Akira couldn’t believe her ears.

“Did he just offer to buy me lunch?”, Her head was about to burst. For a moment she couldn’t get a hold of anything.

“Umm….. No. It’s ok”, she said.

“I can just run down in a jiffy and get my wallet. I don’t want you to waste your precious time which you can spend on doing other important things. It will impact your productivity and given that the company has so many deadlines, I don’t want to be the one who is affecting it”, she blurted it all out in a single breath.

Her response was bang on.

Raymond couldn’t help but smile. Her reply indeed was witty. She had taken the statement of Raymond, twisted it and presented it back to him. He understood that she had taken his statement to her heart. He had said so earlier because he didn’t want her to have any weird thoughts but right now he was regretting saying it. So although he had some pending work, he decided to tag along with her for lunch, even though he never liked eating at the cafeteria.

“Oh, I thought you could give me company while I eat. So that’s why I was suggesting that maybe we could have lunch together. But if you don’t want its ok. I can manage to eat alone by myself. Not an issue”, he said and slumped his shoulders.

Raymond played the sympathy card and that was a masterstroke. Akira didn’t have a response for that. In fact, no one can ever have a response to that. She had to say to it.

“I thought you were just going to pay for my food and leave. I didn’t know you also wanted to have lunch with me. So that’s why I thought, maybe you know…”, she said with a slight dejection in her voice.

What she was feeling right now was sincere guilt and Raymond could see it in her eyes. He didn’t want to prolong the charade any further.

“Since it’s your first day, you can choose whatever you want to eat”, Raymond said and handed her the menu card which he had already picked up from the counter. Akira quickly glanced the menu card and scanned it thoroughly. She picked out the cheapest dish because she didn’t want to have the burden of taking a free lunch from him.

“I will have steamed onion and cabbage dumplings”, she said.

“Just the dumplings? That’s your lunch?”, asked Raymond who was surprised with her choice.

“Umm… Actually, I am not much hungry right now. So don’t want to stuff my stomach up”, Akira said and returned the menu card back.

But Raymond was smart enough to know that she had picked the dumplings just because it was the cheapest one in the list. It was a bit insulting for him because probably she didn’t want to eat with him and just stayed along because he said so.

“Listen, although this is a startup and our product has not been launched in the market yet and we haven’t made any profit, but I think I have enough money to buy you a decent lunch?”, he said and threw a thoughtful glance at her.

Then without even waiting for an answer from her, he ordered a chicken pasta for her along with the dumplings which she has picked up earlier. All that Akira could do was to silently gawk at him.

She could feel that the gaze of everybody in the cafeteria was on her. She could sense jealous eyes of the girls trying to scan her in and out. People were amused to see Raymond buying lunch for someone when he didn’t even prefer to eat at the cafeteria. That was indeed something.

But instead of getting irritated or affected by the way people were looking at her, she actually liked it and was probably gloating all over it.

Since he was busy ordering and paying for the food, she got herself busy admiring the fine creation of God, who was standing in front of her. Even from the back, he looked handsome. He possessed broad shoulders and a good physique. Even though he wore a suit, it was tailored and anyone could tell that this guy did workout.

“Can you help me out holding these? Our food is ready”, Raymond said and Akira snapped out of her daze.

“Sure”, she said and picked up her dumplings and pasta and headed over to a two-seater empty table nearby.

The quantity of pasta was too much for her to finish. So she immediately said after getting seated,

“You have to share the dumplings. They are a bit too much for me to finish.”

“You can eat how much you want and leave the rest. Just because your boss is buying you food doesn’t mean that you have to push it all down your throat”, Raymond said and started with his steak.

“No, I didn’t mean that way. I do not like to see food getting wasted. There are many who can’t even afford a single proper meal in a day. So I don’t like wasting it. So I wanted to share with you. No pressure on you though”, Akira said and kept the dumpling back which she had picked up to put in Raymond’s plate.

Raymond was touched to hear her thoughts. She was really something. He had seen her cute side and now he saw her compassion. No matter how hard he tried to escape, he was drawn to her with double the strength as if like she was intensifying her magnetic field with time.

“So all this is coming from some self-help group or any NGO foundation that you have joined?”, asked Raymond who curious to know about the source of her ideologies.

“It’s from real life experiences. I have seen hard times in my life and I know the value of the basic necessities in life. So I do not like taking things for granted”, she said and then looked at Raymond who was listening to each and every word that came out of your mouth with rapt undivided attention. Everything that she spoke sounded so surreal to him.

“Gosh !!! I am killing your lunch mood with these talks. Aren’t I?”, she asked a few moments later when she saw that Raymond was still looking at her and had not even touched his food. Raymond just smiled back at her and didn’t say anything. He picked up two dumplings from her plate and kept on his own plate.

They didn’t talk much afterward. She was hesitant because she thought she might blurt out something which will annoy him. He didn’t say anything because he didn’t want his heart to think otherwise. But even in silence, they gave each other company.