The living room had settled into a murmur of voices, punctuated by the clink of porcelain.
Fahad rose from his armchair without ceremony. He adjusted his cuffs and looked toward the doorway. "I am going to the company."
The conversation didn't stop. No one seemed surprised. Fahad was always the first to leave,
Always the one who carried the — weight of the world on his shoulders before anyone else had finished breakfast.
He turned his head, just slightly. His gray eyes found Anik, who was seated beside Nahi, a cup of tea resting untouched in his hand.
"Are you coming?"
The room went quiet for half a heartbeat because Fahad Sunayana rarely asked anyone to come with him anywhere.
Anik looked up. His dark brown eyes met Fahad's gray ones and for a moment, something passed between them — an old understanding.
Anik set his cup down. "I'll come."
Fahad nodded once, then he turned and walked toward the entrance hall, his footsteps unhurried against the marble floor.
Anik followed a step behind. The space between them was comfortable . The space of two men who had known each other long enough to not need words.
The room exhaled. Conversations resumed. Fahan said something, Faha laughed, Fahim turned a page, Naya reached for her tea.
Maya lifted her eyes,just slightly. Her gaze moved to the tall grandfather clock near the window. The hands showed 08:47 AM.
She closed the book around one finger, marking her place. Then she closed it fully, set it down on the arm of the chair and rose.
She walked across the room without a sound,she passed the sofa where Nahi was scribbling in his notebook, passed the window where Ohi stood, phone in hand.
She reached the staircase and began to climb. One hand rested lightly on the polished banister.
Inside her mind, a voice curled through the silence, Running away so soon?
You didn't even say goodbye. That's rude, you know. They're your family.
Maya stopped before her door. Her hand rested on the handle. "Are they?"
She pushed the door open. The morning light fell through the windows in pale golden sheets, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
Her question hung in the air between them, 'Are they?'
For a moment, there was only silence. Then — Yama smiled. A devil's smile, slow, pleased and utterly terrifyingly satisfied.
I thought you had accepted them - I thought you had finally let them in.
That you had started to believe, just a little that you belonged somewhere. But seeing this…
Her voice dropped, intimate and sharp at the same time, a whisper with teeth. I'm glad. You have no one in your life but me.
Look at them, they can sit beside you. Call you family. Pretend they understand you. But when things become difficult, when the parts of you that you keep buried begin to surface…
Her voice softened. They won't know what to do with you.They never will.
Her expression remained unreadable. But I will.
No one who knows you. No one who has seen the things you have seen and stayed afterward.
No one who has looked at the darkest parts of you—the parts you hide from everyone else—and decided they weren't enough to make them leave.
A faint smile appeared again.
I'm the only one who already knows the worst of you — and doesn't need you to hide it. Only me. Just me.
Maya closed her eyes for exactly one second.
Then she opened them, crossed the room and walked to the wardrobe.
The wardrobe doors opened with a click. Inside, neatly arranged rows of school uniforms waited — freshly pressed by the household staff.
She reached for one. Her gloved fingers moved with quiet precision as she lifted the hanger free and laid the uniform carefully across the bed.
Then she turned and began to change out of her casual clothes. [FEW MINUTES LATER]
A crisp white shirt was tucked perfectly into a deep navy-blue skirt , bearing the school's embroidered crest on the left pocket.
A striped navy-and-silver tie was fastened with meticulous precision.White socks and polished black leather shoes completed the uniform.
She stood before the full-length mirror, her long dark hair was combed carefully and tied back neatly. For a moment, she simply stood there.
Then she lifted one gloved hand and touched the crest on her pocket. Her fingers traced its shape — the way someone might trace the outline of a word they had forgotten how to read.
The girl who looked back at her was not the girl who had climbed down a mansion wall. The girl in the mirror was — ordinary.
A student, just a girl in a uniform, waiting for the day to begin. She turned away from the mirror and walked to the desk and opened her school bag.
One by one, she placed her textbooks , pencil case and placed the book Fahish had given her inside it, beside her diary.
She zipped the bag closed and slipped the strap over her shoulder. Then, she smoothed the front of her uniform one last time and walked toward the door.
The corridor beyond was filled with the glow of the morning sun.She walked toward the grand staircase with her usual calm, unhurried steps.
Yama leaned closer. Her red hair spilled over her shoulders in waves of liquid fire — each strand catching the dim light of Maya's mind and turning it into something that almost looked like embers.
Though...I have to admit.
Maya continued walking. "What?"
You know, you look beautiful. Very beautiful. Vrey beautiful. Really, stunning, ethereal. The kind of beautiful that makes people stop and stare, that makes them forget what they were saying.
She reached out—her fingers hovering just above Maya's cheek, not quite touching as though the space between them was sacred.
You have that kind of face. The kind that doesn't need to try. The kind that doesn't need to smile. The kind that just ..... exists and that's enough. That's more than enough.
She gestured vaguely toward the mirror — the one inside Maya's mind, the one that reflected nothing but the endless garden of spider lilies.
Of course, you can't see that. Your whole world is just black and white. No color, no light, nothing.
Everything is either useful or useless, necessary or unnecessary. Truth or lie.
You walk through life with your glasses and your gloves and your silence and you never once look at yourself, not really.
Her voice dropped,butI see you.I see everything, every shadow under your eyes, every thought you try to hide. I see it all, Maya.
Silence.
"Quantum mechanics and general relativity. How do you reconcile the two?"
Yama blinked. ...What?
"How do you reconcile them? They contradict each other — one describes the very small, the other the very large.
They cannot both be correct in their current form. So—how do you reconcile them?"
Yama went silent. Maya waited, one second, two. Three. I don't want to talk to you anymore.
She crossed her arms and turned her head away, her lips pressing into a pout. A theatrical , utterly deliberate display of wounded pride.
You're impossible. I try to give you a compliment and what do you do? You ask me about physics. Physics, Maya. I was being nice And you—
She gestured vaguely toward Maya with one hand as though the words had abandoned her entirely.
You just—you just ask questions. That's all you do. You ask questions and you never answer any.
Maya raised one eyebrow—just slightly, just enough to be infuriating. "Is that so?"
Yes. That's so.
"Then what do you do? What do you do? All day. Every day, you talk and you talk and you talk, you literally fry my brain. You exhaust my patience. "
Yama opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "That's—that's not—"
Maya's voice remained unhurried, yet utterly merciless. " You sit in my head and talk until I want to tear my own ears off. "
She looked up, her dark eyes met Yama's blue ones. Silence.
Yama's mouth opened. Closed. Opened. For once — for the first time in perhaps her entire existence—she had nothing to say.
Her cheeks flushed, just slightly, she turned her head away, crossed her arms and sat down — or rather, she settled into the air beside Maya like a sulking child. I'm not talking to you anymore.
"Good."
I mean it.
"I know."
I'm never talking to you again.
"Alright."
I'm serious.
"I know."
Yama let out a frustrated breath. Then another. Then she peeked at Maya from the corner of her eye.
Maya didn't react. Yama huffed. Finally — after a full minute of silence—she muttered, almost too quietly to hear: .....You're so mean to me.
Maya said nothing. But the corner of her lips—just barely twitched. Yama saw it, her blue eyes widened, her pout faltered. You smiled.
"I did not."
You did. I saw it.
"You saw nothing."
I saw everything. I always see everything. Yama leaned closer, You like me, don't you??
"I tolerate you."
Same thing.
"It's not."
It is.
"It's really not."
It is and you know it.
"So...Are you actually not going to talk to me?"
Yama muttered, ...Maybe.
"Thought so."
Don't sound so pleased with yourself.
"I wasn't."
You were, you absolutely were.
Maya sighed. "Come on." No answer, she waited.
"Yama."
Still nothing. Maya lowered her voice. "Don't make me explain quantum mechanics to you again."
You wouldn't.
Maya's expression became completely serious.
"I would."
Then she let out a long, deeply offended groan and leaned back dramatically.You're cruel.You know exactly what you're doing, don't you?
"Don't you know that." She descended the grand staircase. She looked like a student. A girl — in a uniform, waiting for the day to begin.
Nahi, who had been scribbling in his notebook, stopped mid-stroke. His pen hovered above the page, his eyes narrowed with recognition.
"Maya."
Maya paused at the bottom of the stairs. "Yes, Mr. Nahi?" He pointed at her with the pen. "You study at St. Helena's."
Across the room, Ohi looked up from his phone. Fahish's coffee cup paused halfway to his lips. Even Naya, who had been quietly reading near the window, lowered her book by an inch.
Maya inclined her head. "Yes, Mr. Nahi." Nahi set the pen down. A slow, disbelieving grin spread across his face.
"St. Helena's. The St. Helena's. That school has one of the hardest entrance exams in the entire empire.
Third hardest in the empire. No family name matters. Everyone gets in the same way — through the exam."
He leaned forward. "Good job, good job. Maya." It came out surprisingly genuine.
"Thank you, Mr. Nahi."
Ohi, who had been watching the exchange with quiet interest, set his phone down on the arm of the sofa. He crossed one leg over the other, his expression settling into something curious.
"What year are you in?"
"Class eleven, Mr. Ohi."
"Class eleven. That's — good, very good."
Fahish set his coffee down on the side table and rose from the window seat. "Leave her alone."
Nahi blinked. "What?"
"You heard me. Don't bother my sister."
"Your sister?"There was a faint, challenging smile pulling at the corner of Ohi's mouth. "She's not only your sister. She's mine too."
Silence.
For a moment, Fahish simply looked at Ohi. "Fine, fine. Then I'll drive her."
Nahi's eyebrows rose. He leaned forward, his pen tapping once against the notebook on his knee. "You have an art exhibition today."
Fahish did not look at him. "It can wait."
"Can it? I thought today was the opening day. You've been preparing for months."
"It can wait."
Ohi let out a short, mocking laugh, leaning back as if the entire situation had suddenly become far more amusing than it had any right to be.
"Oh, is that so? So, our magnificent author has decided to remind us of what happened that —day? You know—the very same morning Maya was supposed to come back?"
He folded his arms across his chest.
"Because if my memory serves me correctly—and trust me, my memory is perfectly fine.
You were not exactly standing at the door with flowers, waiting desperately for your beloved sister to return."
He paused deliberately as though giving everyone enough time to remember.
"No. Quite the opposite, actually. You were told that your sister was coming home. And what did you say?"
His smile widened.
"I've already told you, I have no sister. How many times do I have to say it before you people finally understand?
I don't know who this girl is. I don't know where she came from. You keep looking at me as though I'm supposed to recognize her—as though some name, some old photograph, or some story from the past is magically enough to make her my sister.
It isn't.
So tell me, who exactly are you bringing into this house? Because the girl you all want to brought is a stranger.
I have no sister.
And I am not going to suddenly accept someone simply because everyone else has decided that I should.You cannot erase years of absence with a single explanation and expect me to smile and welcome her with open arms.
I'm sorry, but I don't work that way. Maybe all of you have already accepted her without asking yourselves what I think. But I haven't.
And I refuse to pretend. So don't ask me to call this girl my sister. "
He gave a soft, humorless chuckle. "Ah, yes. Yes. Those were your exact words, weren't they? And now, suddenly, we are discussing how much you supposedly cared about Maya all along?"
Nahi's eyes narrowed with amusement. "Please. Let's not rewrite history just because the story has become emotional."
Ohi laughed under his breath. "You didn't even ask what she looked like after all those years.So forgive me if I find this sudden transformation a little difficult to believe."
Fahish's face had gone very still. But his neck — his neck had turned red. A deep flush climbed up from his collar and spread across his jaw and into his cheeks.
Nahi, who had been watching in silence, finally let out a low whistle under his breath. "Ohi. That was—"
"Honest, I'm just being honest. He did say it. In front of all of us. I didn't make it up."
"No," Nahi murmured. "You didn't."
Yama's voice curled through the back of her mind — slow, almost purring.
Oh, this is beautiful. Look at the quiet one. The artist, his face is on fire and he can't say a single word. Not one.
She paused, savoring it.
Because he knows it's true. He knows exactly what he said. And he knows he meant it.
Maya's gaze remained fixed on the doorway ahead.
Do you feel anything? Yama asked softly. Anything at all? Because I do. I feel — I feel warm. This is the warmest I've felt all morning.
"Enough," Maya said — but only inside her own mind. Only to Yama. Her face gave away nothing.
Fahish finally moved. He did not turn around to face Ohi. He did not defend himself.
He straightened his back and spoke fast, almost rushed, the words tumbling out of him before he could lose his nerve. "Maya. Come on. I'll start the car."
"...Alright, Mr. Fahish."
He walked almost too fast. The kind of walk that belonged to someone who needed to be somewhere else — anywhere else — as quickly as possible.
His footsteps echoed across the marble floor.
Ohi watched him go. He simply watched, with an expression that was impossible to read.
Nahi glanced from Ohi to the doorway, then back again. "Ohi. That was cruel."
Ohi met her eyes without flinching.
"I know," he said.