Days later...

"Wow... I’m amazing." Raka leaned closer to Lucian’s face, studying his complexion. "It’s only been a few days, but look at you. You look like you’re blushing around a crush."

Lucian stared at him, expression unchanged. "Do I?"

Raka immediately pulled back and gave him a deeply suspicious look.

"Why are you answering like that?" He shivered, face twisting. For a split second, he felt an inexplicable need to put some distance between them.

"Anyway," he cleared his throat and flipped through his charts. "Your results look good."

He nodded to himself, then pulled a bottle from a drawer and slid it across the desk. "I’m upping your dose since you’re responding well. Keep taking everything else — and that tea. Especially the tea."

"Thank you." Lucian gave an approving nod as he picked up the bottle.

He rose to his feet. "You don’t need to walk me out."

"Huh?" Raka, who hadn’t moved an inch from his chair, looked up at him. He hadn’t been planning to.

"Thank you for your help," Lucian said. "Let me know how I can repay you."

Raka scrunched up his nose. "Hey — I don’t do leeches, even if my life depended on it. But when I do charity, I do it wholeheartedly. So don’t insult me." He straightened with exaggerated dignity. "Also, don’t push it. I don’t think you could afford my rate anyway."

He clicked his tongue and stood, crossing to the coat rack to swap his white coat for his regular one.

Lucian watched him, a faint smile on his face. The delivery was Raka through and through, but the meaning behind it was far kinder than the words themselves.

"What are you still doing here?" Raka looked back at him. "Go."

"I’ll walk you out."

"Hah." Raka clicked his tongue, shook his head, and decided it wasn’t worth the argument.

After days of checkups and daily visits, Raka had quietly come to the conclusion that Lucian and Ashley weren’t the bad kind of people — not the kind who took and never gave back. This couple was determined to repay him, and the only way to make them stop was not to engage. So he let Lucian walk beside him without making it a thing.

If anything, it was just easier.

As they walked side by side, Raka cast Lucian a sideways glance.

"Hey," he said. "Didn’t you pitch a proposal to the Black Dragon Corporation? That day I bumped into you."

Lucian turned to him but said nothing.

"How did it go?" Raka asked again. "Still no call?"

"..." Lucian pressed his lips together.

As far as Raka was concerned, Lucian had pitched some business idea to the Black Dragon Corporation and been turned down.

"I didn’t —"

"Of course!" Raka laughed, shaking his head as he straightened his tie, confidence surging. "Did you know I was actually invited there?"

Lucian cleared his throat. One of the reasons he couldn’t correct the misunderstanding was that Raka simply wouldn’t give him the opening.

"I know," he said.

Raka’s laughter grew louder. "Hahaha! Well, as my patient, you already know how incredible I am!"

His laughter carried them all the way out of the building. At the entrance, Raka stopped and turned to Lucian.

"You probably haven’t heard yet, but it’s the chairman himself — the founder of Black Dragon — who called me in," he said with a smirk. "With their backing, no one will be able to stop my miracle drug from going into production. I’m going to conquer the world."

Lucian nodded. "I’m glad to hear it."

"Ha! Of course!" Raka laughed once more and sauntered toward his car.

Lucian watched him go, shaking his head slowly.

I hope she doesn’t give him a heart attack, he thought, then turned toward his own car.

He was about to leave when he noticed Raka climbing back out of his car and lifting the hood.

"Hmm?" Lucian drove over slowly and pulled up beside him. "Everything alright?"

Raka glanced at him, then looked back at the engine with a grimace.

"I’m decent with cars," Lucian said, stepping out and coming to stand beside him. "Let me take a look."

"Were you a mechanic before too?" Raka scoffed. "How many more jobs have you done?"

Lucian didn’t answer as he was already checking the engine. If he had to answer, he would have said it came from an old hobby. He had always had cars: vintage classics, modern luxury models, machines that had passed through the hands of the finest mechanics in the world. He knew engines.

"It’s not good," Lucian said, withdrawing and showing Raka what he’d found. "You need a proper mechanic for this."

Raka hissed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Ugh. Not today."

He had an important meeting — with the chairman of the Black Dragon Corporation, no less. He had time to spare, but if he stopped to get this looked at, he risked being late. And being late was not how he intended to make his impression on the one person he actually wanted to impress.

"I’ll take you," Lucian said, watching Raka glance over at him. "Black Dragon Corporation — correct?"

Raka frowned. "How did you know?"

"I saw your calendar." He wasn’t lying — Raka’s schedule was written plainly on the large calendar in his office.

"Hah." Raka shifted his gaze to Lucian’s car. He said nothing, but his expression said everything.

It’s old. Probably cramped. If I leave now, I can still make it on time.

After a moment of visible reluctance, Raka sighed. "Fine. Consider it your repayment."

He pulled open the passenger door and got in. Lucian closed the hood and followed.

"Wow," Raka murmured as he settled into the seat, glancing around the interior. "This is... actually comfortable."

The inside was nicer than expected.

If he had the money to do up the interior like this, he could’ve just bought a decent car, Raka thought, watching Lucian get in through the windshield.

And with that, Lucian drove Raka to his own company — with Raka entirely unaware that the man he was prepared to worship was sitting right beside him.