood there, laptop in one hand, hoodie slightly damp, hair tousled from the rain. His voice was gentle and careful.

“Hey.”

Radha blinked, startled. “Hey. I thought you left.”

He stepped inside slowly, as though the room itself might break. “I was going to. Then Rohit decided he wanted three new commits before tomorrow’s sync.” He paused. “And… I wanted to check in.”

“Check in?” she repeated, guarded.

“Yeah.” He exhaled. “About the setup. About… us working together again. Is this okay? For you?”

Radha closed her laptop halfway. “It’s fine. Just… weird. A little déjà vu.”

Sameer nodded, his gaze drifting to the empty desks around them. “Same room. Same pressure. Same responsibilities.” He looked at her again, really looked. “But definitely not the same us.”

Her heart stuttered, just once. “No. Not the same.”

The silence that followed wasn’t the cold, professional one they’d been stuck in for days. This one felt familiar like the quiet before monsoon lightning.

He took one hesitant step closer. “Radha… I don’t want things to stay like this. Awkward. Distant. It feels wrong.”

She swallowed. “It’s only awkward if we let it be.”

He gave a small, hopeful smile. “Then let’s not let it.”

Radha stared at him at the sincerity in his eyes, the softness in his voice, the unspoken apology hanging between them. Then she nodded.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “Truce?”

Sameer extended his hand.

Not in the playful, teasing way he used to.
Not in the formal, polite way they’d been stuck in.
Something in between. Something trying.

“Truce,” he echoed.

She slipped her hand into his.

It was a simple handshake professional, harmless handshake.

But it lingered just one second too long, warm despite the cold rain outside… like a reset button neither of them truly wanted to press, yet desperately needed to.

The next few days slipped by in a strange, steady rhythm, the kind that felt both familiar and brand-new, like re-learning a language you once spoke fluently.

Radha and Sameer found themselves drifting back into sync, almost unconsciously.

Slack messages became warmer.
Jira comments carried their old sharpness but now with a softness underneath.
And their code reviews?
Those were practically a private conversation disguised as technical feedback.

Radha N: QA note: this logic looks suspiciously romantic.
Sameer K: Confirmed: emotionally-driven code. Working as intended.
Radha N: Filing bug for excessive charm.
Sameer K: Please assign back. I’d like to reproduce it.

They didn’t acknowledge the undertones, not out loud, but they were there, humming quietly beneath every word.

The awkwardness had faded.
The distance had dissolved.
Something in the middle, fragile, hopeful, unspoken, took its place.

But the whispers around them?
Those didn’t fade.

If anything, they grew bolder.

One evening, as Radha passed the dev bay on her way to the pantry, Dev leaned back in his chair like he’d been waiting for her.

He stage-whispered, “You two should just start charging for chemistry consulting. Maybe HR will finally understand why the builds pass faster.”

Radha stopped in her tracks. “Dev. Please. Find a hobby.”

“We did,” he said proudly. “Watching the Radha-Sameer Saga. Season Two is fire.”

She threw him a death glare and walked away but the corners of her mouth betrayed her.

A few minutes later, when she returned to her desk, a new Slack DM waited.

Sameer K: Heard Dev was being Dev.
Radha N: He needs therapy.
Sameer K: True. But to be fair…
Radha N: Don’t say it.
Sameer K: …we do have great chemistry.

Her breath hitched a laugh, a sigh, something in between.

Radha N: Shut up, Kapoor.
Sameer K: With pleasure. But only if you stop smiling like that.

She froze, staring at the screen.

He wasn’t even in the same room.
And yet somehow… he always knew.

Somewhere between the teasing and the tension, the truth lingered,
they were finding their way back to each other,
step by step,
line by line,
like a story neither of them had meant to write
but both were quietly, undeniably living.

Friday didn’t just arrive; it crashed in like a system update nobody asked for.

By late morning, the office was buzzing with quiet tension. People sensed something in the air, the kind of shift that precedes either a production outage or a confession.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be both… sort of.

Rohit pinged the entire Vega squad:

Rohit: Client wants a quick sync. Everyone on call in 10. Bring data. Don’t bring chaos.

Chaos arrived anyway.

Radha and Sameer sat side by side in the glass meeting room, the fluorescent lights humming, the air stiff with fatigue and caffeine.

The client appeared on-screen, cheerful, oblivious, sipping what was definitely not their first coffee of the day.

Everything went fine at first. Technical questions. Module updates. Sameer’s voice steady. Radha’s crisp as always.

Then came the moment.

Completely out of nowhere, the client smiled and said:

“By the way, you two work really well together. Are you… partners outside work too?”

Silence.

Glacial. Deafening. Apocalyptic.

Radha’s breath hitched.
Sameer’s eyes widened like he’d just witnessed his code pass on the first attempt, shocked, confused, mildly horrified.
And Rohit choked so violently on his coffee that Dev had to mute himself from laughing.

Radha managed to form a thin, strangled smile.
Sameer jumped in with damage control like a firefighter with a leaky hose.

Sameer: “Uh... no. Just teammates. We collaborate a lot on Vega.”
Client: “Ahh, got it. Well, your chemistry is excellent. Rare in cross-functional teams.”

Rare.
Chemistry.
Cross-functional.

The universe was trolling them at this point.

When the call finally ended, the room sat in a stunned, echoing quiet.

Rohit set down his mug slowly as if defusing a bomb.
“Well,” he said, voice hoarse, “that was… uniquely awkward.”

Radha buried her face in her hands. “Please delete me from existence.”

Sameer, ever the menace, leaned back and whispered,
“At least the client’s impressed with our… collaboration.”

She shot him a glare sharp enough to slice fiber cables.
“Sameer. Don’t.”

He raised both hands in surrender, lips twitching. “Even international stakeholders are shipping us now. That’s power.”

“Stop talking.”

He grinned that soft, infuriating, familiar grin she hadn’t seen in days.
“You missed this.”

She opened her mouth to deny it, but the words refused to form.

Because maybe…
Maybe she had missed him.
Missed them.
Missed the easy laughter, the teasing, the warmth hiding under every jab.

The truth sat between them, unspoken but painfully loud.

Something was shifting.

And this time, neither of them could pretend not to feel it.

That night, neither of them logged off early.
Neither said much either, yet the air between them felt different again.
Maybe it wasn’t the same as before.
Maybe it was something new, unspoken, complicated, and quietly finding its way back to life.