Humesha | ✔️

Chapter 23

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Happy Reading! Your inline comments are my happiness ;)

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*unedited*

The Words Untold

M A N I K

I looked into the white room carefully, knocking the door before I entered and the typical smell of hospital beds immediately caught me. There were monitor boards and CV tubes running everywhere, making the huge room look smaller.

But I stood there confused. Why was I called here?

"Manik...," I heard a small voice and pushing my thoughts apart, I walked towards him, slowly sitting on the chair next to his bed. He was such a nice man, jolly and honest, and it was bad to see him dying. I didn't know him much but from what I did, he seemed a loving father and a kind businessman, a very rare golden heart.

"Mr. Murthy," I greeted, giving him a small smile, "I feel very sorry to see you in this condition and wish you nothing but the best, but I fail to understand why you wanted to see me so urgently, early in the morning", I kept the roses on the side table and he nodded.

"Thank you for meeting me on such a short notice, son," he smiled gracefully and the way he said 'Son' threw me back to the memories of my father since that was what my father called me all the time.

"I have called you for an important work, and I'd trust nobody but you for this. I know you'd be confused since we hardly know each other but I'd like you to have a look at the papers lying beside me", he asked weakly and I nodded, taking up the black file, flipping the pages carefully, and with each page I turned, I just ended up being more confused.

"Mr. Murthy, why would you do this? Why would you transfer all your estate to me when it should go to your rightful heir, your daughter—..," I was visibly under shock, overwhelmed by the sudden kindness that this man on his death bed was showing me.

"Manik, son, I have no body here. No relatives, no friends, just a daughter... who just like her late mother, is naïve and innocent. I would gladly leave everything I have for her, but for all I know, she wouldn't be able to handle it all so soon. Because I never taught her. I never thought that there would be a day that I'd leave her and she would be alone to face the world. I always treated her with nothing but the best, and you'd know that the moment you'd see her. She's my princess, Manik, and all of a sudden, I cannot let my princess out as a warrior. I am all she has in this world, and when I go, I would always want her to be capable to handle everything, which she is not. I want you to help me," he slowly kept his shivering hands on my stiff ones and I kept staring at them.

"She has just turned twenty, a week ago. And all my estate would lawfully go to her when she becomes twenty one. But for one year, I'd want you to train her under you. Not as a businessman, but as a person, to make her fine enough to face the world alone. I want her to see that there's not all love and kindness in this world. There's darkness and cruelty too, and I want her to accept that. And you're the only man I could trust with this." He squeezed my hand a little tighter.

"But why me?" That's all I could ask. Why does this man trust me out of all the people in this world when we've barley known each other for a month and he knows I am no kind and good?