"I will make the dinner, till then you should rest," said the original owner's mother, Diya Rajput, locking the door.
"Okay," Chandra responded and walked into the expansive apartment of the original owner.
The doctor had asked Chandra if somewhere he was hurting as he kept wailing. He told the doctor that he wanted his parents. The man in the suit, Maanas who worked for his husband, told him that his mother was on her way to see him. Then Chandra cried even more because he was talking about the original owner's mother, and he wouldn't be able to see his real mother ever. Neither of the men knew what to do as they watched him cry. Maanas gave him a tissue paper box and Chandra thanked him, and he wiped his tears and runny nose. Diya had come to the hospital to see her son. Watching him wailing, she embraced him and asked him why he was crying, but he didn't say anything. After a while, he somehow calmed down in Diya's embrace. Then the doctor did a checkup and told him he was good to go home.
"Tell me if you need something. Ma is here for you," Diya said as she entered the kitchen.
"Okay." Chandra's eyes wandered with a little interest in the apartment: the sort of house he had only seen in movies. It was a two-bedroom apartment with a hall divided into a kitchen and living room. The walls were with a high ceiling, but still being rich didn't make him happy, nor did it make him forget what he'd lost.
Chandra strode into the room with a white and cherry blossom shade wall and a balcony. It was a cozy room. His feet moved in a walk-in closet. He'd changed back from a hospital gown to his clothes, which were denim shorts and a black crop t-shirt, that was a shoulder off t-shirt. It was another nightmare for him to wear something that only girls wear in his world.
The wardrobe was organized with seasonal clothes. Heel sandals, other branded shoes and handbags were displayed on shelves. Like that, many other accessories were stored in the drawers, which he was not interested in. His eyes sought out decent clothes. Most of the outfits were shorts and even pajamas made of silk satin. . .the kind of clothes he wouldn't be comfortable to wear. After a while, he found something decent to wear: a pair of gray loose crop pants and a little buggy white t-shirt. He quickly slipped into them after taking off his uncomfortable clothes.
He held out his small and delicate hands and stared at the nails, which were painted with nail polish. If he'd seen it on some girl's nails, he would have thought they looked pretty, but not on himself. Sighing, he moved in front of the full-length mirror. The reflection in the mirror was not his, but the original owner. In the hospital bathroom, he'd already seen this face: his face was dreadful because the makeup on his face was messed up because of his crying. He washed it immediately and felt better. Chandra again looked at this unfamiliar face. The person in the mirror was beautiful. He had light brown eyes with long eyelashes. He had flawless fair skin and delicate features on his oval face and mid-length brown wavy hair reaching past his ears a little. His height was five feet and barely two inches. Before, Chandra had been a guy with average looks with average height. He smiled. At least, he didn't need to shave ever, as Omega didn't grow a beard. Chandra cocked his head and put strands of hair behind the ears and saw that he'd had his ears pierced and adorned with a little bow type of diamond earring. He took them off and put them back in the jewelry drawer. He wasn't used to this or anything, embellishing his face.
If he stayed alone, he would think about his family. So, he left the room and went to the kitchen. He smelled something nice.
His mother lifted her gaze and a smile, as she chopped tomatoes. He also smiled back. His stomach growled. He was starving; he'd not eaten since the morning. The original owner had slipped a few stairs from his apartment building when he was going to have some fun playing cards in a club.
"Eat this." His mother placed a plate-filled slice of apples.
"What are you making?" He settled on the stool of the kitchen counter.
"Dal chawal," she said.
"It's my favorite," Chandra's face lit up, stabbing a fork in a sliced apple.
And without looking at him, she asked, "Since when?" The original owner liked to eat Chinese, Italian, and other Western cuisines.
"From now on," he replied defensibly and chewed the apple. The mother didn't suspect anything. She continued chopping the other vegetables for tadka in dal, while Chandra continued eating.
"Can you take me shopping tomorrow? I want to buy some clothes." He needed to get rid of all the stuff that he didn't want. And he didn't know the streets well enough to wander around when everything was new to him.
"Are you sure that you want to go with me, Chaand?" She called him by an endearment Chaand, holding the same meaning as his name Chandra.
"Yes."
The original owner didn't like anyone interfering with his life. He lived alone, and that's the way he preferred, so no one could nag him about what he should do and what he should not do. And for it he had a whole family; parents and in-laws. He didn't even like his mother nagging about how he should look after his family and forget about Veer. He should zero in on his child. After all, Diya was a mother, and no mother wants their child to ruin their life even if the world hates him, his mother wouldn't hate him ever. How he'd had a mother like this when the original owner was not anywhere near her personality-wise. Chandra would have doubted if the original owner had been replaced by her real son in a hospital if it were not for him resembling her.
"Then I will take you shopping."
There was a brief pause.
"Chaand, would you like me to stay with you?" she asked hesitantly.
"I don't mind."
She seemed a little surprised, but happy.
And after an hour, they had dinner together while watching TV.
The next day, his mother drove him to the mall in a car and he bought some new clothes that were not revealing his skin much. The clothes were branded and expensive. Even the lowest-rated outfits were not cheap either. The one outfit rate of his, he could have bought three or five pieces of clothes for him with high quality. The money was not his, but Aryan's. He still felt odd to throw money like this, even if he was only buying some decent regular clothes for himself. And because of a change in his fashion sense, his mother seemed to reel in shock.
When Chandra told his mother that he wanted his hair cut short, she firmly denied that Omega should not cut his hair short. He obliged his mother and didn't get a haircut. It was rare for the omega to have short hair; significantly as the hair used to hide a sacred part of the omega's neck, where an alpha would bite and form a bond with his new omega wife or life partner.
And Chandra hadn't looked at the bite mark on his neck yet, but he felt he'd had the mark. From the original owner's memories, on his wedding night, he bonded with Aryan, who marked him by biting on his neck and creating a bond of a lifetime. After this, whenever Chandra would be in heat, he would only respond to his alpha husband's touch. If others tried to touch him in his heat, he would reject them repulsively.
And a few days went by, since Chandra was living in an omegaverse world. He would go for the morning run, and sometimes, he would play tennis with other people in the garden for fun and his mother would also join him. He would be tying his hair with a rubber band, but his hair was not long enough that a rubber band could hold it together; some mischievously loose strands emerged on his face. Also, he couldn't leave his ears bare according to his mother, so he chose to put in huggie hoops adorned with tiny diamonds. They are the only ones that caught his eye with their simple beauty. Maybe he had become an omega, that's why he felt the need instinctively to be beautiful.
The change was surprising for him, but he was not frightened or anything, maybe because of Diya taking care of him. He was grateful to be alive. And he was feeling quite good.
He'd gotten rid of all the revealing and shining outfits in the closet and the high heels shoes of original owners by packing them in boxes and stored them where his eyes couldn't see. Though his mother told him that those could be donated and sold online. She was a little old-fashioned woman, despite being a modern and rich person. She didn't think it was appropriate to wear revealing clothes. The clothes are made to cover your body, and that's how they ought to be worn.
Also, he'd blocked the original owner's fake friends who were calling him to come and join in gaming and plunder his money, which was not even his.
Chandra didn't need to put dressing around his forehead anymore. His mother would put ointment on the injury behind his head. It was near to recovering fully.
"Do you want to make shoes?" His mother asked.
"I do."
Chandra was on the carpet, his back against the couch, sketching shoes in a notebook randomly while his mother was watching TV. He told his mother that he had been interested in shoes since he had watched a video on YouTube when she had asked.
But the truth is he wanted to make more and more shoes with his hands. His father wanted him to be a civil servant, but Chandra did neither had an interest in becoming civil servant nor had he a brain for it. He'd graduated from a local government college and after that had studied to prepare to be a civil servant as his father wanted him to, but Chandra was naturally fascinated by the shoes his father would make. But his father didn't want him to be a shoemaker. When his big brother took over their family shoe-making business. If he became a shoemaker, it would be hard for him to find a decent woman and get married. Although his father and brother found their women to marry, and everything turned out to be pretty well for them. Anyway, it didn't matter for Chandra anymore. He was already married to a man. A fact he couldn't digest.
But the best thing, he could make shoes.
"I wanted to buy some shoe stuff to make. I searched on the internet to find shops near me, but there was no shop at all in the city," he told her grimly, continuing to give a touch to his drawing of loafer shoes.
"You know, this is not the city where shoes are made. But you can look up the shoe stuff online to buy."
The brown eyes brightened and the pencil paused in his hand. "I didn't think about this. I will look into this." Before Chandra sometimes bought the stuff from shops with his father and sometimes alone on his scooty. He never thought something like this could be bought online.
Diya chuckled. She looked at him instead of watching T.V.
"Chaand."
"Hm?"
"Will you go to Amolaka's marriage functions?" She asked him casually.
"It's a family function. It would be weird if I didn't go," Chandra said without glancing back.
When she went shopping with his son. They stopped by a cafe. Chandra was eating his ice cream and looked through a magazine of shoes, which he bought in the book section of the mall. Diya's friend approached their table and asked Diya when Amolaka's wedding function was and then Diya's gaze drifted to Chandra. She was expecting her son to throw some kind of vile remark and leave her alone. However, he did not react to the question at all but was absorbed looking through the shoe magazine. She was relieved and joyful with Chandra's behavior. He finally seemed to get out of his rebellious age.
The next week Amolaka's wedding functions were starting. His husband's younger sister was getting married to the love of her life Veer. Still, Diya was worried that her son would be plotting something against Amolaka at her wedding functions, but he seemed like a changed person and that's what she would like to have faith in for this moment.
And she said with a smile, "Then we should do some wedding shopping. I can also buy something for myself."
"I don't need more clothes. I already bought a lot."
"For the wedding, Chaand. What you have bought is not for the wedding functions." The mother chuckled, ruffling his hair.
The doorbell rang. Putting down the notebook on the floor, Chandra stood and walked to the entrance hall to open the door. He didn't have any visitors since he had hit his head. It was a minor injury, so he didn't think anyone would bother to pop in on him when he'd been a thorn in other eyes. . . especially his in-laws. Chandra could imagine their disappointed face to see him alive when he should have rather rolled down all the stairs and died.
And even his husband didn't like him and let him squander the money as much as the original owner wanted, so he didn't trouble anyone in the family. He was the most dangerous man from the memory of the original owner who had tried to harm Amolaka and he got a life-threatening warning from his husband that if he ever attempted to harm his little sister, he would be dead. The original owner was shocked and shivering in fear that he didn't do anything after that.
As Chandra opened the door. He blinked. There was no doubt that the person, standing at the door with his tall and bulky build—but good kind of bulkiness was Chandra's husband, Aryan. The light brown eyes of his stay on Aryan's well proportioned face—The left side of his face had an old scar. It was as if it had been carved with a knife or some sharp thing. The scar divided his thick brow into two as it slanted from his forehead to his eyes, and then it turned straight to his jaw. It was not as ugly as it was in the original owner's thoughts. He was handsome despite the scar.
Chandra stepped back, startled when something touched his feet. He ducked his head to see what caused him to be scared. A little guy. His four-year-old son, Shivam. Chandra realized he was touching his feet in greeting. The boy looked sad at the reaction as if his mother loathed him. But honestly, he was just startled as he didn't notice that the little boy came with his father.
Chandra glanced back at Aryan. He had no expression, yet his dark eyes looked at Chandra coldly.