Five dates in.
That’s what the girls had counted.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7FpTrJWk6L
Five actual dates — all initiated by Vanya, all accepted by Ira with the same nonchalant nod, like she was agreeing to a new assignment rather than another chance to be quietly, unknowingly adored.
And every time, Ira showed up.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUzNDwlJfVD
Sharp. Present. Unflinching.
But she never really followed up.
No late-night calls. No “had fun today” texts. No “when can I see you again?” lines. Just a quiet drop-off after each date and a small nod, like a respectful closing of a door she wasn’t sure she was allowed to reopen without knocking again.
So when Sana finally tossed her phone onto Ira’s lap and said, “Just. Text. Her. Something,” Ira blinked like someone had reminded her breathing wasn’t automatic.
She typed slowly, as if afraid the keyboard might read too much into her intention.
IRA:13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUPQbimNrVV
Hey. Last night was… decent. You didn’t knock anything over. Impressive.
Send.
She didn’t expect a reply.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ38KuQurPtY
She never did. But Vanya, of course, replied in under five minutes.
VANYA:13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJA3ttsVUBI
From you, “decent” is practically a standing ovation.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe4QKgqVxnS
I should frame it.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR5uXe5rRVT
Ugh I’m craving something sweet and there’s nothing here except bitter coffee and sad faces.
Ira read the message once. Then again.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ21Sv6HbsRk
Craving. Sweet. Nothing in the office. Bitter. Sad faces.
She stared at it for another thirty seconds before getting up and heading to the kitchen, where Neelam and Sana were sharing leftover cheesecake in silence.
“She wants something sweet,” Ira said simply.
Neelam raised a brow. “Okay? Send her a picture of your face.”
Ira blinked. “She’s at work. There’s a place not far from her building. They make good tiramisu. Balanced. Not too sugary. She like it. Should I get it for her."
The girls exchanged a look — one of exasperation, affection, and that familiar “how is she like this?” wonder they’d long given up explaining.
“Yes, Ira,” Sana muttered into her fork. “Yes, you should absolutely go deliver dessert to the woman you’ve been lowkey dating for over a month. We’d be worried if you didn’t.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“You never are.”
Scene: Vanya’s Office, Later That Day
The office air was cold and dry, and Vanya was halfway through pretending to enjoy her fourth cup of stale coffee and Ira also didn't reply after the one text so when her desk phone pinged.
“Delivery at the reception. Your name.”
Her eyebrows knitted. She hadn’t ordered anything.
She made her way down casually, still tapping at her phone, expecting a misdelivery or a team lunch mistake.
Instead, she stopped short just past the security gate.
Ira.
Leaning against the counter like she wasn’t the reason Vanya’s entire stomach suddenly dropped to her knees. Black jeans, charcoal shirt, and a small paper bag in one hand.
She looked so completely, maddeningly unaffected — except for the slightest press of her lips when she saw Vanya approach.
“You said you were craving something sweet,” Ira said simply.
Vanya blinked. “So you brought dessert?”
“That’s what you wanted,” Ira replied like it was obvious.
“You didn’t have to—”
“But you wanted it, so I get it.”
There was something dangerously quiet in that honesty.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoVWXJTEoDc
Like Ira didn’t know how else to explain it — or maybe didn’t want to explain it at all.
Vanya peeked into the bag. Three small jars. Tiramisu, perfect layers. Neat. Elegant. Balanced — just like her.
“You walked here?”
“It wasn’t far.”
“You live thirty-five minutes away.”
Ira just shrugged. “I didn’t want to overthink it.”
Vanya bit back a smile. “This still counts as flirting, you know.”
“Is it?” Ira tilted her head. “I thought I was just… responding to a preference.”
“A preference?”
“You wanted something. I could get it. So I did.”
Vanya stared at her — at the casual stance, the firm voice, the way she always sounded like logic was her only compass when she was, in fact, completely lost in emotion and didn’t even know it.
“Ira,” Vanya said softly, holding the bag a little closer to her chest. “Thank you.”
Ira nodded once, brief but almost tender. “Eat it before the cream separates.”
“So, this is… a delivery service now?”
“No,” she said calmly. “It’s a kindness. Not a pattern.”
“And if I crave something again next week?”
There was a pause. Then Ira tilted her head again and said:
“Then I’ll just show up again.”
Before Vanya could say anything else — before she could even decide if her heart had fully restarted — Ira glanced at her phone.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSqnm33Sd8q
" I have free time, mind if I stay."
Vanya though "why should she mind."
ns216.73.216.12da2Later that day.
13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtjnmF0dAoS
The street stretched quiet before them, cobblestone beneath soft city lights, the kind that turned shadows into watercolor stains and made the night look gentler than it really was.
Ira walked with her hands in her pockets, shoulders relaxed, gaze scanning their path as if memorizing every angle. Vanya, next to her, still held the small dessert box, the second one she brought, the scent of raspberry and dark chocolate curling into the night air.
They hadn’t said much since leaving her office. And yet, it wasn’t silence.
It was something else.
Comfort.
Weightless space.
That soft hum that exists only between people who’ve accidentally started to mean something to each other.
“You always walk this slow?” Vanya teased lightly, her voice gentle, eyes tracing Ira’s calm profile.
Ira blinked, thoughtful. “No. But… you don’t seem in a hurry.”
Vanya smiled faintly. “I’m not.”
Another few steps. The city hummed around them, distant traffic like a lullaby. Ira glanced sideways, then spoke—quiet and curious.
“What’s something you really want… but can’t have?”
Vanya tilted her head at her. “That’s a sudden question.”
Ira didn’t flinch. “I think about that sometimes. Everyone wants something. But not everyone can get it. Some things are… inaccessible. Not because of price. Just... boundaries.”
Vanya was quiet for a moment, then exhaled softly. “Okay. One thing comes to mind.”
Ira turned slightly toward her, attentive.
“There’s a watch,” Vanya said, smiling like the memory was a soft bruise. “Vintage. Only one piece exists. Originally commissioned by a Mughal horologist for a visiting European queen. You can’t buy it. You can’t even see it. It’s under private possession now… Tomar royal family vault, I think.”
Ira didn’t react. She just nodded once, like she filed the information away somewhere private.
Vanya gave a small laugh, not bitter, just honest. “I can afford it. I’d outbid most collectors. But it’s not about money. Some things are just... out of reach.”
Ira hummed in acknowledgment. “That’s rare. For someone like you.”
Vanya raised an eyebrow. “Someone like me?”
“You’re persuasive,” Ira said plainly. “Resourceful. You get what you want.”
Vanya shrugged. “Not always.”
She slowed as they approached the familiar lane leading to her apartment. The walls here were lined with vine-covered fences and old trees, the kind of street that knew secrets and never told them.
“But I don’t think it’s about getting everything,” she added, her voice gentler now. “Some things are supposed to stay just… desired. Beautiful because they’re distant.”
Ira considered that, brows slightly furrowed like she was trying to understand a puzzle made of feelings, not logic.
Vanya watched her with something unspoken in her chest—an ache, maybe. Or hope. Maybe both.
They stopped at her gate.
And for a moment, the world didn’t move.
Just the wind.
Just the sound of leaves.
Just them.
Vanya turned to Ira, heartbeat steady but loud in her ears.
“Can I kiss you?” she asked softly.
Not flirtatious.
Not teasing.
Just… open.
Ira looked at her, eyes unreadable but not cold. Her head tilted just a little, like she was dissecting the question beneath the question.
Then she shook her head once. Not abrupt. Not sharp. Just deliberate.
“No,” she said quietly.
Vanya didn’t step back. She didn’t flinch.
“Can I ask why?”
Ira’s voice, when it came, was soft. Honest.
“Because I haven’t figured out what it’s supposed to feel like.”
Vanya blinked, lips parting slightly.
“I don’t want to give you a reaction I think you want,” Ira continued, searching for the words with the precision of someone who rarely speaks from her chest. “I want to mean it. I want to know it. Not just… mimic what I’ve seen in movies. Or read in people’s eyes.”
Vanya stared at her.
This strange, brilliant woman who gave her raspberry tarts at 10 PM and admitted she didn’t know how love—or even attraction—was supposed to feel.
And Vanya felt something in her chest loosen.
Not disappointment.
Not frustration.
Something warmer.
Something more respectful.
“Okay,” she said gently.
Ira nodded once. “Thank you.”
A beat.
“Can I walk you up?” Ira asked, eyes flickering to the building.
Vanya smiled.
“You already did.”
Ira smiled faintly back. A small, rare curve of lips.
She turned to go, hands sliding back into her pockets. And just before she disappeared into the street again, Vanya called out:
“You know, Ira…”
Ira paused, glanced back.
“Not all unreachable things stay unreachable forever.”
Ira just nodded again.
“Neither do the ones that tick,” she said.
Then she walked away, quiet as the night.
And Vanya?
She stood by the gate, still holding the dessert box, smiling like she just got something rarer than any royal heirloom—
A moment.
A maybe.
A girl who meant it.
13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHGDrFOb734
3:07 AMThe moonlight slipped through the sheer curtains in Ira’s room, casting pale silver shadows across her walls. The city was hushed. No sirens. No honks. Just the quiet whirring of the fan above and the muffled sound of her digital clock blinking 03:07 AM.
Ira lay flat on her bed, eyes wide open, hoodie still on, tangled in a blanket she hadn’t even bothered to unfold properly. Her phone lay beside her, screen black, and yet she kept glancing at it like it owed her something.
That watch.
Not just a watch.
The watch.
She had looked it up. 40 seconds on a secure private database had told her everything: handcrafted, vintage, encased in sapphire glass, only two ever made, and one tucked away deep within the Tomar royal family's sealed archives.
Unreachable.
Not because of cost.
But because of lineage.
And yet Vanya had said it softly, with a kind of longing that lingered in Ira’s mind like smoke.
“It’s not for sale. Not even visible to the public.”
She didn’t understand why it was bothering her.
She had seen people desire things—expensive cars, rare sneakers, luxury homes. But they had looked hungry. Greedy. Wanting to prove something.
Vanya hadn’t.
She had spoken with the softness of someone remembering a ghost.
Ira stared at the ceiling.
Then reached for her phone.
Before her brain could question her fingers, she was pressing the call button.
Vanya’s apartment – 3:09 AM
The shrill tone of her ringtone jolted Vanya out of sleep. For a brief second, she thought it might be a fire drill or a storm warning. But when her vision adjusted, she saw "IRA" glowing on the screen.
Her heart leapt. She swiped instantly.
“Ira?” her voice was a mix of groggy and concerned.
“Were you asleep?” Ira asked blankly.
“It’s three o’clock.”
“Technically 3:09,” Ira said. “I checked.”
Vanya sat up, flicked on her bedside lamp, and tried to shake the sleep from her eyes.
“Is everything okay?”
Ira was quiet for a beat.
Then she said:
“That watch. Why that one?”
Vanya blinked.
“You called me at 3 AM to ask about the watch?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Ira…”
“I’m not kidding. It’s not leaving my head.”
There was something disarming about the sincerity in her voice. Not rushed. Not desperate. Just plain curiosity—one that had stubbornly latched onto her until she had no choice but to call.
Vanya let out a breath and settled back against her pillow.
“Alright. You really want to know.”
“I’m listening.”
Vanya closed her eyes, letting the memory wash over her.
“When I was seven, my dad took me to a small estate on the outskirts of the city. We were supposed to attend this obscure art exhibition, but I was bored out of my mind. So, I wandered into this side room—and that’s where I saw the watch.”
“Wait, the watch?” Ira asked.
“Mm-hmm,” Vanya hummed. “It was displayed behind a thick glass dome. No lights. No velvet ropes. Just… sitting there. Ticking. Quietly. Like it didn’t care if anyone saw it or not.”
Ira said nothing, but Vanya could hear the shift in her breathing—subtle, sharper.
“My dad came in behind me, and instead of pulling me away, he just stood there and said, ‘You know, some things don’t try to be noticed. But you remember them anyway.’ And he looked at that watch like it held all the seconds he’d never get back.”
She smiled softly, eyes still closed.
“He passed away a year later.”
Silence.
Complete and full.
Then Ira’s voice, lower now:
“And that watch stayed with you.”
“In memory. Yeah.”
Another pause.
“It reminds me of him. Not in a sad way. Just… it’s one of the last things we both looked at. Together. Quietly. No phones. No distractions. Just… ticking.”
Ira didn’t say anything for a long while.
Then:
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, I understand now.”
“Took you 3 AM and a full story to get there?” Vanya teased, voice fond.
“It was important.”
There was a rustle, like Ira shifting under her blanket.
Then her voice came, soft and final:
“Alright. Goodnight, Vanya.”
“Goodnight, Ira.”
“Don’t dream about watches.”
“I’ll try not to dream about you calling me at ungodly hours.”
“It was 3:09.”
“Exactly my point.”
A tiny breath of amusement came through the speaker—almost a laugh.
And then the line went dead.
Vanya lay back slowly, smiling like a fool to the ceiling.
Across town, Ira turned off her screen and finally—finally—closed her eyes.
The ticking in her mind was gone.
But a new thought had taken its place.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7x8Ui5dckt
