"Tarun we need to talk. Are you free today?" Jenny bombards out as soon as Tarun picks up his phone. "Can't guarantee anything today baby. Lot of work. But I will see what I can manage ok baby?" Tarun answers, holding his phone with his head and shoulder's, not taking his eyes away from the screen even for a minute. Last week has been very busy for the trio. They were able to bag another client, 'Aventura Solutions' which was outsourcing its projects. Adding to that they were getting requests from a good number of people to provide an update for their game which they launched for free. Cherry on the cake was they were still low on budget to hire an extra programmer. So they had to manage all the work on their own, as they didn't want to disappoint their client and their loyal fans too. They came up kind of brilliant solution. They decided that since Tarun is their coding wizard he will handle the game update. Neeraj took up the 'Sun software' project to his hand. Since 'Aventura Solutions' were a new client, Rajesh took their project, for Rajesh was the best among the trio to impress people. Three people, three individual projects. Work is up-to their necks.

"Jenny calling up for a date?" Neeraj asks sarcastically.

"Naah. She wants to 'talk'" Tarun replies, with the bunny ear effect with his two finger, propping up from his desk for a minute.

"Ohhhh. Doesn't sound all good for lover boy here" Rajesh mocks from the other side of the office.

"Well she has been asking me to meet up with her mother." Tarun replies as he lights up his first cigarette for the day, which is kind of late for him.

"To cushion the blow you guys will give her later?" Neeraj asks as he lights up his cigarette.

"Yeah. But I am not ready for it. I mean we haven't even got a good foothold in our start-up yet. Look at us. 3 pathetic college graduates racking their brains off in three different projects, smoking their life away." Tarun points out the sarcasm of their situation, with a smirk on his face.

"That's us. no doubt in that." Rajesh points out the irony as he takes a drag from his cigarette.

"So you are serious with Jenny it seems? Will it work out? Being from two different religious backgrounds and all." Neeraj asks, with genuine concern.

"Well I do love her. I want us to be together. I have to talk to mom about it a little. But that's after returning the money I borrowed from her." Tarun replies, muttering the last part.

"What you borrowed? We borrowed it collectively. and we will return it the moment the 'Sun Softwares' payment clears up. have to get on their back again about the previous project payment. We still haven't received it yet." Neeraj mutters as he makes his way back to his desk, to call up his client.

"Yeah man" Tarun replies, throwing his butt down through the window, flashing a nervous smile to Rajesh, who was quick to notice.

'He muttered about the money borrowed from his mother. Now a nervous smile. Something is wrong. Need to ask him about it separately.' Rajesh makes a mental note to himself, as he throws his cigarette butt out and returns back to his desk. For the next four hours, just the constant typing sound interspersed with some curse words fills their office.

At 6'o in the evening, Neeraj receives a call he was not expecting. The call just lasts for 2-3 minutes, with Neeraj barely talking over a whisper. Lucky for him, Tarun is having his headphones up and Rajesh just went to the washroom.

"Dude, I need to go. Urgent work man." Neeraj announces and heads for the door.

"All ok and how are you going?" Tarun asks him, removing his headphones.

"My cousin has come dude. He is staying for just 2 days. So going to meet him and show my face to my uncle and aunty" Neeraj replies non-chalantly, acting disinterested in the meeting. Tarun being not the 'psychiatrist' among the group is not able to see through Neeraj's facade.

"Take care man." Tarun bids farewell to him as he gets back to his work. Just Neeraj grabs his bag and is about to leave, Rajesh comes out of the washroom.

"My cousin has come. So I have to show my face to my uncle and aunt. Don't worry about the project. I am taking it home. I will sit on tonight and get some progress. Won't let you two guys beat me.' Neeraj points towards them in a joking way and heads for the door.

"Travel safe buddy. Enjoy and don't break your head with the project." Rajesh shouts as Neeraj goes out of the door.

Rajesh gives Tarun a glance, as he finds the moment to be good for their man-man chat over the previous nervousness Rajesh saw in Tarun. Since Tarun is typing away furiously, with putting out his tongue tip, out on his lips and a real excited look on his face, Rajesh decides to postpone the talk and heads for his desk. Two hours pass in silence as both of them are engrossed in their work, Tarun screams out "Yesss" on top of his lungs, enough to startle Rajesh.

"A*****e, Why the F**K you just shouted?" Rajesh asks as he gets up from his desk and joins Tarun , who in the meantime has dashed to the main server and is checking out the tweaks.

"I am done with the update dude. It's a killer update. Added various mind blowing levels and characters. We are talking about alternate storylines too. One wrong decision can end you in the ditch" Tarun explains excitedly, doing the typical 'evil plan laugh'.

"Well as long as we don't see a drop in downloads and curses in comments, keep up with your craziness" Rajesh explains as he pats Tarun on his back as he makes it back to his desk for the cigarette pack.

"And done" Tarun exclaims with the click. "We have uploaded for free, the second update. People are going to go crazy over this. I am pretty sure that we will be contacted by some software company to program a game under their name and launch it in the market" Tarun jumps excitedly.

"Easy dude. Here, victory cigarette" Rajesh hands him one as he takes one for himself and light's it up. Tarun takes one and lights up for himself. As they smoke a few drags, Rajesh Notices Tarun loosen up a little. Deciding this is the right time to attack, Rajesh takes the opportunity.

"So dude everything ok at home and with Jenny?" Rajesh begins his infiltration.

"Yeah man. All is fine" Tarun reassures him, not being able to see Rajesh approach.

"Well you know if anything is wrong or is bothering you, you can talk to us man" Rajesh answers with a sly smile.

"Yeah man. But why suddenly, you are talking about this" Tarun asks with a slight concern.

"Well dude I saw nervousness in your face when we were talking over the money issue today noon. I just want to know that everything is fine with you. If not, tell us. Me and Neeraj will solve it up for you man." Rajesh attacks with his main words. Tarun just gulps for a reply and looks down onto the ground.

"Dude talk to me man. Everything is all right, right?" Rajesh asks, as he grabs onto Tarun's shoulder, implying that Tarun is not alone.

"Ok man. I will open up. I was just nervous as to how you guys will react on this. But now what the hell. You know that something is wrong with me right." Tarun agrees to open up, with a playful shrug.

"Two months ago, Jenny needed some money. Well not some. She needed around 2.5 lac's. She said that they had some old debt and now the relatives are harrowing her and her family. She said she even death threats. " Tarun confesses.

"That's harsh man." Rajesh supports.

"Well, the stupid that I am, I asked mom for that much money. On the pretext that one of my close college friend needs it. She protested in the beginning. But she caved and I gave Jenny The money. That is the first problem. The second is that after that incident, he has become little bit colder. I sense something is wrong, but she tells that her workload in office has increased. That's why she has become little crabby." Tarun confesses up his problem.

"Dude so much happened and you didn't tell us. Why?" Rajesh asks a bit angrily.

"I would have told, but we were not doing so great ourselves right. Last month we had the budget problem. And then we decided on launching a game ourselves. After that we did get little breathing time, only to be bombarded with a new project, new client and demand for new update over the game." Tarun validates his reason for not confessing earlier.

"Its ok man. We will see through the stuff and survive it. For now let's smoke another." Rajesh calms down himself and Tarun and they both light up another cigarette.

"If this all is not enough, Jenny is saying that there is a new project coming up. Its base is in Bangalore and she said that she has put up her name for that." Tarun opens up more.

"Wait. This project thing happened after we talked about you guys taking a long distance relationship or before?" Rajesh asks with a genuine concern, for he doesn't wants to be the reason to break his friend's relationship.

"Don't worry dude. It happened before itself" Tarun calms down Rajesh with a weak smile.

"Off late I feel like she is slipping away from me little by little" Tarun confesses, feeling himself welling up.

Seeing his friend starting to get teary eyed, Rajesh moves in for a comforting hug and calms him down.

"Hey calm down bro. Everything will be all-right man. Chill" Rajesh comforts Taurn as he feels Tarun's tears making small wet spots on his shirt.

"Yeah man. Let's head home. Too much work for today." Tarun suggests.

"Come on. Let's go" Rajesh suggests and they get to packing.

Ten minutes later, they head out the door, with each other's hands over each other's shoulders..