Lost and Found:

Author : LittleDiana4 & bhavani_bathula

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Coffee...!

The smell of seeds of a stone fruit called as coffee beans is everywhere.

He hates the smell but he knows this only it's after too late. He's already in there at a coffee shop.

The acrid sour smell of black shiny beans was making him feel like he'll be knocked out. Yet he didn't know the benefits this smell can do by effecting the genes and proteins in his brain, When he is too busy in making faces.

He choses to take a seat where he'll be a bit relief with the smell and people around him as well, the conservative person he have become since he's getting fine after a sudden car accident.

He could sense that he is not the same anymore. He couldn't point it out. But he knows his life has changed. He has been waiting to meet someone who is to visit him in the coffee shop. Waiting has been his habit ever since the accident.

He starts to think about something which he is not able to grasp. This feeling of frustration of not being satisfied have stuck him from the very first day he became conscious after the mishap.

To ease the throbbing pain between his eyebrows, he starts tapping his foot,squinting his eyes at not any thing particularly.

That is when his thoughts drifted to the last counselling session with the doctor. He was surprised when he heard things he said to the recorder, which doctor insisted to carry with him and make sure he records his thoughts.

He was crazy, funny& psychopathic at times that he feel embarrassing in front of the doctor.

One such embarrassing thought he had was about his dadi.

*ugh that old women, She surely has taken my dadi's bod. What should I do now, she, the imposter left me with no option rather than staying for the dinner when I don't want to. I don't have any idea where my poor dadi's soul is when I need her very badly.*

Now that he feels embarrassed again with no one in front of him especially the doctor but his own mind, he races back to the place where he is in. The coffee shop. Wasn't he waiting for someone? Said his limbic brain, angering him reminding his inadequacy of remembering things.

He is brought back again from his vision with a jolting sound of the chair where a young woman is about to occupy the seat. He looks puzzled when he sees her waving at the waitress. He goes back to find some draft memories with the dark blue coloured scarf which is similar to the one the woman in front of him is wearing complimenting her dress winsomely.

His limbic brain again takes charge of his state of mind but for just a passage of a second.

"Excuse me" he says, gaining her attention. "I'm waiting for someone" he says asking her to vacate the place very politely.

She seems like frowning for a second at first but turns out into a grin.

She smiles at him saying "I will be leaving after I grab a cup of coffee" And was about to say something when the waitress brags at their place asking for the order.

"What can I get for two of you?" He hears the waitress say. "One cup of cappuccino with a shot of hazelnut and one lavender tea please", he hears as the reply from the woman in front of him. He feels that the woman is familiar with this place when he sees both of them share a knowing smile. His mind didn't have the courtesy to know the name of the woman with whom he is sharing the table practically. He starts observing her for making one more audio tape of his thoughts. He looks down when she was about to glance at him in order not to make her feel his stare in vain. Though he wanted to know how and why they both were sharing the table, but he was too busy in whining inwardly about the happenings of past some time. He subtly tries to look around the surroundings through the large glass frame beside them from where he can see people enjoying in the beach. But he chooses to ogle her, that is when he saw her right hand supporting her chin to watch out at the beach which he was also supposed to watch and left hand placed on the table. He now knew that the woman in front of him is taken by someone with a huge diamond ring on her ring finger representing the world about the togetherness of the unknown man of this unknown woman.

"Your order ms said the waitress". I hate her voice he says to himself, just because he is interrupted by her all the time when he is very deep in thoughts.

His suspicious look comes back on his face when she asks him to have the lavender tea. He was about to deny at first but heard her say "do you like lavender tea?"

He thinks at least he can have something in the mean time and grunts out, "better than coffee". She nods but he feels as if she is familiar with his act. "I will pay", he adds hearing which she smiles at him. Now he notes bluntly in his brain that she does smile a lot.

"Like a kind of date", he hears the same voice again to which he chooses not to answer but thinks to pay only for his lavender tea which she ordered without his consent. He doesn't find a need to correct her misconception though he feels it would be rude to make someone wait for long.

Though he sounded rude again by saying he was waiting for someone, what surprised him was her reply which held her saying, "she was also waiting for someone too". Without caring he was rude to her. That someone she mentioned made him realise she is taken and a couple with ,which didn't sit well in his brain. Some obvious reasons which he himself found difficult to find out.

"Why are you sitting with me?" she hears him say again in the very same rude tone which he used earlier out of curiosity.

"Don't you feel to have a company, while we are waiting for someone simultaneously" Saying which she unwound her blue scarf from her neck to feel free when she wants to be found enjoying her coffee.

He takes no time in taking his cup of tea after he found her relishing the first sip her coffee. He feels the sweet smell of his lavender tea well known. Frowning at the thought that did he ever have it and tried to remember if he have had it past in time vainly.

He didn't know he grunted out loudly until he hears her asking, "something wrong?" shuddered. He notes in his brain that this woman has doe shaped eyes which he felt alluring forgetting what she have asked a while back. He slaps his head mentally after he hears her asking the same again for the second time.

He confesses that he was trying to remember something and was brought back to his tea by the smell which is wandering airily.

He takes the first sip and soon wanted to have the next one soundly. Silence prevails between them for a while. She brakes it with "It's beautiful outside", she says looking at the people who were retarding from beach sensing the worse which can happen by the sudden change in weather. Though she felt he glanced at the other side of the glass quite for a long time before he said "kind of nice", she convinced herself that he is enjoying the weather. When the truth is, her beauty that the glass is reflecting caught his sight after his mere second of glance at people in the beach who were almost leaving. "If you are into such grey and misty weather type of persons" He added.

She denies subtly saying "This kind of weather is a little grouchy I agree, but has it's charms". He felt her grin in this cold weather, warming him.

"This feels good", she heard sensing a but to come next, aloof of what he meant that for himself.

"It's bad for driving" He says seeing the illusion of the mishap in front of his eyes. He takes a sip again to forget the memories for time being and forgets that the one he was waiting for to visit him is very late.

"Spoken from experience?" She asks him working with their conversation.

He nods and continues with having his tea.

"I met with a car accident last year, it was petty bad. My fiancée almost died". He hears her saying. He oddly finds himself sulking at the mention of her fiancée. A question arises in his brain about them being together now. He admits to his brain that she is pretty and he is attracted towards her but it doesn't feel well to him, as the women in front of him is claimed by some one unknown to him long ago and here he is attracted to her.

He didn't want to have a negative impression on her at their first meet itself. So he asked, "How is he now?"

As a reply to his question she shrugs and takes the smell of her coffee before savouring it and says, "He's neither here nor there". He wonders how she takes a sip every time at the site of her enjoying the smell without throwing up. "I know how it feels", He says assuring her that he understood how it feels. She wasn't surprised but asked him,

"I don't know how you do that, sometimes I feel like I can't even understand him when he feels the same way".

His voice comes out louder this time "it's nothing, we can help", in a defensive manner. He gets an "I know that" as a response. While running her fore finger on the rim of the almost empty cup which she placed on the table just a while back and she seemed to travel back in time deeply thinking about something and started to say the thing which is causing a mild ache in her forehead.

"We were supposed to be married by the past summer" Her voice catches his attention.

"Winter wedding aren't bad either" He says easing her pain which he sensed.

She looks up from her cup immediately when she heard him say and took some time to gulp the sip down and question him "Don't you think winter is a bit greyish?"

Now the tables turned and she hears him humming before he said "A while ago you said the weather is beautiful today".

He hears her ask him what does he think about a winter wedding. As an answer for her query she hears "Honestly I think the weather has nothing to do with wedding. Wedding is all about love".

She agrees, "Yeah it's all about love" He sees her dejected smile but says nothing. "Well I think I will wait till next summer, hopefully he will be getting better by then. I want the wedding day to be special as it comes once in a lifetime", She tries her best to hide her angst while uttering. He was fast enough to point that only if they aren't getting married for second time.

She places her cup back on the table which means that she has completed her coffee smiling at the last sip gulping down.

She voices it out, "I don't think there will be any second one, as I truly love this guy and I can't think of sticking to some other person as I do with him".

"He must be very lucky to have you" He confesses. "Is he the one you are waiting for?" She hears him questioning. She nods slightly and sighs softly before she exhibits her agony "Yeah but I don't think he will show up today".

He was about to complete his tea but stops while he sees her getting up and standing a moment later. She dons her scarf around her neck and removes the hair from under the scarf.

"You promised to pay right?" It was more a statement and less a question to which he hesitates at first but nods slightly with a "yeah sure" at the end.

He watches her walking out of the coffee shop after listening to a thanks from her probably for the last time.

He finishes his lavender tea unaware of the settling weather which is so pleasant when compared to the last time he glanced at the people leaving the beach. After reliving once again the moments spent with the unknown young woman who occupied the opposite seat a while ago he asks for the check. He opens his wallet to pay and a long haired woman's picture catches his sight. He caresses the picture before he places some cash in the folder containing bill and mutters a shit.

He hurries out the shop and starts searching for someone. There was no site of the person he was searching for. Later he sees an incarnadined dot down the lane quite far away from him. He lashes to that side as fast as he can to catch the person who was walking calmly. She was taken aback when a hand larger in comparison had hovered her shoulder and turned her subtly with a loud whisper of "Gauri".

He stops for a while to hold his breathing pattern, that is when he notices the familiar feeling of warmth he craved for while she uttered "Om".

Then he pulls her towards him into a warm hug before he places a kiss on her forehead, uttering a, "sorry jaan I'm late".