One step closer. Chapter 2 - Work

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I try not to look at him for the next one hour. I go through the studio's old projects and find that he's done the background art for most of them. I have a lot of things to ask him, but he doesn't seem very approachable. I could be wrong though. First impressions may not be accurate all the time.

Manoj calls me over to the conference room and I follow him. He takes me through all the projects they are working on and asks me to pick the one I feel most comfortable with. I chose the one about the forest spirits.

"This one? Great. Karthik is working on this project. I'll have him brief you," says Manoj. I remember Karthik, I spoke to him earlier, he's the one with the goatee. 

"Ok. Thank you," I reply, feeling excited about my very first project here.

"I'll have someone set up your desktop and drawing tablet. Also, can you wait here for a moment, I'll ask Karthik to let you know more about the project," He continues. I nod.

Manoj leaves the room and Karthik comes in after a while.

"Hey, welcome to the team, let's have fun with this one," He says with a nice welcoming smile. Thank you. I feel grateful for his smile, I needed one.

"Thanks. I'm looking forward to it. It's such an interesting concept." I say.

"It is. I'll share all the working files with you and I'll need you to refine the design of some of the characters. You can ask Adi for inputs - he's insanely good with Character design," He says. 

"Adi? Got it," I reply, feeling a little more jealous. Not only does he have good hair, but he's also super good at background art and character design. Unfair much?

"Oh, and I don't know if Manoj mentioned it to you yet, but Adi is hard of hearing. When you're facing him, you can talk as usual and he'll read your lips. He'll reply through office chat or his notepad. Just make sure you're looking at him when you talk to him," he says, making my heart skip a beat. So Adi did understand me back then when I mumbled 'scary'. I'm doomed.

"Ok. Thank you for letting me know. I wasn't aware," I say. 

"But, do reach out to him or me if you need any help," he offers. 

I nod. Adi won't be petty, right? He won't take it to his heart that I called him scary, right? Also there's a slight chance that he did not read my lips.

Should I just apologize for mistaking him for a scary guy, but that will be like reiterating the whole thing again. Why did I have to mouth it? I could have just thought about it.

As I walk towards my desk, I find him looking at me. I smile. He doesn't. This is so not good.

***

During the next couple of days - I get used to the work. My desk is all set up and I start coming up with design ideas for the characters. Days turn into months, and I can say I am good friends with all of them. Well except for one. Adi does help me whenever I need help, but he's just as distant. Man sure can hold grudges.

I see him being friendly with others, not overtly expressive - but at least cordial. With me he just nags or argues. Most of the things he says are true, so I couldn't really hold it against him, but he does get on my nerves. It would have helped if he smiled often and is a little more friendly, but he's just not. He's ice cold.

I know I forgot that he could read lips and accidentally mumbled some not so nice things about him, but I have a pretty good reason for doing that. Imagine someone sitting in front of you and glaring at you while bombarding your chat box with revision requests in All caps. Who does that? All caps?

And I only ever said things like ice king or angry bird. They don't count as something serious do they? And I wasn't even at my desk, I was getting some snacks from the kitchen and mumbling things to myself and he just had to be there behind me and catch my reflection in the window. I can't even badmouth him without getting caught. 

Ding.

That little notification sound brings me out of my thoughts and I find myself looking at him. And he, at me. I zoned out? How long was I staring at him?

He sighs and points at my computer.

Chat (1)

Aditya : 'Stop staring at me and start working on the tailor-man design. It's due tomorrow.'

I look up, give him an embarrassed smile. He sighs again, shakes his head and gets back to work. I am not a clumsy person, I am quite good at my work - even if I say so myself - and I get my work done on time. However whenever I make some mistake or end up doing something not so normal, he'll always be around, catching me in the act. It's almost as if he's spying on me round the clock. Or i might just have the worst of luck when he's around and so I get caught right away.

I work for the rest of the day on the designs and on fine tuning them, but Adi isn't easily pleased. He asks me to revise this and that until the night falls. We're so busy that we didn't notice everyone else leaving.

Once Adi is finally happy with the design, I breathe a sigh of relief and pack my things. As I turn off the computer, I feel him walking towards me. Don't tell me there's more work to do? I'm hungry. It's 8 already.

My phone beeps. I have a text.

Unknown number? It's not him, is it? Just because I turned off the computer, he wouldn't go as far as texting me on the phone to give me more work right?

I should not check it. If it really is him, I can feign ignorance this way.

Knock. Knock.

There he goes knocking on the desk again.

I look at him and he points to my phone. It's him. Why is my imagination always on point?

I take my phone into my hands, preparing myself to work for longer.

87xxxxxx43 : 'Do you want to have something to eat before you leave?'

I look up at him. Ice king acting nice? This is unexpected. How am I supposed to react to that?

"No, thank you. My father is waiting for me," I say, and it's true. Nanna messaged me a couple of times already.

87xxxxxx43 : 'Oh. Ok. Sorry for holding you up this late.'

"No. No. I know you are helping me. Sorry that you had to work for longer because of me," I say, sincerely. Though I seem to be complaining about him all day, I understand that he's helping me out and I truly appreciate that. I just hope he'd be gentler, or nicer, but it's ok, I'll take what I get.

He looks surprised and that slightly offends me. Did he probably think that I'm incapable of being an agreeable human? Now I'm bothered.

"Ok, i've to leave now. Will see you tomorrow." I say as I walk past him.

Ding. It's my phone again. What now?

87xxxxxx43 : 'Text me when you get home.'

Ehhhh?

I turn around and he signs, 'text me'. It's my turn to be surprised now. It appears I didn't take him for an agreeable human either.

It takes me 20 minutes to reach home, and I'm right, Nanna is waiting for me.

"Nanna, you could have gone to sleep, why are you still waiting up," I say as I make my way into the house.

"I made a special dish today, so I wanted you to taste it and give me a review," He says, pointing to the dining table.

This is my favorite part of the day, unwinding with Nanna. We share all the gossip from our workplaces and talk about our day, as we enjoy a delicious home cooked meal.

"What? He said that! Wow, huge improvement," Nanna says, shocked and pleased all at once.

"I guess he had to socialize with me because there's no one else around. Usually others take care of the socializing bit at our studio," I say, rolling my eyes.

"Hmmm.. maybe he actually is concerned. It is late at night," Nanna says.

"Concerned? who? The ice king?tut-tut-tut-tut," I disagree. How can the holy Ice king concern himself with the matters of mere mortals.

Ding.

87xxxxxx43 : Did you get home?

My mouth falls open. I am so not used to this, especially from him.

"Who is it? The ice king?" asks nanna with a sly smile on his face.

I nod as I type in my response to Adi : 'Yes. I just got home.'

Though we are used to texting each other through the web mail, this feels so different. Personal, even.

87xxxxxx43 - Add to contacts

Ice King.

No, it'll be too risky.

Aditya. Let's not complicate things.

Ding.

Aditya: Ok, Good Night. See you tomorrow.

Are we...like...friends now?

'Good Night,' I text back.

Nanna cleans up the table, I do the dishes, and we go to bed.

I open my chat to see the texts again. It still feels a little unreal. I've been working at the studio for about 6 months now and this is the first time he texted me on my personal number.

How come he has my number while I didn't have his. Makes sense though, Manoj takes care of the official communications. So most of us don't have Adi's personal number.

I wake up from a nice long sleep and it feels refreshing. I take my phone and look at the time, it's 7:45 AM. I'm going to be late.

I immediately text Manoj, telling him that I'll be a little late.

I get ready in a rush and sprint out to not cause any more delay. Nanna has already left, I remember him telling me that he has an early meeting today. I should have kept an alarm.

I find the bus right away and get on it. Thank god.

I slowly walk into the studio and it feels like I'm on some kind of a walk of shame. This is my first time being late to work and I feel very bad. How embarrassing is it to be late because I overslept.

Thankfully, everyone is super engrossed in their work and no one is really looking at me. But I could feel this ice cold gaze coming at me from the window.

The walk of shame gets real as I take my steps towards my desk. I put my bag down and quickly turn on the computer to get working as soon as I can.

Immediately as the computer turns on, I get a text from him.

Aditya - 'You are late.'

I didn't want to look at him, so I type- 'I'm sorry. Something came up.'

Aditya - 'You should have texted.'

'I texted Manoj that I'd be late.' I type in. Is he angry?

Aditya - 'Oh. You should have texted me as well.'

My eyes fly to his face, he looks serious as ever, buried in his work, not sparing a glance to the world around. Is he really texting me?

I turn my eyes down and I have a new text from him.

Aditya - 'You have a client meeting in the afternoon and you were not coming. I didn't know what was happening.'

Oh. It's about the client meeting. Was he worried about the meeting? Didn't Manoj tell me about my text?

'I am sorry. This will not happen again.' I text him.

Aditya - 'It's ok. Things like this happen, but make sure to keep me posted.'

I am not expecting this, but it's better than being at odds with him. So I look at him again, and smile. He nods. A real proper nod.

Wow. This is the first time he has acknowledged my smile. My standards must be super low or else I will not be feeling this happy for a nod - but knowing him for a couple of months, this is a huge improvement. HUGE.

My smile widens and I feel my cheeks plumping up. He's still looking at me and I see his expression change from indifference to confusion.

He nodded. I'm finding it difficult to get over that nod. My standards are definitely buried so deep under the ground.

The client meeting goes well and they like the designs. They suggest a couple of minor changes, but it's much better than having to redo everything. I'm quite happy and feel so relieved.

Ding.

I take my phone out and it's a text from Adi.

'Good job'

The niceness streak continues. I'm liking this.

'Thank you for all the help,' I text back and I mean it. Though I kinda get annoyed at his indefinitely indifferent face, he's quite helpful and I admire him for it. Does that make me a hypocrite? Perhaps.

Some of our colleagues could sign, and when they are conversing, it feels like they are in a different world, and Adi looks more at ease. I've noticed that he emotes really well when he's signing. His face shows these wide range of emotions when he signs and he almost seems human.

When not working, he goes around the studio with his tiny notepad, and if someone asks him a question, he'd quickly start writing on it. He looks so diligent. Sometimes when I look through the window, I find him outside. He'd be watering the plants or taking pictures of them. I guess he's so good at drawing plants and trees because he spends so much time with them.

"You talk too much about a person you say you don't like," says my dad, as I'm about to take another bite of the food.

"I do?" I almost choke.

"Yes, and I'm starting to feel like I know him pretty well because of you," he smiles.

"Oh!" I don't know what to say. I didn't realize that I had been talking about him. It's just that his expressions and his actions don't match, so I get intrigued. He looks indifferent, but he actually is quite nice to everyone. He doesn't smile, but he's always welcoming. Maybe he's a hypocrite as well, a weird kind.

I go back to my room and think about him a bit more. No matter how I look at it, he is weird. I mean - why look so menacing while being so nice?

I dream of him that night. Nightmare. In it he keeps texting me about changes and revisions and colour keys and I get so annoyed that I jump out of the window and try to run away, but he comes around to block my path. What a weird dream!

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