☘︎You never know when God will bring two strangers together, weaving their lives into a single thread for eternity.☘︎

“Are you blind or what?”

She rubbed her head, eyes squeezed shut after colliding with the rock-solid chest of the man standing in front of her. When she looked up, he was smiling, far too amused by her anger.

When he spoke, the difference in tone and depth of his voice made the moment feel almost cinematic.

“Thankfully, I am not,” he said calmly. “Otherwise, I would miss the beauty standing in front of me.”

She tried to slip through the narrow space between his body and the bookshelf, but her more-than-healthy frame refused to cooperate. Insecurity and shame crept through her veins. She glanced behind her, but there was only a wall. No gap. No escape.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t give her space.

He simply didn’t want to.

With a small sigh, she spoke, “Can you move a little? After that, the place is all yours. Pick or drop books, whatever you wish.”

Instead, he leaned his broad back against the wall, spreading his legs just enough to block the entire passage.

“Yeah,” he said lazily. “You can cross me.”

The image of doing exactly that flashed through her mind, and heat bloomed across her cheeks and ears. Even a few seconds that close would mean brushing against him, hovering over him.

She looked up at him with furious eyes. “Listen, mister. I know you’ve been following me all day just because you felt insulted. But no one can change that fact.”

A smirk curved his lips as he casually pulled a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket.

“So even after hating my presence,” he said, “you noticed me very well.”

She scrunched her nose at the sight. “No one here is tall like a lamp post with the so-called famous poltician-look other than you. Otherwise, who would care to notice you? ”

The smirk turned into a grin as he took a long drag. She forced herself to look away, but for a few seconds, the movement of his sharp jawline printed itself into her memory. Maybe it looks cool, attractive, but somewhere it’s not, and she couldn’t tolerate the smell of it, like choking her throat.

She knew he was provoking her, drawing her into conversation because he enjoyed it. So, she stopped responding.

Time passed. Seconds stretched into minutes. 

He finished the cigarette slowly, letting the smoke linger, making her inhale it the entire time. She stayed silent. When he finally dropped the stub, she stepped closer to his tilted leg. “Just because the library is made of your money, you can't break rules whenever you want. We can't smoke here for your information. Whatever! Just move your legs properly.”

He did, but before she could slip past without touching his skin or clothes, he lifted his arm and placed his hand on a book higher up the shelf. His arm now hovered beside her head.

Her breath caught.

She realised how trapped she was, pressed between him and the bookshelf now. Heat rushed to her face in hate.

Trying to steady herself, she warned, “If you care about your reputation, leave me alone. I’m not a woman you can toy with and walk away from. Don’t come any closer.”

Instead of responding to the threat, he hummed thoughtfully.

“Hmm… the love of an overthinker,” he said lightly. “Nice cover. I guess I should read it. What do you think?”

Her eyes followed him to the book.

“Poetry isn’t for you, mister,” she said. “This book is about love and emotions. Someone who can’t respect a woman can't possibly understand poetry.”

He only hummed again. “Hmm. Then let’s see.”

She reached for the book to snatch it from him, but he held his hand straight up.  

“Hey! This is a library, anyone can read anything. You can’t stop me.” In her irritation, she forgot how close they were and tried to snatch it again.

“This is the only copy here,” she snapped, “and I don’t want an unworthy man reading my poetry.”

His gaze dropped slowly to the book in his hand. His voice lowered when he spoke.

“Your poetry,” he whispered. “You wrote this book?”

Silence is the perfect answer to the question. He flips the book open, skimming the first few lines. 

His expression shifts just for a fraction of a second. 

“You hide your emotions well behind your glasses,” he mentions quietly. 

Her fingers curl at her sides. “Stop reading it.”

“Why?” he asks. “Afraid I’ll understand you?”

“You don’t know what it costs to put words like that on paper.”

His eyes follow her, steadily. “Then tell me.”

He isn’t the guy who used to listen to laughter but if you listen then only laugh of cringe and clingy girly. But this time hit something different to his ears. He gets to listen to her humorless laugh for the first time. “I don’t explain myself to strangers who enjoy taking revenge just because felt insulted after listening to some facts.”

A muscle in his jaw tightened. Revenge word triggered him badly, if he really wanted then till now her career would be destroyed. But still played cool cause he wanted few playful reactions from her. And it’s not playful anymore after hitting her soft spot. 

He calmly tried to reach her heart which was basically out of his plan. He got shocked after listening to his soft voice ever,  “You can’t be invisible after putting emotions on paper as proof.”

“I am invisible,” she said immediately. Then, softer, “That’s the point.” 

He claims, “Then from now, you are going to be a visible part of my room in the library.” 

Before she could throw another sharp comeback, he calmly asked, “Can I get your autograph in the book?”

Her gaze flickered up to meet him.

And that’s when it happened. That moment. The one where time slows, where the background noise fades, where the people around them become nothing more than shadows. His eyes, dark, sharp, scanning, held hers with an intensity that’s nowhere  playful. It was like he was studying her, peeling back the layers she had carefully built around herself.

She exhaled quietly, finally dropping her gaze, “I didn’t write this to be famous. 10 copies get printed at my total cost. It's my copy, I put it here with the hope, if one day … It will be better if you leave me and my book alone.” 

She puts her head down under his hand and crosses the path. 

To let him feel the void. 

As if he found out the reason to be more attracted towards her, and found out the reason to not chase her. 

Yes, he was chasing her from the morning, the moment their eyes met. He saw the rage, the hate in her eyes for him. He got the urge more. He loves to see hate in others' eyes; it gives him the feeling of power. 

In his whole upbringing, he was the only witness of the power game. Somehow it’s in his blood. If someone looks at him with love, he feels weak, vulnerable. He can’t be vulnerable; he only has rights to make others vulnerable, the look of begging for life. 

But something is different this time. Because the hate wasn’t because of his power, only for his presence, and that also in the eyes of the girl. 

Not too proud, but everywhere he goes with his prominent presence, he surely attracts many girls, and they shamelessly flirt with him too. So even when he loves to see hate in others' eyes, also habituated with flirtatious lines and gazes. 

He wanted to know her identity; the minimum requirement was her name. That’s why he was chasing her footsteps. Sometimes he allowed her to notice him, sometimes not. He was chasing to see some flitting emotions other than hate. But in the process, what he was doing was flirting too; he didn’t realise. And the woman she is, this cheap flirt can only produce hate rage, nothing else. 

Everything is cringe until it’s your turn. That’s what happened with him for the first time. The kids' function had already ended 30 mins ago. He was searching her here and there for the last glimpse of her. Or unknowingly, his mind wants to follow her on the way home.

And when she came inside the library, passed herself between the last bookshelf and the wall, the narrow passage, and he got the way of caging her under his shadow. 

He did exactly what he wanted and got the reaction that he desired. 

But the eyes! 

The eyes where emotions are playing under the blank stare, the hated gaze. 

He took a minute to understand, is it okay to know her more?
Without her permission, reading the book and understanding her emotions sounds like a crime.
Something illegal. But from when he started being scared of doing something illegal. 

He stayed where he was long after she slipped past him, the narrow aisle swallowing her presence as if she had never been there at all. But the silence she left behind was louder than her anger.

For the first time in years, power did not taste sweet.

He looked down at the book still in his hand. Thin pages, unassuming cover, words that had dared to exist without asking permission. He had cornered her easily, the way he always did with the world. Bodies yielded. People reacted. Fear and irritation were currencies he understood well.

Yet she had not begged. She had not softened. She had not tried to be seen. She had chosen disappearance.

And that unsettled him more than resistance ever could.

He realised then that what lingered in her eyes wasn’t hatred meant for him. It was armour, forged long before they crossed paths. A quiet defiance that didn’t need witnesses. A strength that didn’t crave dominance.

He had chased her for control.
He had stayed out of curiosity.
Reading her words without her consent would not make him powerful.
For someone who had built his life on making others vulnerable, that realisation felt like a fracture, small, almost invisible, but irreversible.

He closed the book carefully and slid it back into its place, as if returning something sacred. Not because he had been denied. But because, for the first time, he chose restraint.

And that choice followed him out of the library: heavier than desire, sharper than obsession, and far more difficult to outrun.