From here, we begin a New Journey of AvNeil. I am so excited and nervous at the same time.

Here goes the 1st chap, I hope you guys have a Happy Reading!

Amidst the haste of the working day filled with tireless projects and a pile of cursory files, the only time I look forward to is the breather in the name of lunch hour. Not because I am having some sort of one-sided relationship with food or so, but for the solitude, it provides me with.

A lonely man in his late twenties enjoying his own company along with a dark chocolate blueberry cupcake, comfortably occupying one of the corner tables is not a new sight to the regular's of this company's Cafeteria. Though that cupcake onerously gifts me an extra hour of a strenuous sweating session in my gym, still I had resorted to it as my guilty pleasure.

But this day is hell-bent on proving itself as anything but usual for me, starting right from the crash-landing of a certain grey-jacketed woman in my thoughts from earlier this morning.

For, just as I was collecting the order slip of my usual cupcake from the dessert counter, I heard a babyish bewildered voice as soft as a wisp of breath, "Cupcake! Chocolate!"

I immediately spun on my toe towards my left to find a pint-sized cute lil girl in pale pink sweater whose nose tip and wide surprised eyes were pressed up against the thick semicircular glass of the display machine of desserts, with her tiny fanned out hands resting on either side of her head. I arched backwards, suddenly filled with a perpetual curiosity to look more through her side-profile.

A small huff of chuckle left my lips as I found her hopping on her toe-tips in order to push her little frame until her face reaches the display glass.

She collected her fingers in a loose fist before excitedly tapping her index finger over the displayed dish of her interest and demanded politely, "That one. Uncle, give me that cupcake."

The middle-aged, aproned server from the opposite side of the display counter, whose apron seems to be strained and hung awkwardly over his pot-belly, flashed an apologetic smile saying, "It was the last piece and It's sold."

She dropped herself on her flat-feet with slumped shoulders while her eyes continue to follow the server's movements of packaging the cupcake until the sweet was dumped in my hands.

Not a second later, I heard a soft plea with a tinge of demand in it, "Can I have that?"

It was then that I saw more than the side profile of her innocent pear-shaped face, prettified with button-nose and sharp features, but more than anything, what captivated my sight was those twinkling petal-shaped hazel brown eyes and I felt like the whole world has been shrunk up to contain itself around those eyes.

Is it just my mind that is hallucinating or those eyes are the exact replicas, albeit the mini version, of the ones from this morning whose snap is inadvertently stuck in the "to find" list of my brain, just after a mere glimpse of it. The exact similar eyes!

I don't precisely know for how long I was zoned out in the thoughts of the unerring similarities, that my no response had begun to irk the kid, faltering her previous expectant look.

I quickly swept my eyes through the cafeteria to look for any responsible person accompanying the girl. Finding no-one with her, I knelt down to reach her height, before asking, "There's no one with you?"

Her whole demeanour changed from annoyance to being defensive before she scoffed, "I can pay for myself," removing a folded 200 rupee note from her denim's tiny front pocket, "And I can look after myself too. I'm a big gal," she added, almost in order to prove her point.

I was left bemused with the ferociousness in this tiny creature. She sounds to me like a little cub, born to an assumed tigress, with the natural fierceness running in her vein. I already started to like this cutesy kiddo.

"Really? So how old are you?"

She thought deeply, before showing the outstretched 5 fingers of her palm saying, "4-years-old."

"Right!" I can't help the chuckle that escaped my lips at her antics when I folded her thumb to correct her counting fingers to show 4. She is another level adorbs. "However, I didn't ask about your parents because I thought you can't look after yourself or you can't pay."

"In fact Princess, I wanted to offer you this cupcake but it has multiple ingredients, I just want to make sure that you are not allergic to any of them."

"Ohh!" I can't exactly pinpoint whether it was my explanation or the endearment or my tone but she immediately dropped her defensive mode and eased her frown, asking in her childish way, "What more ing.. ing.. ing-dri-ents.."(ingredients)

"Ummm! Blueberries. Egg proteins. Dark-chocolate." I started to count it on my fingers for her.

"Wow! Blueberries and chocolate are my favourites."

"If that's the case, you can have this cupcake, baccha."

"Only my GrandMa can call me and my mumma, baccha, and no-one else." The little miss attitude warns me with the effortless sass in her voice and stance and didn't hesitate to accept the dangling packet of offered cupcake from my hand. I so badly wanted to pull her cheeks and ruffle her curls but I knew it won't settle well with this mini firecracker.

"How about you tell me your name?"

"But Mumma told me to not talk to strangers."

I was about to point out that she has had enough chat with a stranger when a pleasant voice from behind my back interrupted me.

"Aahana! Baccha, what are you up to?"

And it was to this scene that her mother, as I am assuming, joined in. She walked past me with a pleasant breeze of lavender trailing behind her path, knelt in between her daughter and me to talk to her happily grinning child. My eyes fortuitously became the object for witnessing her slightly exposed back and perfectly curved waist peeking through her simply draped peach coloured saree.

The feminine duo in front of me, continued to chat some or the other things, while I was silently praying not to be misunderstood as some child-kidnapper offering drugged cupcakes and got beaten up in front of a known crowd.

As I was mentally preparing an explanatory speech, the saree clad woman stood up clasping the kid's tiny hand in hers and turned around to face me, only to un-align my world from its axis and leave me dangling with heaps of thoughts and unexplained emotions, mostly of confusion.

"The same grey-jacket woman from the sidewalk this morning."

I stood staring at the same set of doe-eyes that has captured me more than once in a mere interval of few hours, with my parted lips that couldn't utter the words they were about to spill previously.

"Out of all, can I be the fortunate one, to so easily collide with someone I was seeking for?" The ecstatic part of my inner self thought, while the other part vehemently denied the prospect of seeking her, citing the reason being just general curiosity and nothing more.

"I am so sor..." She abruptly halted on her words and seemed to slightly recoil back with unreadable expressions, under the intensity of some undefinable energy that transferred between the two of us.

Recovering soon enough, clearing her throat, she continued, "I am so sorry for the troubles caused by my daughter. She is usually a well-mannered child."

And just like that my worst dreaded part about this whole predicament came to be true. She is the little girl's mother. No wonder about the striking similarities and the inherited features.

"Ehm, don't be. She is a smart kid, only to be proud of."

"Aahana!" She threw a warning glance at the kid who seemed to read her mother's unspoken words and extended the packet of cupcakes towards me with a discreet disapproving look on her face.

"You can have it back. I'll buy her something else."

"There's no need for it. Aahana can have her fav dessert," I said encouragingly so that the gloom on the kid's face can disappear for good, which I couldn't stand at the first place. This cutie deserves to smile, always.

The girl glanced at her mother for what seems to be like permission and chirped a happy "Thank you" when her mother blinked approvingly. Her smile was so contagious that it flies around to settle on my lips too, lessening the pain of the previous pricky sensation on my heart.

Never in my wildest dream, I would have thought that my life would take this drastic change in its path in just a few hours. Where I would start to feel a pull for a woman after ages, where I would start to assume a Woman to be The Awaited Spring of my life, who will eventually turn out to be a happily married and having a cute little family of her own.

I'm officially doomed!

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So, How was it.? 😃

Since, Its the First Meeting, Avni's POV is must for it.! So wait for the next chapter.!

If you have noticed, there hasn't been an introduction of the two yet.! 😉 Something to look forward to in Next Update.

No doubt that the subject is sensitive and emotional, but the general vibe of Romance around the emotions will always be there.! That's the forte of my writing and storytelling. In fact, this will be more Romantic than Emotional.! Just give it sometime.! 😊

Will be looking forward to ur views on this one.!