Her jaws dropped when she heard him.

"Does he know already that I am lying?"

"How and why?"

All sorts of questions started rippling inside her head and she stood there like a stick, unable to move, neither forward nor backward.

He sighed and opened up his drawer and then picked up a band-aid from there. He closed in came near her. She kept on looking at him in disbelief that she was unable to convince him. He took a step forward and she took one backward till she hit the wall. She stood there and looked at him all confused, unable to comprehend what he wanted,

His fingers slowly grazed on her hand and finally reached her palm and then he took the pen from her hand and threw it away. He gingerly took her thumb and kissed it with his lips. He then looked into her eyes and placed her thumb inside his mouth and sucked it slowly like he wanted to absorb all the pain.

The moment she felt the warmth and wetness of his mouth, she gasped for air. He then took her thumb out and blew air on it with his mouth before covering it up with a band-aid as it had been pierced multiple times by her with the nib of the pen.

He took a deep breath and released her hand. She was still standing there speechless.

He then took a final look at her face and said,

"You may go now. Hope we meet when our paths cross each other again".

Then he swiftly opened the door for her to leave.

She came out of the door immediately and then leaned on it with her back, giving herself a moment to deal with the pain. He leaned on the other side of the door inside the room knowing the fact that she was also leaning on it. He just wanted to be as close to her as possible and he was ready to make any desperate attempt to do so.

---

After a few moments, Akira re-collected herself and cleared her no dues from the HR department. It was already late in the evening by then. Then she came back to her desk and took the cheque to clear her final dues from the finance department.

She went to the Finance department on the second floor and went to the F & F section.

"Hello, Roger !!! I am Akira. I had pinged you before for my Full and Final settlement. Here is my cheque for non-completion of tenure retrieval amount. Please help to clear my dues", Akira said and handed over the cheque and documents to Rogers.

"Oh, I am sorry. There was a miscommunication from our side. The non-completion of tenure retrieval amount is applicable only for full-time employees and not for interns. So you don't have to pay anything", Rogers said and smiled and returned the cheque back to Akira.

"Really? I don't have to pay anything?", she asked all surprised and ecstatic.

"Yes and here are your no dues papers. Everything cleared", Roger said and handed the papers to Akira.

She looked at the papers in disbelief and started thanking her stars and rushed back happily to her seat. It was time to say Goodbye to her team-mates.

But when she came back to her seat she saw all her team-mates huddled in a corner discussing something and their faces looked all grim.

"What happened guys?", Akira asked.

Kirk turned back and said,

"We thought once Scarlett is back in Raymond's life, he will become better, I mean feel better, be emotionally available. But looks like he is getting into a worse phase".

"What do you mean?", Akira asked getting all impatient.

Then Simon interrupted in between and said,

"Don't worry we just feel that his anger issues are increasing even more. Actually, Brian had gone for some discussion with him. He didn't like the design for some reason and was a bit verbal about it. But as Brian was about to leave he broke the glass of water with his bare hands that he was holding".

"I mean I am totally fine with him getting angry with me, but I guess he has started to take this project way too seriously. I don't want him to hurt himself this way. I offered to help him but he asked me to leave the room. God knows why he is never ready to take any help from anyone", Brian said and sighed.

Akira felt like the earth beneath her feet was sinking and she was sinking along with it.

Forgetting everything she just ran towards his room and barged in only to see it empty.

She called him up but he had left the phone in his room itself.

She started frantically looking for him in all meeting rooms and when finally she couldn't, she went to David's place.

She was panting with all the running and there was sweat everywhere on her face. David was surprised to see her like that.

"Whe...Where's Raymond?", she asked trying to get hold of her breath.

"I can't find him. Please help. He has injured his hand", she said and David could feel that she was literally pleading.

He immediately checked his calendar and said,

"He doesn't have any meetings now. If he isn't in his cabin then ....", he said and trailed off.

"Then?", Akira asked getting impatient.

"I mean I don't know. Just a guess. Sometimes when he is upset he goes to the terrace. But I am not sure if he was upset because of anything today. None that I am aware of. Was he upset because of something Miss Akira?", David asked.

But without answering anything she just ran towards the elevator and started pressing the buttons frantically to go to the terrace. But as both lifts were going down already she got impatient and took stairs to rush up to the top floor.

She was panting and her stomach was cramping with all the running and climbing.

She reached up and looked in all the directions in search of him, but all that was in vain. There was no sign of him.

Dejected she kneeled down and started crying.

A few seconds later she heard someone's footsteps and turned back.

It was him. Even in the dark, she could clearly see his face. She got up immediately and said,

"Why are you doing this to me?" and then grabbed both his hands.

His one hand was wrapped in multiple layers of gauze and the smell of tincture spread in the air.

Her tears became unstoppable as she held his injured hand and reprimanded him,

"Where the hell have you been? Do you even know how much worried I was looking for you?"

Even in the dark, one could clearly see him smile.