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[C]

With the smile on his lips and a feeling of contentment filled to the brim in his heart, Yazeed walked to the office and from where he stood, he watched as she brought out the plate and before she placed it down, she screamed and carefully placed it down before she held her hand to her face. “Oh my god!” She screamed again, blowing some air on her nearly burnt fingers.

He rushed to where she was crouched and crouched to her level, “What’s wrong? Is it burnt?” He asked and resisted himself form holding her hand. She looked up at him with her eyes getting watery and nodded her head.

“I forgot about it and it got so hot, I should have waited until it cooled down a bit.” She lamented and kept turning her hand, having a better view of the burnt.

“You should have been more careful. Look, go to the sofa and sit down, I'll bring everything to you shortly.” What he realized after he spoke those words out and began serving them in a plate which had become a norm for them to eat in a plate was, she hadn’t moved an inch. Rather, she had her eyes fixed on him with this dreamy look he couldn’t bring himself to fathom.

“Why are you staring at me?” He questioned and took his eyes back to his work.

“No, being nice looks so good on you, that’s all.” She smiled shyly at him and stood up as he ordered.

Yazeed kept pondering over her words, ‘Being nice looks so good on you.’ He smiled to himself and stood up with the plate in his hand and two spoons in the other. He placed the centre of the table and watched as she walked back from the fridge holding two cans of drink. She placed them down and sat opposite him.

“Thank you,” she said, and he could detect the sincerity in her words.

“What for? Eat so we could get back to work.” He dismissed her comment and her shoulders sagged in defeat. He wanted that vibe to be back to her face, that undiluted happiness she always had whenever she was dancing, he wanted to see it while they conversed.

“Can’t we have a day off? I'm seriously tired for today.” She whined, and Yazeed handed her her spoon before he shook his head.

“Tired? What have you done today? All the work you did were in this office, sitting right on this chair, why will you be tired?”

“I want something different, I'm tired of dealing with codes and numbers, they’re making me depressed.”

He had to softly chuckle at that and watch as she began taking the food as though it were a pill to her. It was amusing to his eyes, but at the same time, he couldn’t resist commenting at that.

“You eat like an angry baby,” he said his thoughts out loud before he could be able to control himself.

She excitedly looked up at him and flipped her imaginary hair with an ostentatious roll of her eyes, “That’s because I'm one, a baby girl.”

“Please, don’t make me lose my appetite, you’re so full of yourself that it always makes me sick.”

She snorted softly and went back to her food while she silently whispered, “I smell J here.”

He whispered back without even looking at her face, “And that’s the first letter of your name, too bad for a name.”

“So you know my name?!” She exclaimed, and he nearly choked before he gulped down some drink and glared at her.

“In case you forget how your crazy self act, it’s always ‘Oh, Jalilah is so tired.’ ‘Jalilah wants to take some nap.’ ‘Jalilah hates to work so much.’ And especially when you scream it out loud not minding that you might damage my eardrums, ‘Jalilah wants some attention!’”

She threw her head back and laughed while she clapped her hand excitedly, “So you’ve always heard that, but why did you ignore me? Because you acted like you didn’t hear.”

“Because I couldn’t give your crazy self more chance to be crazier than you’re now.” She was about to speak again when he pointed at her spoon and muttered, ‘We have work to do.’ From the way his expression changed, Jalilah knew that even if she was going to keep on speaking to him until it was closing time, he wasn’t going to reply to her unless he wanted to. She sealed her mouth up as well and continued eating her food.

She loved it when they ate together, on the same plate. The day he suggested they ate together by Allah she thought he was only pulling her legs, she had never thought he meant it until she saw him eating together with her and he didn’t throw any tantrums. The next day he wanted them to eat from different tables, but Jalilah was so persistent that he had no choice but to eat with her, which fortunately became a norm for them.

And right now, she found it so hard to eat alone while she was at home. Even though she was sure just eating lunch didn’t qualify that she got so attached to him, but there were things that as much as we wanted to control them, we couldn’t.

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