The Corporate Monster ✅

T I L T E D

As promised, Aniket signed himself up for a volunteering shift at the hospital. Some of the receptionists recognized him—his face, to be specific— and greeted him warmly. All he had to do was ask for a shift the next day, and the three ladies fluttered their eyelashes, with huge smiles and nodded with a "mhmm," as sickly flirtatious as possible.

Aniket, the oblivious man that he is, doesn't notice a thing, scrunching his eyebrows at their odd behavior and turned around, walking towards the exit. He wouldn't know the art of flirting even if someone tutored him on the subject.

"Sai!" The receptionist called him. He didn't turn, unfamiliar with the name of the face he wore.

"Sai!" She called again. The receptionist huffed, thinking that she lusted after a deaf, shy man.

"Sai!" She yelled, standing behind the marble counter. A few patients looked her way, but other than that, the hospital carried on with it's usual business, not perceiving the frustrated receptionist as it witnessed the horrors within it's walls.

Aniket finally turned. "Are you deaf? I've been calling your name for the past minute!" Harshini, the receptionist exaggerated.

The faint whispers and a blurred image of the lady reached his senses.

And then, he fell.

🌺🌺🌺

When his eyes reopened, a nurse looked down at him with her pore-filled face, scaring the hell out of Aniket. The old lady, the one that had treated Krithi during her labour, smiled down at him.

"Hi, Sister." He said to the familiar nurse, trying to get up from his recovery position.

Devi pushed him down by his shoulders, smiling her golden smile—literally golden. Aniket knew one thing, the woman had no hygiene.

After all, she continuously worked forty hours, getting little to no sleep, saving and nursing strangers she wasn't even afflicted with. He knew that she deserved some credit for her work, but still, it didn't hurt to brush her teeth once in a while.

He wasn't one to speak, though. If Preesha hadn't groomed him, there would've been no difference between him and the beggar he saw living under the bridge.

After a moment of caressing his hair, the woman's expression changed from a relieved smile to a deep scowl. "Do you have no concern for yourself? How could you be so careless and not take care of yourself, Sa—Aniket?" She scolded with motherly concern.

The woman didn't know Aniket personally, but he made her his friend while she took care of him after his face transplant. Krithi had waited outside for him, crying with the new-born babes clutched tightly in her hands, whilst her adopted daughter, Aruvi, had curled around her frame, comforting her mother.

After Aniket had awoken from the surgery, the nurse came into the ICU, informing him of Krithi's disposition. Aniket had hated himself for the harm he had caused her, and deposited a heavy amount into the nurses' account without her permission, retrieving the information with the use of a stolen phone, and his hacking abilities. He had begged Devi to help him, to tell his wife that he was dead. While she had objected, she couldn't say no to his face, and so she fought herself as tears welled in her eyes.

Why the woman was so emotional around him, he would never know. But after he told her about the money he had deposited in her account, Devi completed the task without further enquiries. It made him suspicious, because the Devi he knew was not greedy, but loved all her patients with her whole heart. But what did he know? She might've had some issue in her family, and needed the money desperately. At least, that was what he had assumed. He didn't want to inquire about her life as she didn't question him about his.