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NEURODIVERGENT: A person who has a brain that forms and functions differently.

NEUROTYPICAL: A person who has a brain that forms, functions and processes that is 'considered' to be typical or standard.

ADHD: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. ADHD is an invisible developmental disability as it affects executive functioning and impacts our lives in several ways. 

ABLEISM: Policies, behaviors, rules etc. that result in harmful treatment of disabled people. 

This is my first story with ADHD representation. I have tried my best to get the representation as right as possible with my own experiences (I am an AuDHDer (Autistic+ADHD)) and with the experiences I have learned from my ADHD friends. 

This DOES NOT represent every ADHD person ever. 

This is only one person's ADHD that you see.

Every neurodivergent folk's experiences are widely different, and no two neurodivergent folks experience their neurodivergence in the same way. 

Chapter-1

Could someone get the final wee-est chunks of spicy corn puff wedged in between the evil bottom corners of a huge corn puff bag to spill into their mouth by just rattling their head, with the snack bag upended over their mouth, but without putting their precious hands to use?

Varunan was determined to find out—this close to finding out before his head started feeling heavy and dizzy due to all the rigorous shaking—but so close. Stay tuned.

Not everyone was privileged enough to wallow in their bean bag all day long with now-almost-ending supply of snacks, flipping TV channels for half a day to end up hate-watching random trash serials, cringing to themselves on a second Wednesday afternoon.

Varunan wasn't, too—until, a couple days ago.

Until—specifically—last Sunday evening when his manager had messaged him to join in an emergency meeting.

Sunday was his weekly day off. He'd been slogging all day at work, all week—only to end up getting summoned for an emergency online meeting even on the day he'd had to wind down.

The last time he remembered he wasn't working at a hospital—the workplace that actually used the word emergency and was pretty serious about it. He worked for a tech company—emergency was not the word to be used in this place.

Surely, whatever this emergency was, it could wait until tomorrow morning, just a few more hours until he got back to work?

Or, that was what he'd grumbling-ly thought to himself until he pulled up his laptop and logged in to the meeting with a sullen, stubbly face to hear the news that he was not going to have a job to go back to, tomorrow morning.

The said emergency was for him, and not the company.

It's not that he loved his job. Nor did he hate it. Just an average person in their late twenties state of mind—it kept him going with a steady stream of income in the past few years, in a way that made up for his expenses living alone in the city, while he put the meager remaining to save for this future prospect of pursuing his crocheting business and teaching crocheting full time.

However, when he'd heard he was no longer employed to do the boring job, his mind went down on a spiral of sadness.

He didn't know what he did wrong to have been laid off of the job he'd labored through. He'd even forced himself to put a pause on taking orders online for crocheting business, and completely restrained himself from indulging in weekly crocheting sessions, because his toiling through the week at work, and taking up extra shifts at request had resulted in utter exhaustion of his ability to do anymore work, that when his off-day arrived all he wanted to do was just eat his meal at the right time and take a nap snuggling his huge peanut plushie that he crocheted for the first time years ago, and maybe, spend the rest of the evening reading a book.

By the time he received the confirmation mail of his lay off by Monday morning, he'd not slept a wink—and he was more than halfway through angry crocheting a corn toy, all night, in the company of A.R. Rahman's music.

He'd just abandoned it in the middle as the last inkling of energy to stay awake and mechanically crochet the toy from his muscle memory he'd had shrunk to nothing in his body as he opened the mail, and he'd just dozed off on his bean bag with his laptop open and dying.

A couple days went by in a blur, as he survived them to process his joblessness by sleeping it off, crying in the shower, and stuffing himself with copious amounts of snacks—mostly, corn puffs—a man got to do, what he got to do, duh!

And occasionally, by scribbling down his big emotions in his little journal when he felt what he'd to deal with was unfair because he had always given his best—even more than what he could do to his work, completely discarding his personal life, his lack of sleep, and painfully neglecting his passion project for more than a year now.

He just coped in the way he could—and it seemed to work for the moment.

And, now his only worry was that he'd run out of snacks soon, and he might need to order some, if not wanting to physically leave the house to get some, which he was in no state of.

With the thought of impending snacks dearth terrorizing him, when he was on his last straw of shaking the corn puff crumbs out of the bag, a ding from his doorbell froze him.

His living room was a mess, not in the state of having any one over to his place—with a jumble of sun dried clothes in a colorful, dry pile on the floor sofa, all that discarded empty corn puffs bag dancing around with a crumply noise to his ceiling fan, the coffee cup—thankfully, only the latest one was there unwashed. However messy Varunan could get, leaving a trail of unwashed mugs wasn't it—he hated how stainy they'd get at the bottom. With utmost persistence, he'd washed all the mugs as soon as he finished his coffee—except the last one.

Anyway, the living room did not look like anyone other than Varunan could live there—to put it lightly.

Snatching the empty corn puff bag out of his face, he shuffled up to his feet to walk to the door, leaving the stagnant crumbs stuck on his dress to pepper down on the floor, joining the thin layer of dust that the building in construction from next door had granted.

He needed to sweep and mop the floor—it'd been more than three days. His usual ability to keep his apartment—if not all spotlessly clean and sparkling, at least to carry on with his mundane cleaning that had it maintained with above average cleanliness—had somehow fled away along with his ability to hold down a job he'd had since the last seven years.

Avoiding looking into the peephole, he unlatched his door to find a guy of his age with a badge pinned on his sweaty t-shirt pocket that read, 'Here To Deliver.'

The delivery person looked at the paper bag in his hand, his phone with the delivery address and other details on his other hand, before looking back up at Varunan, expectantly. "Sir, I have a delivery for Varuna," his voice trailed down in tone, as he finally took in the stubbled man in front him, with a faded collar t-shirt and a pair of bermudas—his curly hair mussed up in all directions, some snack crumbs speckling his overgrown stubble.

Feeling conscious of the bizarre glance from the delivery guy, Varunan rubbed his bearded cheeks roughly over his t-shirt brushing the snack crumbs off his face. He matched up the delivery person's now watchful glance with an awkward smile. "Err, my name is Varunan, not Varuna. That must be for me," he told him, reaching out a hand to get the bag.

"Oh, just a sec," the delivery person said, as he first retracted his hand, and bent down to place the paper bag on the floor—well in between his flip flops clad feet, protectively. He then scrolled through on his phone requiring more details than just a misspelled name.

Blinking through his blurred vision that riding in the city's scorching afternoon sun had given him, he rested another palm over his eyes on his head to read the address aloud. "Sir, is this Flat number-2, first floor, Graha Apartments, 2nd main road, Ram nagar?"

Varunan nodded, the smidgen of doubt he had now fading itself into inexistence. "Yes, you have the right address." He pointed his index finger at the wall next to the doorbell to his left where the door number F2 was written in a white paint against a black shaded circle, "this is flat number-2, first floor of Graha Apartments, 2nd main road, Ram nagar."

The delivery executive scratched his head genuinely confused now, because there were no sender details such as name or their phone number, as they were optional to be filled in their delivery app; except their address to confirm with the receiver.

But Varunan was quite sure it was for him. Since, this was not a new thing for Varunan. People often misspelled his name as Varun or Varuna despite his giving the right spelling for online orders. Right from his school, college, to the place he was working for, his name was always taken for granted to be misspelled.

"People always misspell my name," he told the delivery person, hoping he'd understand and handover the bag to him without much fuss.

He couldn't even retain the job he had drudged away for years, and now, if he wouldn't get the snacks that had arrived at his doorstep because of some silly antic his sister had wanted to pull by purposefully misspelling his name, he would just cry, right there. It was his snacks.

Taking a deep breath in, he continued, his voice almost pleading, "My sister used to make fun of me with it when we were kids—and still does that at times to rile me up." The delivery person stared plainly—decision pending written in all caps, all over his face—at Varunan while he went on to disclose about his name mishap in painfully acute details to the person whose job was to just deliver the thing he was given, in the right address.

The delivery person, not knowing what to do or how to respond to his oversharing, just fixed him a blank stare.

"So, it probably must be my sister sending stuff off to me. If you're still doubtful, can you let me know the address you collected it from... so I can tell you if it's from someone I know or not?" Crap. He did not fully know his sister's new address. And, double crap, he realized it only too late after blurting it out.

"I don't know, can you tell me your sister's address so I can see if it's the same one I collected the bag from?" the delivery person asked him, with a tilted head and a fretful glare that only said 'I don't get paid enough for this nonsense, man.'

Ah, there! He did not know the address, and right now, his brain was only filled with the hilariously puke-worthy serials he hate-watched, and other parts of it cushioned up and hazy with all the corn puffs consumption, and the rest of it still dismal about his recent lay off.

But, it was snacks... for him... from his sister (probably?) And he could try.

Varunan shifted his weight from one leg to the other, nervously. "Uhm, it must be on the second floor, I don't remember the door number," he said, everything he could think of about the place without any pause, "Kambar lane... 4th street, I think, Kodambakkam..." However, his voice had quashed down towards the end because of his fuzzy memory. Dehydrated and all that.

The delivery person, somewhat convinced hearing the address that matched with the place he collected the bag from, finally handed over the khaki bag quietly. Varunan could finally breathe.

"Thanks, bro," Varunan smiled, bringing an arm to pull the grill gate close, hoping his sister had tipped him already while booking the delivery.

With a scoff-y headshake, and some definitely snide mumble, the delivery person turned around and jogged down the stairs on his way out— not knowing Varunan was not the right mark for the embarrassing looks or the shaming mumble at the moment.

Varunan shut the grill, and then the wooden door before walking in and plopping down clumsily on his bean bag. Even before he could open the snack bag, he thrashed around on the bean bag to find his mobile phone to text Vaanya, his sister.

He hadn't called her in almost a week. The last time he'd texted her was right after he'd gotten his lay-off email. She had thoughtfully invited him for dinner, and to even stay at hers until he was okay to go back to his apartment. He'd told her he wanted to be alone for a while and would drag himself to her house once he was feeling okay to socialize again.

The message was responded with a short voice note of his niece Rooh—short for Ruana, both carefully picked and named by Varunan himself, when she was born two and a half years ago. The voice note had a little silence at first, then his sister Vaanya had spoken, "Didn't you want to tell Varu something? Here, Amma is recording it for you... you can talk now..." followed by a soft rustling of her breath, probably from being too close to the phone, her voice rang out excitedly, "Rooh love Varuuuuu..." giving him a much needed small smile that time.

Vaanya had asked her if that was all she wanted to let Varu know, and Ruana had nodded and ran away, as told by Vaanya nearing the end of the voice note. Following which, Vaanya had again reminded him he could visit them anytime he wanted.

But, he was just not there, yet—in the getting out of the bean bag, or getting out of the house phase.

Still, he could leave her a text message—thanking her for the snacks and checking in on him through it.

After thrashing around for over a minute on the bean bag, he rolled over to his tummy to reach over the jumble of clothes on the floor sofa, to claw around in them looking for his phone.

The second he found his phone, it was only hanging by a bare thread in its last few minutes before turning off. He opened Vaanya's unread messages—without really reading them, he rushingly typed his message, his sweaty fingers hovering over the dimmed display of his phone.

Varunan: Thank you so much for the snacks. Haven't even opened them yet. I love you for it, but not for the spelling change in my delivery details. Will meet you soon, Vaan. Love to you and B. Extra love for Rooh.

He sent the message and the phone's display went out, with just a rotating circle at the center signifying its lack of battery.

The fuck he cared—who was going to call him or text him asking him to log in at ungodly hours for nonsense meetings that could've been not just e-mails, but just a text message. He sightlessly threw his lifeless phone over his head to the pile of clothes on the cushion behind him.

Charging his phone could wait.

The crumply khaki bag patiently resting next to him, that was somehow with its incessant rustle-y noise under the fan calling for his attention, couldn't for now.

***********

"Please get through, please get through, pleaaaase get through, please don't embarrass me... please get through..." Gaya was mulishly chanting to herself, mostly in her heart; just an unintended bit audible to Mrs. Lakshmi, the middle aged front desk woman standing right opposite to her, watching her from the gap between her lowered glasses, with a familiar smile.

Gaya's phone's network was not great (read: horrible) at her doctor's office, which is why she always preferred paying in cash or by swiping her debit card. But, today she'd absolutely forgotten to transfer her wallet from her everyday office bag to the sling bag she'd carried to the clinic for her monthly review.

Nervously returning the smile, Gaya stood there tapping her bouncy feet against the coolness of the marble floor, leaning against the front desk. Her small mouth was quashed together in worry, her bespectacled eyes decisively flitting from the display of the card swiping machine and the UPI payment page on her phone.

Meanwhile Mrs. Lakshmi retrieved a diary from somewhere under the desk, lifting her face expectantly at Gaya, with her automated smile that looked nothing but kind. "Next month, same day?"

This had been a routine for years now, that neither of them had to take a look at the prescription for the review date.

Gaya nodded, her eyes still glued on her phone's display. "Yes, please."

For the next few seconds all she heard was the noise of leafy pages being turned with great vigor, along with the low hum of AC in the wait room, and muted chatter from the waiting area behind her, while she held onto religiously glaring at her phone's display as if that would alone terrorize it into getting the payment done, not daring to look up at Mrs. Lakshmi.

She knew where this was going with the pages turning incessantly, and the loud sigh that was likely to come forth any time now.

Right on the mark, with a slow slap of the pencil on the desk, Mrs. Lakshmi let out a long sigh, as she removed her glasses and looked up at Gaya. "Thank you for coming in for your review today. I will make sure to leave a reminder call as early as possible for your next appointment so you don't miss or postpone it," with no hint of tiredness, in her now gentle voice, she informed Gaya.

A familiar barrage of remorse went up in Gaya's mind exploding into embers of countless 'You suck,' a very large lump of it lodging in her throat, at her forgetful, restless, scattered, ADHD brain—as the fingers of her free hand twiddled with one another.

She'd forgotten her doctor's appointment—again—despite being reminded by Mrs. Lakshmi more than twice with calls and text messages.

Gaya made sure not to let her guard down easily—but today was not one of those days. Maybe it was the long, tiring, dopamine-less day of looking after the boring paperworks at school, maybe it was the exhaustion that ran throughout her body, because she couldn't remember the last time she'd taken a sip of water, or maybe it was the extension of the vulnerability she'd just had to bare out at her doctor, a few minutes ago.

What Gaya aimed for as a diverting, apologetic smile, only came out as a helpless, sad one. "I know, I suck," she said, a rueful scrunch crumpling her nose, "I am sorry I am making your job harder."

"Sweetheart, you don't suck," Mrs. Lakshmi put in, her already soft features mellowing down more—making Gaya want to believe in her words, but her critical mind quite not letting her, "there's a lot of things going on in your brain, so it's just hard to keep tabs on all of it. And, it's honestly my job to remind you of your appointment—like, I literally get paid for it."

However Mrs. Lakshmi was kind enough to assure her that it was her job, Gaya's brain was outright positive that she should be able to do everything with perfection, no matter how different or disabled her brain was—as if just existing as a neurodivergent in this very neurotypical, ableist world was not draining enough.

While she was distracted with her internalized ableism for a bit, her phone dinged, signifying the success of the transaction that had been as slow as her brain when she was assigned boring, mundane, challenge-less tasks, like today's paperwork at school.

With some fresh enthusiasm fumbling up her throat, she cleared her throat, holding up her phone towards the front desk.

Mrs. Lakshmi inspected it after putting her glasses back on and noted down the transaction ID on her little diary with her scratchy pencil, next to Gaya's full name.

"See you around, then. Don't forget to collect your medicines on your way out!" Mrs. Lakshmi waved at her, deftly slipping out of the reception desk to step into the doctor's room.

"Sure. Thanks, Mrs. Lakshmi." Gaya waved back lightly, as she was already on her way towards the exit—bombarding a couple on their way in, muttering an offhanded sorry with an awkward smile at them.

At the unlimited network supply her phone was able to gauge as she skippered down the building after wearing her crocs, and collecting her medicines from the opposite room, it pinged inside her tightly wrapped around, small hand.

She opened the message as she walked through gates and continued strolling down the road on the pavement.

Varuna: Yeah, it's absolutely unbelievable when you tell me you're late to your doctor's appointment by SEVENTEEN FRIGGIN' DAYS. (In case you don't get it, I am not praising you. It's meant to be sarcastic!) I hope you have a better excuse this time than a simple 'I forgot, doc,' up your sleeve to tell you doctor.

Varuna: Enough with all the 'I can be an adult by myself, you don't need to remind me of my doctor's appointments,' okay? I am sure you're a wonderful adult trying her best. Even wonderful adults like you can sometimes use a bit of help and gentle reminders and nudges here and there.

And then the latest message showed up.

Varuna: Oh, is it? Haven't received any though? Are you sure the address is right?

Gaya scrolled back further on their messages to look at what she'd sent.

Gaya: Heyyyy, I have sent the cookies through the Here To Deliver app. Ping me once you receive them. AND LET ME KNWO HWO THE COOKIES TASTE OR i WILL NEVER EVER EVER SEND YOU MY COOKIES AGAIN!!!! 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩🎉

Spellcheck whomst?

Gaya did not feel the need to cringe since if someone was signing up to be her best friend, they were also exclusive to her chaotic, spellcheck-less, fat fingered, typo-filled messages with a legion of exclamatory marks and a string of incoherent emojis.

In hindsight though, it was not a great idea to add so many poop emojis next to the cookie emojis—that now felt like wishing a diarrhea on her—after literally sending freshly baked cookies.

Back to the status of the cookies she had laboriously baked and sent out... On opening the 'Here To Deliver' app and flubbing for the delivery status with her butter fingers, she noticed that they'd been delivered long ago at the given address.

But Varuna's text said otherwise.

Blowing out a huge sigh, Gaya brought up a hand to scour through her pixie cut, wavy hair—as though just doing that to her hair would rearrange all the jumbled chunks of her scattered brain into precision—her posture that'd been stiff all day long slouching loose in annoyance.

Had she sent them off to some other address? Or, was it the delivery person's mistake?

Gaya let out a frustrated whimper holding her head in her clammy hand, gathering attention from the young people walking past her. She'd no headspace to feel embarrassed by their fleeting questionable looks today.

Maybe tomorrow, when she would be lying in her bed thrashing around as her brain would bring up all the embarrassing moments for her to relive, and not sleep, okay? But, not today.

Before all the will to get on with the rest of her evening was long gone by along with the sigh she just exhaled, she wanted to make sure what happened to her cute looking, amoeba-like, sumaar-sumaar (average) cookies she had strenuously baked.

She went on to dial Varuna, as she kept wiggling her toes against the inside of her crocs (by the way, she never understood why so many people religiously hated crocs), inflicting her restlessness on it, while waiting for the call to be picked.

Whilst she stood there in the middle of the pavement biting her upper lip, the fabric of her cotton culottes dampened-ly clumping together at her sweaty thigh and, the back of her light mustard cotton t-shirt pasting itself to her skin making a soggy blotch on it. The lengthening ringing of the yet-to-be answered call dulled down in her ear against the incessant, grating noise of bikes whirring through the stagnant vehicles; and the said stagnant vehicles indulging in a honking contest, along with other motley of road-ly commotions on various decibels becoming an unwelcomely distress to Gaya's already spent out brain.

At the surging sensory burden, her anxious toe wiggling kept going harsher... so much that in a moment her overgrown toenails scraped the insides of her crocs, sending a painfully displeasing sting up her legs, and a creepy tickle to the roots of her teeth making her angrily clench her teeth in restraint.

But if you were to see her, you'd only find a slightly annoyed Gaya pressing the phone to her ears, with a ball of sweat tumbling down her forehead flank, behind her spectacles—and not all of that big hullabaloo her brain was committing her in. Invisible to human eyes—except to those who really knew her.

All of that chaos rummaging around in her brain paused only when she heard a louder-than-a-usual greeting from her other side. "Hello—"

Oh, she must've been standing there zoning out, unresponsive for a few disconnected moments, for Varuna to come up with a shout-y hello.

"I just want to pluck all my toenails out and put a wicker on them and burst them like crackers," she spilled through her grinding teeth. She stomped her foot on the pavement, rolling all her anger into her small hand's fist and slamming it against her gray culottes. "Or, or, feed them to the dragons," she added with an angry huff.

There was only a faint rustling of Gaya's seemingly short-winded breaths for the next few seconds that Varuna listened to, before she spoke up lightly, with a tender, comforting laugh. "Wow, please tell me you're feeding the dragons your toenails without lighting the wicker."

Gaya's heaving breaths seemed to speed down at the familiar softness in the words, in the familiarity of the soothing voice.

And that gave her a small half-smile. "Of course," she murmured quietly, releasing a big heave of exhale—and with it, unwounded the balled up fists. "Without any lighting up, so they can have their own little surprise bash when they spit up fire themselves."

Varuna couldn't help but laugh fondly at it. "Yeah, sure. Are you done with the doctor's appointment?"

Gaya started walking along the pavement booting up the little rock she found along with her. "Yeah." Her response was just a mumble, as all of her focus went into maintaining the right speed and distance to kick the rock.

Once she kicked it a bit too hard that it darted away from her tracks, she was able to retract her mind to what she needed to ask Varuna. Right away. Before something else enraptured her mind.

She stopped in her tracks, as if walking about would extract all of her ability to focus on the matter in hands.

"Vava, please tell me your flat number is F2... The delivery status shows it's been delivered a long time ago. And the address I gave has your name and flat number-2, First floor, Graha Apartments, Ram nagar. That's your new address, right?" she asked, without letting a breath out, chewing on her inner-cheek in desperation.

Varuna's words came out in great reluctance, as her eyes closed shut briefly. "My flat number is F4, and not F2." Gaya thumped a defeated hand—rolled into a fist, again—onto the side of her thigh. "But, the rest of the address is perfect," she continued cheerily, as if that was of any consolation.

Right! She'd filled out the wrong flat number.

"Oh," was all Gaya could manage to hum. After a beat of silence, too weary to standing amidst the road-ly commotion, looking straight out of a bath of sweat, and digesting this new mistake, she talked into the phone, waving her hands just wildly around her. "I will text you, it's too much to—"

Hearing Gaya's voice become wobblier towards the end, Varuna was able to catch up with what she must be going through. So she instantly replied, before hanging up. "I understand. Text me."

Shame poured itself into Gaya's already half-occupied brain—mug after mug from the bottomless bucket—grappling it further with its clodhopping grip. She really wanted to stomp dance on the crunchy leaves she found on the sidewalk until whatever she felt at the moment evanished from her body in a smokey swirl.

She had one job. One fucking job.

And she didn't do that one job correctly.

Pressing her forehead with her other hand, Gaya exhaled another resigned breath. On opening the messages app on her phone, her wild fingers straggled over the keyboard.

Gaya: I am soirry, my mistake. But it was addressed to you. If someone had received it in F2, they shoukd definitely givee it back to youuuu... considering youre the only Varuna in that flat? 😡💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

Right? That's what any decent person would do. Unless, they were a stealer.

Cookie stealer. Ah, petty! So petty!

Varuna: Yeah, they should. Not sure why they haven't done that. Maybe, we should just let this go. Don't be so hard on yourself over it, it's okay. You can always bake me more cookies later.

Her brows furrowed and shoulders clenched up, as she hurriedly read through the message in a mere whisper.

Gaya: What, no way! I can't, won't let this go. How can they steal the cookies I sent for you? 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Varuna: Yes, bubba. But the delivery address had their flat number—so we can't really blame them, I guess?

Gaya: They could've still askled if someone names Varuna was there in any other flat. The apartment has only six other flats—must not be a huge deal? I think the stealer liked my cookies, that's why... 😡😼😼😼😼

Gaya herself wasn't sure about the last part, but her fingers hovered over the send button and pressed it, before her mind could reconsider deleting it.

Varuna: We can't go and ask for it from the F2 people now?

Gaya: Surely, can. I will show you how. ON THE WAY 😤

Nothing could change Gaya's mind once she was fixed on something, especially when she was overstimulated—and, Varuna knew it. Still, she couldn't stop herself from asking.

Varuna: Are you sure about it? You seem really exhausted.

And got nothing in response.

********

Varuna rushed to her doorstep at the loud thumping of Gaya's pounding-up-the-stairs-two-a-time, as if that was her designated doorbell.

Overstimulated, sullen, and the usual floppy and upbeat wavy front of her pixie cut hair now sticky with sweat adhering it to her forehead annoyingly, Gaya stopped on the final step to catch a breath, bent over with her hand clutching on to the concrete handrail, her mouth dry and hanging open, chest stinging and heaving, her legs wobbling.

"Oh my god, did you run all the way here from the clinic?" Varuna rushed to extend support to now teetering-to-fall-on-her-bum-to-the-floor Gaya, who was by the way still gasping for air.

"Ah..." Pant. "Yes. what if," pant, "...if the stealer—" pant "—escapes."

She closed her mouth briefly, as it felt parched with all the rough breathing and perhaps, not completely remembering the existence of this life-saving fluid called water.

Unable to stand anymore from racing and jogging all the way through the city's evening traffic, Gaya slumped to the wall and slid down to crash on the top stair.

Varuna crouched next to her. "Why couldn't you wait and take an auto?"

"I tried," Gaya replied, still winded and pressing her abdomen with her small, chubby palm, where she felt a sharp sting. "I was not able to get any so I just..." the sting in her stomach pierced as she spoke, and she tightened the clutch around it as if to block it out.

Varuna ducked a bit to look into her friend's miffed face. "So you decided to race all the way here..."

Gaya nodded, her face still drooped and covered in sweat. "Plus, I forgot my wallet at home and had no money—" pant, pant, pant, "—autos won't accept UPI at this time."

Varuna looped her hand into Gaya's sticky arm. "Alright, come on in. Sit under the fan for a while, have a drink and then have this confrontation with your cookie stealer," she said, gently tugging her to her feet.

"No, no." Gaya freed her arm from her friend's hold, still very much stamped to the floor. She looked up at her waiting eyes, mouth hanging open. "Confrontation first."

No use arguing, Varuna knew. "Okay, come then."

Gaya hauled herself up to her feet and steadied herself, and brushed an arm over her damp face, and ran her hands through the muggy mop of waves on her forehead to steady herself, as her breath was returning to normalcy.

Varuna reached out to grab Gaya's arm before she took a step further. "I want to remind you that I have just moved here," she said, her face half-watchful and half-scared of the showdown that's about to come. She then steered her towards herself gently persuading her to pay attention. "You know, the person you're about to confront is my neighbor—who's just across the hallway from my house."

Gaya snapped to glance up, her stubby fingers still raking through her disheveled, frizzy waves, not quite getting what she was supposed to do with the well-known information she already knew.

Varuna noticed the questioning look on her face and decided to jump to the point, precisely. "Can we please make this as amicable as possible, to avoid any awkwardness in the future?"

Gaya frowned, her arms now crossed on her chest and her mouth squashed together as if retaining the words that were threatening to topple out, all in all looking like a petulant child.

"Please?" Varuna asked, her brows rising in hopefulness, staring back at her best friend with her big, puppy eyes, praying they worked at the moment.

"Ugh, fine," Gaya freed her arms in defeat, as Varuna beamed and lurched forward to squeeze her in a thanking hug, while she stood stock-still, glowering, like she had just been told she couldn't go ahead and buy herself a savory bun, while standing in the middle of a warm bakery wafting of melting butter and stretchy gluten and herbs.

Once she was released from the squeezy hug—not that she'd whinge about it, since she needed one very much at the moment—she continued to glower at Varuna's bright face.

"But, don't have any expectations," Gaya mumbled, gearing up to march towards F4, "the best I can do is not wish them a runny tummy, on the day of a blackout, with an empty water tank."

"That's," Varuna started, her bright face going blank with her mouth shot open but paused with no other words coming up—eventually, sobering up as she shook her head for an unbelievable moment, and continued, "that's very..." she tailed Gaya, as she reached down to the door, with quite spiteful steps, Varuna's voice becoming a whisper. "...very magnanimous of you, in my honest opinion."

Gaya turned about to her with a grimace, her eyes narrowed judgingly into slits, in front of F2, really puzzled. "Are you being sarcastic right now?"

She really wished human verbal communication came with tone indicators of some sort—some color maybe, that'd glow up behind one's head as they talked, indicating their tone, so she could easily catch up on it without being looked at like she was being not at all serious, whilst that was all she would be at that particular moment.

"No," Varuna said, leaning on the wall next to the doorbell of F4. "I was being genuine. I took a moment to imagine someone stuck in the toilet with diarrhea, on a full black out day, with an empty overhead tank—it's quite a blessing that you are not going to wish that upon them." And she meant it.

Gaya could disclose that she'd just broken into a silly, reckless dance climbing on the conference table, in one of those mind-numbingly boring staff meetings at her school, and Varuna would still clap her hands together in glee—her eyes widening with sparks of delightment to tell Gaya how that'd have been an extraordinary school staff meeting ever, even though she'd never been to one.

All Gaya would do was just to simply exist, and Varuna would go all celebratory on it, as if Gaya was the first person ever to do that at all.

Typical best friend behavior.

Gaya's face glowed with pride—along with the drying sheens of sweat on her forehead at Varuna's approval. She quickly rubbed her face with a sweep of her arm, turning back to face the wooden door that was now the only physical existence that disconnected her from this petty thief.

"Shall I press the bell?" Varuna asked, as Gaya kept staring at the door with no intent to proceed on anything beyond that.

Gaya's lips thinned into a very displeased line, her cheeks puffing up like she were hiding mini gulab jamuns in her mouth, side-eyeing Varuna. "What a polite way to call out a petty stealer!"

With a dismissing head shake at Varuna, she raised her hand to rap on the door—not once, not twice, but just over and over and over—until her knuckles started aching (not worth it), so she switched to thumping the door with the heel of her palm.

She knew how annoying it was when someone did that on her door—and, that's literally why she was doing it on this petty person's door—hoping the level of displeasure it caused was much greater for them than it did for her.

Varuna could do nothing but just stand watch it, as Gaya's hand kept banging on the door for the next no-one-knows-how-much-time until there came an ultimately irritated grunt followed by something on the notes of who-in-the-fadoodles-is-that in all its muted-ness due to the wooden door Gaya was now low-key drumming on.

As the door clicked to be opened, Gaya stopped in her drumming and took a step back, tying her hands to her front, hoping it was good enough for confronting a cookie stealer.

Woken up from his unintentional evening nap by the drumming on his door—provoked and agitated—Varunan yanked the door open. "Why do you think there's a doorbell—" his sleepy voice that started in a rigorous high pitch halted screeching, at the woman at his front door.

Sweaty and seemingly angry, she looked like she was ready to start a wrestling match, with her shoulders squared and her big eyes overwhelmed in... disgust (?) behind her glasses.

Varunan blinked, his brows crumpling in confusion, with his mouth remaining unclose from the pause in his words—he was the one to be disgusted at the noisy rap on his door. Instead this woman who even made the noise was standing there seemingly furious at her own actions?

He scratched his head at the obvious, while the woman in his front blew out an impatient sigh. "Is your name Varuna?" she asked dryly.

Varunan slow-blinked at her. "Uhm... yes?" he said, indecisively, "with a n at the end..."

Gaya wanted to just transit the ballistic-ness in her brain straight into her words at this cookie stealer... cute cookie stealer, might she add—with his curly, bed hair and confused, clueless looks, and a very boyish half-trousers and t-shirt, where a corn seemed to poke up from the pocket on his chest.

Gaya never knew cookie stealers could look this handsome and cuddly—it was disorienting.

Anyhow, a beautiful stealer was still a stealer—she needed to focus on his actions and not his beautiful face—which was slightly disappointing, but Gaya could manage.

She breathed out a slow exhale, rumpling her eyebrows as her face felt hot—probably, due to the running she'd done in the sun, even though she was sweating buckets until a moment ago.

"So, you're not Varuna, are you?" she asked, as she uncrossed her arms, and planted one of the palms on her hip. "Then why would you steal the cookies that I sent out for my best friend Varuna—" with a flourish of her other arm, Varunan's head tilted a bit as his eyes bounced to a hesitant and a tad bit embarrassed girl giving him a sheepish wave from behind the angry one, and back to the angry one herself, "—it's not your name, so how long would it take to tell the delivery person that it's not meant for you. Who would do such a petty act of stealing cookies that was meant for someone else—if you wanted cookies, you could've just baked them yourself with countless recipes available online, like me; or you could've just ordered some from the nearest bakery—" Gaya halted, her breath hitching at her throat, as her hurried words died right there.

She didn't seem anywhere close to finished, but when she paused from her breathless rambling, Varunan thankfully took the chance to speak up.

He put up a huge palm asking her to keep her words at pause. "Hey, listen, it might not be my name, but I collected the packet only after verifying the address—" he told her, his eyes grim—recovered from the confusion earlier—now, fully defensive. "I am pretty sure it was addressed to F2, which is clearly my door number—"

"But is your name—"

"My name is Varunan—Varuna, with an additional n at the end—so, I thought it was my sister sending me snacks—"

"So your sister sends snacks to Varuna, even though your name is not—"

Varunan rolled his eyes, exasperated—at his state of having to explain his name mishap to this stranger—albeit, an adorable but very angry stranger. "People often misspell my name as Varun or Varuna—and my friends and sister even used to tease me as kids—so, I thought my sister was doing the same—"

Gaya scoffed as if she was not believing even one word coming out of his mouth, riling Varunan up.

He pointed a brash finger at her, all of his words emphatic and accusing. "It's your mistake that you wrote the delivery address wrong—" Alright, she couldn't deny that. It was her mistake. "—and you addressed it to Varuna—my name with just the letter missing, which I assumed is from my sister, because she used to tease me with that name, and there is no Varuna in this flat—"

Gaya stepped forward, her chin thrusting up opposingly. "My friend Varuna just moved in opposite to you just a day ago—"

"Well, I didn't know that," he countered, with a tight-shoulder shrug, and a high-pitched voice—now cleared of any tinge of sleepiness he had.

"And whose mistake is that?"

Right up offended at her words, Varunan's palm cupped his forehead stressfully. "Listen miss, I don't know why you're being so incensed and all rude at something that clearly seems like your mistake—" The words incensed and your mistake—all blown up in bold and all capital letters, highlighted with the irritably neon color wrapped itself around Gaya's brain with its pokey barbs.

"—and your cookies weren't even that delicious—"

Gaya's eye widened at the sucker-punch she received in her heart, as she noisily sucked in an open mouthed breath at it—along with it, from behind her came another noisy inhale from Varuna, as her hand flew up to her snapped open mouth, at his boorish words.

Weren't even that delicious, my arse—then why would anyone steal and even eat it, if they weren't delicious!

And this petty guy's pettiness did not seem to be stopping with that—he kept going.

"—they were easily the most mediocre cookies I have ever had—and you're accusing me of stealing something that came to my doorstep, with my door number—"

"You. Just. Did. Not." Gaya bit out each and every word as menacingly she could manage to at the moment, with an air-jabbing index finger.

Varunan shook his head with a sneering laugh. "Oh, I just absolutely did."

A gigantic whomp—straight at her heart—again!

She did not stand in her kitchen for so many sweaty hours looking into the recipe so very carefully—to not miss anything, and to be precise of every measurement mentioned—to mix, roll the dough and then bake them into painstaking amoeba-shaped perfection of cookies for some petty cookie stealer to rob them off—and then so haughtily insult them.

Gaya balled her fists as her arms and legs started bouncing in little indignant jumps, alongside her brain becoming more restless with each passing second. Pushing her sliding glasses up on her nose with a bump of her shoulder on it, her bunched fists kept shaking, as her mind started making up the words she didn't have time to reconsider before they quivered out of her wobbling lips.

"How dare you steal my cookies and then call them mediocre," she told him, eye brows wound together tightly—her eyes fuming, her face hot and burning—mortified and enraged. "I am not going to let you go until you admit my cookies are the best-est cookies you've ever had—"

"Best-est is not even a word—"

She did not care!

"I am going to bring you cookies until you admit they're the best—" she said, "—est," she added mockingly, after a little pause, letting out a little steam of a breath. "Every. Single. Day!" She bit out each and every word carefully, with a stomp of her leg for each, putting Varunan in a stupefied daze—his eyes going big and frozen open in horror.

If a word as fancy as flabbergasted had a visage, Varunan—right now, in his wide-eyed, parted-mouth glory—would be it. And that alone gave Gaya a much needed tickle.

She fiddled with the zipper of her sling bag to fish out a small notepad and a pencil along with it. She pushed her spiral bound notepad in front of his puzzled face. "Write in your number—" she gestured to the pencil by knocking it on the ruled page of the pocket-sized notebook at his face, "—to help me deliver my best-est cookies!"

Quite staggered at it, Varunan stumbled with his words. "I... my... number—"

"Do it!" She insisted, her voice rising in its pitch demandingly, as she slapped the pencil again on the notebook.

It took Varunan a few seconds to process it and snatch the notepad from her hands. He scribbled down his phone number and shoved the notepad and the pencil back in her hands.

Pushing them urgently into her sling bag, she looked right up, meeting his eyes daringly. "Alright, petty thief, see you tomorrow with a batch of cookies that's about to make you go on your knees, bawling your eyes out, admitting your undying love for them!" Oh, there definitely was some snobbishness in it—and she was well aware of it.

Varunan's mouth twitched out in a dry, goading grin. "We'll see that Miss. Mediocre Baker." And he thought to himself how it had a silly rhyme to it.

Gaya returned him a mock smile, as she spun around on her heel, as dramatically as she could and walked across the hallway into F4.

Varuna, who was standing there—stunned and completely speechless at the way this one day squabble had taken burst forth into several days until one of them admitted about the greatness of the other person's cookies.

When her head bobbled back to Varunan after watching Gaya stomp into her flat, she gave him an urgent, small, awkward smile, before running behind her best friend.

Well, that was one way to meet your neighbor for the first time. 

NOTE: 

Let me know how you liked the chapter in the comments, please. 

Also, check out the song I have linked above. Man madan ambu literally means cupid's bow. It's a fun song to listen to, and one of my favorites too. 

Until next chapter, toodles!