The After-Lunch Fight

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The heat wasn't just from the food...


It was a fully packed canteen. Elbows brushed, trays clattered, and the murmur of tired workers filled the humid air. We lunched anyway—not because it was pleasant, but because hunger and work pressure didn’t care for atmosphere. There was no time for patience, no room for comfort. The queue snaked like a dragon, and we weren’t about to bow to it.


We didn’t wait.

We didn’t ask.

We grabbed each other’s fists.


Right between the sticky tables and spilled chili sauce, we locked eyes and threw the first punch—not out of hatred, but because this was how we spoke. The only language we knew that wasn't dulled by meetings and deadlines. You ducked. I spun. You grinned.

A tray hit the floor somewhere behind us. Someone gasped. Someone else cheered. Forks froze mid-air as we moved—like a dance without rhythm but full of intent.


Your knee almost kissed my ribs.

My elbow flirted with your shoulder.

Each strike was a question: Are you still alive in there?

Each block, an answer: Hell yes, I am.


We weren’t just fighting. We were shedding every ounce of built-up tension from a hundred quiet compromises, a thousand polite nods in grey hallways. This was how we unfolded. Not with whispered words in hidden corners, not with stolen kisses behind pantry doors. But here—loud, wild, unapologetic—in the middle of the damn cafeteria.


A plastic spoon shattered beneath your boot. I laughed. You lunged.

We fell into a table, scattering packets of sambal and crumpled napkins. The crowd began to blur, as if they weren't real anymore. Just shadows to our chaos.


It wasn’t violence.

It was release.

It was relief.

It was passion—redirected through every clenched fist and breathless dodge.


Security never came. Maybe they knew. Maybe they watched too, remembering what it felt like to be that alive, that raw. Maybe they understood: this wasn't destruction—it was devotion, in its most primal form.


And when we finally stopped—sweaty, bruised, breathless, surrounded by broken chopsticks and stunned silence—you smiled with a split lip and eyes like wildfire.


"Same time tomorrow?"

You didn’t have to ask.

My grin was already the answer.

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