'You both don't know how hard it was for me to make you fall for me this hard.'
Looking at an image of three people, Dhruv's cold gaze turned towards the man standing in the middle—Rajashekhar.
'I will give you the same fate, Rajashekhar. This year-long story will end soon.' Slowly, Dhruv turned towards the big mirror at the center of the room before approaching it.
This time, instead of seeing his reflection, he opened the mirror, revealing a drawer inside.
Several small tubes filled with blue liquid were present inside the drawer.
Slowly taking one of the bottles out, he observed it; more than half was empty.
'Should I decrease the dose?' Dhruv thought about reducing the doses he usually injects to masquerade himself as Akhil.
Naturally, it was him all along, but it was just an effect that suppressed his mind's ability to see people as they truly were, enhancing some of the brilliant features—kindness, naivety—that he needed in order to make both Niharika and Laila fall in love with him.
The serum in his hand had the effect of targeting neurotransmitters like serotonin, stimulating them while suppressing his brain's thinking ability to a normal adult level, making the emergence of the kind-hearted personality of Akhil appear.
It has been ten years since he started taking these drugs on a timely manner whenever he needed to meet either of the girls, knowing well about their sharp minds and senses; acting could never leave an impression on them.
The series of tragedies in Dhruv's life—his father's murder, his house burning down, being discarded outside a hospital, and surviving multiple assassination attempts—prompted him to resort to using the same serum that had caused so much destruction.
Slowly approaching the whiteboard adorned with newspaper cutouts from the year 2048, Dhruv's gaze fixated on a 12-year-old newspaper featuring the name of the leading scientist of that era and his groundbreaking invention.
Tracing his hand across the paper, he noted the headline: Dr. Dhruva has once again proven himself by inventing the intellect-enhancing serum.
However, another headline below it revealed: The era's best scientist has died in a burning house with the destruction of all his inventions.
CRUNCH
Clenching the newspaper in his grip, Dhruv gritted his jaws, his eyes blazing with rage. 'Not every invention of his was destroyed that day,' he seethed.
BANG!
He punched the board hard, causing it to crumble around his fist.
drip
Blood trickled from his hand, falling on the floor. Gazing downward, he remembered his father's last words, knowing not every one of his inventions was destroyed that day.
"I am still alive."
Yes, he was his father's best invention.
He was someone whom his dad was proud of, and no mere serum could take his place.
But, at the end of the day, he was a pathetic eight-year-old prodigy, born in a thousand years, who couldn't even protect his own father.
He hated himself for it.
Everyone praised him as a prodigy; he was the sharpest sword in his father's arsenal, yet still weak.
That day, the prodigy Akhil died, and in his father's name, Dhruv was born.
Each of his father's theories and formulas was vividly stored in his brain. With their help, he recreated the same serum that destroyed their happy world.
After recreating it, he realized the ability to enhance one's intellect that was talked about was nothing but an illusion.
Instead of boosting processing power, this drug suppressed negative emotions and feelings, which are normally the causes of dull thinking.
By bringing out one's optimistic personality, this serum provided clarity to the mind, indirectly making them better thinkers than others.
Beeep~
Suddenly, a sound reverberated in that dimly lit room, causing Dhruv to turn towards the fingerprint detection machine.
Moving towards it, he looked at the result.
[Result Matches with Laila Rajasekhar]
'As expected from you, Laila,' the reason for Dhruv to match the fingerprint was to identify the person who installed the cameras; after all, this would ensure he could manipulate things in his favor.
He approached the computer screens on the table, where a bunch of Laila's concert tickets existed, some torn and scattered, with several electronic chips placed beside them.
Taking his seat at the chair, he wore a headset before opening some software on his computer. 'It was good that I expected you to be crippling that ticket.'
Click
The moment he pressed the enter button on the keyboard, an audio started to play.
// Remove his records from the university's history. There shouldn't be any Banzihum even in this country's records. //
'Banzihum shouldn't have interrupted my confession, tch,' Dhruv muttered as he folded his arms while listening to the conversation transmitted through the super-thin transmitter he had placed inside the concert ticket.
This was the only reason why Akhil always delayed reaching college. Since Dhruv needed to secretly place the transmitter inside the ticket he received outside his house, coincidentally.
Of course, he knew Laila would definitely doubt him for always going back home after taking her tickets, eventually leading her to implant cameras today, which he expected would happen one day.
And even if he became Akhil after taking the serum, in the end, it was himself who had complete control over his body.
He could always dominate his weak personality, but the consequences would be severe headaches.
And while in his act, there were chances of him being noticed, given how he was dealing with the world's richest man, who held security such that not even an ant could enter without his permission.
The only weapon he had was the memories of him in the minds of those two girls.
To be exact, even if he tried to manipulate them, it would have been impossible for him to interact with them in the first place if he hadn't been well acquainted with them since childhood.
He could still recall that day—the day he was showing his project work to both Niharika and Laila—when suddenly the house they were in caught fire.
He saved their lives, and after leaving them outside, he went inside to see his father. What he saw was his father being shot again and again by none other than his dear friend and the father of both Niharika and Laila—Rajashekhar Hans.
// Send some assassins to deal with that Laila. I want her dead body within an hour. //
'....' Calmly listening to the audio, Dhruv took his phone and opened the news to see if someone had really died or not.
'Phew, I pity those men,' Dhruv thought. He wasn't there to check on Laila's news but about the assassins who went to kill someone far more beautiful and dangerous than Oleander.
"Let's see," pulling his keyboard, he started typing several things at a fast pace.
The speed at which his pupils reflected several codes processing and his focus without blinking showed his skills.
'What's with this Firewall?' Dhruv had already hacked into the servers of one of the cybersecurity providers, breaching the security cameras installed in a facility while using the IP address of that security company.
Click
Finally, the firewall was breached. He directly infiltrated a live CCTV camera.
Several computer screens in front of him lit up, showing live video from that CCTV.
His eyes reflected a beautiful woman on the monitor, seated on a chair with folded legs, while several men wearing black clothes begged for their lives.
Not to survive, but wanting to end their miserable agony.
"I do not expect anything less from you, Laila."