“Hi.”

Damayanti nearly jumped out of her skin.

One second she was standing there, questioning her life choices to come back to this university as a teacher - next second, Sunshine herself had materialised right behind her like some beautifully dressed plot twist.

She turned.

And promptly forgot how to function.

Sunshine was standing there in a pastel orange cotton saree, soft and understated, with a thin green embroidered border that somehow made the whole thing look like poetry. The green blouse complemented it perfectly. Minimally ethereal, honestly.

This woman had no business looking like that on a random day.

Damayanti, meanwhile, had barely processed why she was here.

Blink.

Brain reboot.

“Oh---haa… hi!” she blurted out, a solid three seconds too late.

Smooth. Very smooth.

Sunshine smiled - soft, polite, but there was something playful hiding underneath - and extended her hand. “I’m Asmita Saikia.”

Oh. That's her name.

A very pretty, pretty name.

“Er… Damayanti Sarkar,” she replied, shaking her hand, except it came out more like a confused, slow-motion handshake as her brain continued buffering. “Are you… are you a new student or what?”

There was a pause.

A very telling pause.

“Oh no!” A blush spread across Asmita’s cheeks, warm and immediate. “I’m actually an assistant professor. In the Fine Arts department.”

Time stopped.

Specifically, Damayanti’s soul left her body, hovered above for a second, and then came back down just to laugh at her.

“What?!” she blurted, her hand still holding Asmita’s like she had just discovered a rare artifact.

Assistant professor?

Meaning she had been internally cooing over a whole professional adult like she was some campus fresher?

Good lord, how she wanted to slap herself right now?!

Asmita gently pulled her hand back, clearly trying not to laugh, one hand coming up to cover her mouth as her eyes sparkled with mirth.

Damayanti cleared her throat, gathering whatever scraps of dignity she could find and stitching them together with a weak chuckle. “Oh… haha.”

Kill me.

She clasped her hands behind her back like a school kid being questioned by a principal and straightened slightly. “So… what fascination brings you to the English Literature department today?”

Wow.

Look at her. Full sentences with no pause. That's the way to grow.

Asmita glanced around briefly before looking back at her, something shifting in her expression - hesitation, maybe?

“If you don’t mind,” she said, voice a little softer now, “can we meet this evening? At the café outside the university?”

Silence.

Pure, unfiltered silence.

“What?”

Damayanti blinked.

Internally, she slapped herself now. Because there was no way she would just try and not do it.

Really? Again? Of all the words in the English language, she had chosen the most useless one.

Asmita visibly faltered, her confidence dipping just a little as she bit her lower lip, her eyes darting away for a second before returning.

“It was a bad idea,” she said quickly, almost too quickly. “Forget I said anything. Bye.”

And she turned.

And immediately stopped.

Because her pallu didn’t.

There was a tiny, almost deliberate tug, and she clutched her shoulder.

Both of them looked down.

The end of Asmita’s saree was very much caught.

On Damayanti, specifically - on her watch.

Asmita stepped closer, trying to free the fabric, her fingers brushing against the watch strap as she carefully worked it loose. It should have taken two seconds.

It did not.

Because Damayanti was now painfully aware of one very important detail ---

Asmita was close.

Like, really close.

Close enough for Damayanti to notice the faint scent of her perfume. Close enough to see the tiny details - the softness of her skin, the mole near her left eye, the slight crease between her brows as she focused, the way her lashes fluttered when she looked up---

Which she did.

And found Damayanti already looking at her. Very intently, indeed.

Asmita paused for half a second - just half - and something shifted...again. The air, maybe. Or their collective ability to breathe normally.

It felt absurdly cinematic.

Like one of those over-the-top Bollywood moments where the background music swells and logic quietly exits the room.

Except this was real.

And dangerously close to becoming a bad decision.

Asmita finally managed to free the fabric, stepping back just a fraction - but it was enough to break whatever invisible thread had pulled them in.

There was noise somewhere in the distance. Reality rudely intruding.

She blinked, grounding herself, her gaze flicking back to Damayanti - who looked just as breathless as she felt.

For a moment, neither of them said anything.

Then---

“Café. At six,” Damayanti muttered, like she was afraid the words might disappear if she didn’t say them fast enough.

And before her brain could intervene again and ruin it, she turned and walked away.

Fast. Faster than she could imagine.

Because staying one second longer would have definitely resulted in something reckless. Possibly poetic and equal amounts of embarrassing.

Behind her, Asmita stood still for a moment, fingers unconsciously brushing the edge of her saree where it had been caught.

Her heart hadn’t quite settled yet.

Oh, how excited she was to finally talk to that one girl who had been dancing in her dreams for days now.