Kabir didn't like when his rhythm broke. A day was supposed to unfold like a formula—inputs, outputs, controlled margins of error. But ever since the cafeteria, the rhythm had been off.
Back at his desk, he tried to drown himself in numbers and deadlines. Logic was clean. Equations didn't flinch under his gaze, didn't shift when he leaned closer. They behaved. People didn't.
Especially her.
He caught her reflection in the glass wall of the office corridor before he saw her in full. Anaya—walking quickly, papers clutched too tightly, brows furrowed in concentration. She wasn't looking at him, yet he felt the awareness stretch like an invisible thread between them.
Kabir leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping once against the armrest. It wasn't interest. Not exactly. It was curiosity—the kind that refused to be ignored.
The office buzzed with background noise: printers whirring, muffled phone calls, the scrape of chairs. All of it faded when she passed his line of sight. Too aware. Too telling.
She dropped a folder. He saw it before it hit the floor. Her hand scrambled, unsteady. A minor clumsiness. Normal for anyone else. But for Anaya—it was unusual. He knew because he had been watching. Cataloging.
Before he could think better of it, Kabir was already moving. He reached the folder at the same moment she did. For an instant, their hands hovered close enough that he felt the brush of her warmth without actual contact. Her breath hitched—barely audible, but he caught it.
Her eyes flicked up, meeting his. Wide, startled. Searching.
He held her gaze for a heartbeat too long. Then he handed her the folder, smooth, precise, as if it meant nothing. As if he hadn't felt the subtle shift in the air between them."Be careful," he said flatly, voice stripped of anything personal.
Her lips parted like she wanted to reply, but the words never came. She nodded instead, clutching the folder against her chest, and walked away.
Kabir's jaw tightened as he watched her leave. That should've been the end of it. A meaningless moment. Nothing worth a second thought. Yet the echo of it lingered—her hesitation, the tremor in her breath, the unguarded look in her eyes.
Disruptions. That's what she was.
From across the room, Rhea's laughter cut through the quiet. Too loud, too knowing. Kabir didn't turn, but he caught her reflection smirking at him from the corner of the glass. As if she'd seen more than she should have.
He forced his focus back to the screen in front of him, but the numbers blurred at the edges. Irritation pricked. This was why he avoided distractions. Because once they entered the system, they multiplied. Spread. Corroded control.
Anaya wasn't supposed to matter. She wasn't supposed to occupy space in his calculations. Yet she did.
And Kabir hated losing control.
But more than that—he hated admitting he wanted to.