"Out. Miss Arora."

Prachi could feel his hot breaths brush her skin. Her eyes looked straight at his hard face, her body not moving for a minute as her hands still lay on the jacket she was layering over him and gaze on the man before her.

She almost expected him to open his eyes and thrust her away from him. However, RK instead coughed once again, his brows furrowing ever so slightly as he did so, before going back to stillness. Prachi kept her eyes at his face with unphased features on her own all the while.

Sleep-commanding? Surely an imbecile.

She tucked the jacket around him securely and then, still bent towards the guy, moved her gaze towards his face again.

In a swift movement, she placed the back of her palm on his forehead, only to withdraw it just a second later and straighten her back with a sudden alertness in her otherwise aloof eyes.

"Sir?" Prachi finally called out to him in her dulcet yet bold voice, taking a tiny step towards him, observing his face as she tilted her neck slightly.

No reply from the unpleasant voice came.

"RK Sir?" She repeated.

No reply again, and no sign of movement either.

She stood immobile, staring at the silent man before her - almost still expecting a response from him - for the fraction of a second. Before she turned her steps away from him and paced urgently towards the door.

Pulling the large door handle towards herself, she let herself out and marched quickly towards a specific direction of the giant building.

The man left in the office room behind was, she could say, almost burning.

---

Prachi rushed into the cabin, only to find it empty - as expected.

She checked her watch - 05:39 pm.

Of course, it's empty.

She walked out of the room, the door swinging to a shut behind her. As she moved through the corridors now, she immediately pulled her cellphone out from one of the front pockets of her black pants.

Sliding the pad of her thumb across the screen to unlock the device, her fingers ran across the screen smoothly as she fished out a particular contact number from her memory and pasted it onto the dialling keypad displayed on her cellphone screen.

The phone rang thrice before she could hear a voice from the other side. A heavy, male voice.

"Hello?"

"Am I speaking to Mister Rishi Agarwal?" Prachi interrogated in a quick tone.

"Yes. May I know who's this?"

"It's RK Sir's Secretary from Fusion Beats. I'm afraid we have to call you back here immediately." Spoke she, as she turned towards the staircase leading to the fifth floor of the building, leaving behind the doctor's room located on the fourth floor of the huge bureau.

"Miss Prachi Arora, right?" The man remembered the specific name from the many rumours and news of her arrival making rounds at the office. He had never talked to her, or even seen her personally though. "What's wrong?" He frowned in confusion.

"Prachi Arora, it is. You'll be informed when you arrive at the office." Prachi climbed up the stairs.

"I'm sorry but my working time is over. And I haven't received any such guidelines from RK Sir. Can you please put him on the phone once?" The man hesitantly spoke.

"I won't." Prachi replied without missing a beat, catching him off guard. "And I'm sure your working time, being a doctor, does cover being available whenever called." She now was aimed back to a particular room on the fifth floor.

"I'll be there, Ma'am." The person replied in a softer tone. "I just want a confirmation from RK Sir once. Or even Aryan Sir."

Prachi pushed the giant door open, walking into the large room she had left The Thankless Knight in, to find his figure still sitting motionless where she had left him.

"I've been told to follow just their words. And since it's out of working hours, I can't put my job at risk by blindly following a two-days old secretary I've never even seen."

She was now walking upto where RK lay in the room, where she stood before leaving for the three minutes search trip. She stopped at a distance from him. Her eyes then set on his still silent face.

He was still lying there with no sense of movement about him, covered under her brown jacket lying silently over him. She could see his lips were slightly parted and he was probably breathing softly through the same. His face devoid of any emotions, like it always was.

"Ten minutes, Mister Rishi." Prachi spoke into the cellphone. "I'll give you ten minutes. Or the two-days old secretary will make sure you don't have a job to risk tomorrow onwards."

Filling the threat inside the company's doctor's head, she ended the call without waiting for another reply from him.

---

Knock. Knock.

It was precisely eight minutes later that a knock was heard on the glass door.

Prachi's head shot up immediately towards the door and she answered with a "Come in", still standing where she was eight minutes earlier when she had last talked to the person she had been expecting now.

The door slowly swung open, revealing a man in his early twenties entering the large room. He had a cellphone in his hand and was wearing a dark blue jacket with a white, formal shirt underneath, along with casual, grey sweatpants.

Prachi could tell he valued his job.

"Miss Prachi Arora?" The man asked, coming towards the lady.

"Doctor Rishi Agarwal." Spoke she, without a questioning tone to her words.

"Yes." Rishi said, adjusting his thin eyeglasses.

"What's wrong, Ma'am? May I know the reason for your tone over the phone?" He said firmly in an almost agitated voice. "Where is RK Sir?"

"Right beside you." She said as the most casual thing in the world, as the guy turned towards the indicated direction, taken aback by her answer. It was then that he noticed, the room had another person apart from the two of them.

Prachi continued with her words, not bothering to wait for either a response or a reaction.

"He has a temperature. You have to check him. Now." She ordered the guy in a bold tone of her voice.

"Is he for real?" Rishi was examining his face with attentive eyes. He was slightly shocked to see his Boss so close and apparently sick, and even more shocked to find him completely silent in a conversation mentioning him.

"What part of 'now' do you not understand, Mister Rishi?" Prachi threw at him her usual firm tone, making his head turn towards her.

"I understand it completely, Ma'am." He replied calmly. "Excuse me for a minute." He said, then went towards the door and disappeared into the corridor.

Prachi kept her eyes in his direction for a minute. Then returned her attention to RK again.

The doctor returned about a couple of minutes later with a small bag in his hand, probably from his own office room. He noticed Prachi was still rooted to the place - in the same posture with her palms interlocked behind her waist - where she was standing previously. And with the same blank expressions on her face.

Seems like RK Sir has finally found a match.
The guy couldn't help the sentence being yelled in his head involuntarily.

Walking up to where the two were present, he placed his bag on the table before RK and knelt before him, first checking his wrist, then the side of his neck. Before pulling out a thermometer and a stethoscope from the bag. He placed the thermometer between RK's lips and ran the chest-piece of the stethoscope over him - lifting the brown jacket sleeping over RK as he did so, and the placing it back on him - then checked his wrist again, examining the man for another bunch of minutes.

Prachi stood silently behind the two, observing the man carefully as he proceeded through what he excelled in. RK coughed once again.

---

"There's nothing to worry about." Rishi said, collecting his leather bag from the table.

"Seems like Sir's caught a cold. And has not quite taken care of it well. That's all. This-" He pointed to a tiny white box of acetaminophen kept on the table. "-is to be given after the temperature falls below thirty-eight point nine though. Which it should be, after a while of good rest. Nothing much."

"Is it to be taken with something?" Prachi interrogated.

"Huh? Oh, no. Just a glass of water." The doctor replied, then asked. "Has Sir eaten anything in a while?"

Prachi looked at RK, remembering the bowls of soup he threw earlier the day. Then with her gaze still on him, she answered. "I would say dinner was probably the last thing he saw."

"Well, then preferably something warm with the medicine could be better." He concluded, turning towards the door to leave.

"You'll be called again if I feel the need to." Prachi informed the guy, her voice stopping him midway.

The doctor turned to her again with a look of irritation. "Trust my skills, Ma'am."

"Pray for your skills to have worked right, Mister." She retorted, turning to look at him.

"You may leave now. I am sorry for the inconvenience." Prachi informed the guy, moving her gaze away from him.

"Are you, really?" Rishi lifted a brow at her sarcastically.

"Not at all."

The doctor shook his head lightly, smiling a bit. What a weird lady!

"Well-" He continued again. "-are you at least sorry enough to walk a doctor to the door? I think doctors are supposed to be walked to the door too, Ma'am."

"I'm already at the place I'm supposed to be, Mister Rishi. And I'm not supposed to be concerned if you are so unfamiliar with your own workplace." Prachi turned to the guy, who looked back at her with an amused look.

"You. May. Leave." She said, before turning away from him again.

She heard the door close as the man finally left. She shifted her attention towards the door once, then back to RK. He was still silent as ever. For a minute, Prachi couldn't tell if he was unconscious or just asleep. Not that it was a part of her concern, anyways.

After about half a minute, RK's foot slightly moved, his ankle twisting ever so lightly in an uncomfortable movement.

And precisely at that moment, a faint noise interrupted the silence of the room.

Prachi checked her wristwatch, turning off the alarm simultaneously.

06:00 pm.

She turned her neck to RK. The man was lying there almost unconscious. Prachi stood unmoving for a minute. Before she suddenly took a step forward, and moved in the direction of the large cabin door.

As she was just a couple of feet away from the glass door, she stopped in her tracks and turned to one of the shelves kept nearby. She then picked a black device from one of the compartments and pointed it towards the opposite direction in the room, turning the heater on.

With the remote still in her hand, she went back to where RK sat, gently tossing the remote over to the chair beside him. She then took another step towards RK. Reaching his sofa, she sat on her knees right before the furniture. Before she held his legs by the ankles, sliding them away from the already opened shoes and laying his feet gently on the table before him, one then the other.

As she did so, RK's foot again moved slightly in discomfort. And something odd about the same caught her eyes. There were no socks covering his feet today. So she could clearly see the patches of scarlet covering the sole of his right foot, as well as the not so tiny transparent chunk that was stuck to his skin, almost seeming to be embedded in it, that they were surrounding.

Prachi continued to look at the glass piece for a minute. The 'walking-on-glass' incident earlier from the day flashing suddenly across her mind on its on accord.

So he had already danced on the shards by the time she had warned him? And he didn't even bother or even seem to mind it till now?

What grade of a mercurial imbecile was this man, really?

Getting up to her feet, she paced towards a different part of the room to grab a white box written 'First-Aid' on top of it. Returning to where RK was, she knelt before the table again, opening the lid of the box and keeping it before her.

She picked a pair of tweezers from the kit. Grabbed a tiny cotton ball, drenching it with some of the disinfecting liquid, then rubbed it gently over the pair of tweezers, cleaning the tool. She then turned towards RK's foot, holding it lightly with one hand as she teared off the splinter from his skin with the other with the help of the tweezers. A few drops of fresh blood oozed out from the now open wound as she pulled out the glass piece.

As she did so, RK's toes flinched slightly. Prachi glanced towards his face, and she thought she saw his eyes open a little, not really sure of it. However, he didn't further react. And Prachi went back to the task in hand.

Picking up some more cotton balls, she wiped the dark red hues off his fair skin. His skin almost looking torn. She then cleaned the area with a disinfectant and applied an ointment over the same. Turning to the medical kit again, she looked for the bandage inside the large box. She lifted the white roll, then placed a small amount of cotton over the injury, and wound the bandage around his feet twice before cutting off the rest and tieing the ends of the antiseptic cloth around his feet.

All the while, RK showed no indication of any movement about him.

---

At 8:30 pm, Prachi was into her file again when she heard a kind of muffled sound and turned towards RK, only to find him breathing noisily and apparently with deeper breaths than before. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his fair face looked almost tinted with a reddish shade to it.

She kept the file on the table before her, getting to her feet and walking up to him again. She could see his face was covered in sweat.

Lifting the black remote off the table, she turned the heater off. Then looked at RK again, placing her palm on his forehead.

He was still burning. Probably, if possible, slightly more than he previously was.

Prachi gently lifted the jacket off him. And made her way towards the door.

About five minutes later, she returned with a bowl of ice-water in her hand, and a few pieces of cloth in the other.

She pulled a chair from near his desk to the sofa and settled herself into it. She wiped the sweat off his face with a swift motion. Folding one of the cloth pieces into a rectangular sheet, she dipped it in the chilled water, squeezing the water out tightly before she forwarded her hands towards RK, and gently laid the damped cloth over his burning forehead. Placing her hand over the cloth, and pressing it a little to his skin.

Prachi then proceeded to do the same with the remaining two sheets of cloth. She gently held his hand, pushing up the sleeves of his jacket a little, and placed each of the sheets on either of his wrists, sticking the cloth closer to his skin with a press of her palms. 

She repeated the process a few times, and RK's breathing relaxed a little.

---

At about 10:45 pm, RK began to shiver again. Prachi was still pressing the damp clothes over his skin, when he coughed again.

She let the back of her palm rest against his cheek, his temperature was lower than before. Or a bit too low, maybe.

She turned on the heater once again. And pulled her jacket a little more above him. She sat still for a moment, as if contemplating something. Then, grabbing his palms, she began to rub each one of them turn by turn to provide the 'patient' some warmth.

RK was still unconscious.

---

At about 02:00 am, Prachi had just changed the water in the bowl once again. She laid it on the table before RK. The damp, folded cloth now lying only on his forehead, her brown jacket placed over him securely again.

As she set the glass bowl on the table, she noticed the cushion behind his back was starting to make him feel uncomfortable. Prachi took a step towards RK, bending over him to adjust the pillow under his head. As she did so, her face fell close to his silent one, her eyes directed to the cushion behind his shoulders, as her hands corrected the place of it from either sides of RK's shoulder, her hands almost caging the sleeping man between the back of the large sofa and her own self. His warm breaths once again on her neck, and hers close to the back of his ear.

Two seconds later, she felt a light thud on her left shoulder, stopping all her movements all of a sudden.

Prachi slightly tilted her head to the left, to find something heavy resting on her shoulder. A woody fragrance originating from the direction slowly surrounding her, fusing with her breaths.

The Knight's head had fallen on her shoulder. His face turned away from her, while his soft, dark and messy hair brushed the skin of her jaws and neck. Her hands were still surrounding him, holding the pillow behind his back, still caging the guy before her. And his head rested on the shoulder one of her raised hands silently.

Prachi's gaze was still glued to RK's direction with the features of her face turned into a blank mask. That was precisely when her sharp ears caught something unwanted.

Faint footsteps radiating from the outside of the large room suddenly attracted her attention towards themselves.

She paused. Before her gaze flickered to the closed door in a quick movement. A sudden alertness taking over her dark eyes, her jaws tightening on their own.

RK's head still lay on her shoulder, her arm - on which his face rested - raised to now clutch the pillow behind him, still surrounding him. While her other hand left the cushion it previously held, moving cautiously towards her feet.

She slowly lifted the pant cloth up her ankle a little, and held the gun tied across her ankle beneath it with a tight grip of her fingers.

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Author's Note -

Hey all lovely people reading it, was the chapter upto your expectations? :)

I hope it didn't seem too long or dragged on. Just wanted to show certain things, and tell you to trust me with the reasons of everything!

Oh, btw, our beloved RK was silent throughout the entire chapter for the first time. Did you guys miss him? 👀

Looks like someone has decided to accompany the two 👀 Could it be a danger? What do you think will happen next?

And, of course, what was your favourite line from today? ;) 

Favourite scene? :)

"What grade of a mercurial imbecile" do you think RK is? 👀

Any suggestions?

Would love to know your thoughts about the same, if you want the chapters quicker! Also, do share it with your friends if you like the story!

Not proofread.

Really hope you liked it. Waiting for your feedbacks. Constructive criticism is welcomed as well.

Thank you for reading. Lots of love to all of you :)

-Your Author