After Vikram dropped her back at the house, Akira lied flat on the bed. Although she was all excited to be with Vikram at the party, but deep down all that she could think of was about her dance practice that was supposed to happen with Raymond the next day evening. The anticipation was killing her. Just the thought of being with him was enough to make her go weak in her knees.

They had talked for hours last night, but all that she could think of was to text him again and to talk with him again.

She checked her phone, but he hadn't sent her any more messages.

She was a bit disappointed but as she kept scrolling through her old chat, she was surrounded by a blanket of happiness.

While scrolling through the chat, by mistake she sent a recently used smiley somehow.

"Oh, no no no no no", Akira screamed.

She immediately deleted the WhatsApp message, but the damage was already done. Raymond could still see that she had sent something but had deleted it.

"Gosh Akira !!! What have you done?", Akira thought to herself and buried her head inside the cushions.

---

Meanwhile, at the Clinton Hill residential area, Raymond was deeply engrossed in designing one of the major features of the game, the augmentation of Virtual Reality. He had a dedicated team to handle it, but as the launch date was nearing by, they had no margin for error. So he had taken the matter to his own hands. He was a child prodigy and was really adept at coding and graphics designing. He was a summa-cum-laude of his batch in college and was well known across colleges for his genius abilities. His hands swiftly moved on the keyboard writing hundreds of lines of code without even stopping to take a break.

His full attention was on the laptop screen and suddenly he saw his phone screen lit up with notification. Any other day he would have ignored it, but today since morning he was waiting for Akira's text. His thirst hadn't been quenched even after texting with her till the wee hours. He badly wanted to text her, but at the same time didn't want to appear too needy. So somehow he had boxed all his urges inside and was patiently waiting for her to initiate the conversation. So the moment he saw his screen lit up with notification, he grabbed his phone and immediately opened WhatsApp.

"Why would she send something and then delete it?"

"Did she send it by mistake?"

"Maybe she wanted to ping someone else"

"Or does she want to talk with me?"

"Ugghh... what does she want?"

Raymond's head was bursting with these unanswered questions.

So finally he decided to ping her.

"Hi" - Raymond

"Hi" - Akira

"Jeez Akira now what will you tell him when he asks. Why are you so stupid?", Akira thought to herself and cursed her stupidity.

"Did you send something? Or texted in the wrong window?" - Raymond

"Yeah yeah, wrong window" - Akira

She immediately lied to save her own face. How could she admit that she had been going through the old chats? That was such a lame thing to admit to. But she didn't know that it Raymond's heart was dampened the moment he saw her text. The whole day he was waiting for her ping and when she did, it was 'wrong window'.

"Oh ok" - Raymond

"Ok" - Akira

Raymond kept the phone aside as his mood had gone sour.

"Maybe I was over thinking and over anticipating."

"Why did I even ping her?"

"When she had deleted the message it was obviously not for me. What was the need to even ask?"

Raymond thought and cursed himself.

Akira kept staring at the screen thinking that probably he would ping something back, but when he didn't she started growing restless. She started waiting. 5mins passed...., 10mins passed..., 15 mins passed. But still, there was no response from him.

Then she decided to be honest and speak out her mind as she wasn't able to tame her restlessness.

"Actually I was scrolling through the chat and somehow by mistake, I sent a recently used smiley. I didn't want to disturb you so I deleted it" - Akira

She had bared her true self in front of him. But somehow instead of feeling vulnerable, she felt more comfortable. It was weird.

When Raymond saw his phone screen flickered again, he picked it up and checked the message.

"She was scrolling through the old chat. But why?"

"Why on Earth would she do that. Did I say something weird in the chat?"

"Was she waiting for me to ping her?"

His head was muddled with zillions of questions again. But the most important thing that brought solace to his heart was that she wasn't texting someone else. He was as glad as he could be just to know that she was thinking about their chat.

Then he pinged back.

"Really?" - Raymond

"Yeah, really. Didn't tell you because I wasn't sure what you might think of it" - Akira

"What did you think I might think of?" - Raymond

"Can you please stop twisting the question?" - Akira

"Fine, fine. I won't" - Raymond

"Great !!! I am honored" - Akira

"Are you? I mean for real?" - Raymond

"You are killing me now" - Akira

"By the way, did you find anything intriguing in the chat history?" - Raymond

"No, but I noticed one thing" - Akira

"What?" - Raymond

"That you are too bossy" - Akira

"Ouch !!!! But I guess that's in my genes. Can't avoid it (smiley face)" - Raymond

"Did no-one teach you that bossing around and bullying people is bad" - Akira

"I guess not" - Raymond

"Looks like I need to talk to your dad to school you properly again" - Akira

Raymond saw the message and sighed. He kept the phone back on the table. His thoughts started racing towards another dimension. He never liked to be schooled by anyone and especially not when it was his "DAD".