Broken But Beautiful

32. Manik Malhotra and Juices

Nandini

"You have to take the supplements regularly, Mr. Iyer," I scribbled down more into prescription, smiling at my patient, "And from now on, I'm not ready to hear any complaints about taking medicines, please,"

"I will try," Mr. Iyer sighed. I laughed at the 65 year old kid in front of me.

"Can you believe him? He says he will try!" Mrs. Iyer snarled at her husband, "There is no trying! Only doing, understand?"

"Yeah, Mrs Iyer. He'll do it, don't you worry," I said, eyeing the other prescription, "Now, how's your knee feeling these days?"

I continued taking notes on the couple, until the door of my cabin clicked open.

"Yash, I'm not done with- Oh, Madhav," I acknowledged as he smiled at my patients cordially. Then he looked back at me. The smile still apparent in his face curling a bit.

"When will you be done?" he asked nicely, settling in one of the sofas. I ignored the question and went back to my patients.

By the time I finished, Madhav had already called Yash and confirmed that I have no more patients. Which most probably meant he was planning on having lunch with me, but of course it wasn't possible.

"So-"

"Before you say let's go have lunch, I can't," I said quickly, "I need to go with Alya. For her engagement lehenga fitting,"

He chuckled, "I know that,"

I grunted inside. Of course he knew.

"I was about to say, I looked into the course you want to take up. In London,"

I raised my eyebrows, "What about it?"

"I looked into it," he repeated, "And it's a good thing. Will help you enhance your degrees... you can do it,"

I scoffed, looking back at my laptop screen, "I don't remember asking your permission, Madhav,"

"I wasn't talking about permission, Nandini," his tone was smooth, "It was an advise. It's a good course. You can take it up,"

I eyed him with the corner of my eyes, trying to figure out his expression. Then I replied, "Well, wasn't looking for your advice either, but thanks,"

His silence stare at me finally made me look up from the laptop screen, "You want to say any thing else, Madhav?"

"I think we both- should abide by the mutual agreement we had. That day in your parents' house," he said at last. Eyeing me with challenge to accept.

I frowned, "Mutual agreement? What are you talking about?"

"Our mutual agreement, to behave," he reminded me, "You behave, I behave. You don't behave- you don't wanna know how I behave then,"

I stared at him, a firm sense of apprehension as always creeping inside me. He just smiled.

"Well," I turned back, arranging my bag, "I don't recall misbehaving. But I won't waste my energy arguing with you. I'll have to do a lot of that with the tailor in the next hour,"

"Sure," his smile apparently widened, "Seems like Nandini Murthy has started to get back to being Nandini Murthy again,"

I paused to look back at him again. I couldn't believe what he just said. I wanted to laugh.

So I laughed, "You seriously think you know Nandini Murthy, don't you Madhav?"

"Absolutely," he replied smoothly. I shook my head, continuing to pack my stuff.