The office was unusually serene for late morning – just the usual clank of keys and headphones and low conversations filled the open-plan space like soft static. Aria walked down the corridor with a stack of project folders balanced carefully in one hand; her fingers pressed to their edges to keep them aligned. Outside, the city moved like a hum on low volume – trams passing, water shifting in the canal, gulls calling from somewhere unseen.

She reached Lina’s room. The door was open, the space undisturbed except for the slight turn of the office chair – with her cardigan looped over the back – and a muted pair of speakers still playing sound from a previous edit. A half-finished tea sat cooling beside the keyboard.

No sign of Lina.

The office was still, humming only with the low sound of the ceiling fan.

Aria placed the project files in their usual spot, aligning them to the edge with quiet precision.

She turned to leave, but a stack of pages beside the keyboard caught her eye.

It was a printed draft of a script – loosely clipped, top page slightly curled upward. She hadn’t meant to pry – but the cover page had no name. Just a working title: Untitled (Draft 2). A few lines were underlined in blue. One paragraph was scratched out entirely. On instinct, she flipped the first few pages.

It was a two-person exchange. A bench. A conversation that tried to lean on restraint. Words about missed calls. Some old memories neither character could name directly. A vague apology, and an absence they kept circling but never said aloud.

The first few lines tried to hold something back.

But it didn’t settle.

The silences between sentences felt like filler, not friction. There was space, but no weight inside it. Nothing breathed. Nothing tugged.

Aria tilted the page. There were scribbles in the margins, crossed-out transitions, arrows pointing to emotional beats that weren’t landing. She read it again. It wasn’t bad – it had rhythm. But something in the silence didn’t feel full. It was meant to be tender, maybe even romantic – but it hadn’t earned the stillness it was trying to hold.

It felt like a sketch of something real, but missing the thing that made it matter.

Aria stood still. But her mind, in its usual quiet way, stepped in.

Silence, if left empty, doesn’t echo.

It collapses.

Before she could turn another page, Lina’s voice floated in. “That caught your eye?”

Aria looked up, half-startled. Lina stepped in, holding a takeaway bag and a folded umbrella. Her short curls, as usual, were pinned to one side, and her wire-frame glasses perched low. She didn’t seem annoyed – just mildly amused.

 “Just noticed the markups,” Aria said, letting the pages fall back into place.

“It’s still in progress,” Lina walked in, brushing past Aria to set down her lunch bag. She glanced once at the pages, then again at Aria. “No secrets here, something’s off in the pacing.”

There was a beat. Aria didn’t want to sound too sure of herself – not here, not yet – but the silence between the lines had bothered her.

She hesitated, then said softly, “The lines are fine. But… I think what’s unsaid is missing. There’s no tension between the pauses.”

Lina blinked – then gave a low hum, almost impressed.

Aria understood the feeling – when a line should matter, but doesn’t. When it glides past without catching. “It feels like it wants to say something. But it never actually does.”

Lina tilted her head. “Exactly.” Then she gave Aria a look that was almost a question. “Go take your break. Clear your head. Then come back and tell me how you’d say it."

The lunch area smelled faintly of instant ramen and microwave curry. The room was bright and over-sanitized, with light bouncing off pale counters and laminate tables. Aria settled near the open window, letting the breeze wash in while unwrapping her sandwich. She didn’t usually eat with the others, but today her usual quiet corner was already claimed by a pile of camera gear and someone’s acoustic guitar.

Chiara was in the middle of a story, cross-legged on the opposite chair, gesturing wildly with a half-empty packet of miso chips, green-tipped hair bouncing with her outrage. “I’m telling you, he wants the shadows to be teal. In a funeral scene. Teal.”

Jasper bit into an apple. “Maybe the guy’s mourning in RGB.”

“Okay, but teal shadows,” Chiara went on. “Not blue. Teal. Who even dies in teal?”

Dev didn’t look up from his tablet. “I think he’s going for detached grief.”

Chiara’s hands flew up. “Then he should detach from the color wheel.”

Jasper leaned back, feet balanced on another chair. “I had a client once who wanted a transition that ‘felt like a whisper turning into a sunrise.’”

Chiara cackled. “Did you give them lens flare and a wind chime?”

“Close,” Jasper said. “I gave them a long dissolve and Radiohead.”

The table laughed.

Aria smiled quietly and picked at the edge of her sandwich. She listened, half-participant, half-witness. It wasn’t like talking to Maya, with their sharp, affectionate shorthand. Or Kian, who swung between tangents and deep dives. And it wasn’t like Reyhaan – with him, everything slowed. Careful. Weighted.

This was messier. Quicker. Voices tumbling over each other. Fast humor, light jabs, nothing too held.

Chiara nudged a tiny candy packet across the table. “Want one?”

Aria took a green bear. “Thanks.”

Jasper said, mouth full, “You’re always the calm one. I need that energy.”

Aria tilted her head. “You just need more sugar.”

That made Chiara laugh again. “See? She’s secretly dangerous.”

The moment hung, soft-edged. It was… nice. Messy, yes. But light as well. The kind of moment that didn’t demand much of her. Still, something tugged at the edge of her thoughts as the conversation spun on.

Everyone else shared their opinions like a chorus.

Aria lived for the pauses.

That’s why she liked Reyhaan — he lived in the in-between.

Back at Lina’s desk, the room was quieter. Takeaway bag gone. The sun had shifted – slanted warmer now, touching the spine of the script beside the keyboard – still marked, still unsettled.

“Want to take a stab at rewriting it?” she asked, like she was offering a refill of coffee.

Aria stilled. Blinked.

“The park scene?” she asked.

Lina nodded. “Second drafts are where the real work lives.”

Something softened in her chest – like a breath catching light instead of air.

A small smile surfaced before she could stop it. Something opened in her – not quite confidence, but something steady. A quiet certainty in her own breath.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and gave a quiet nod.

“Alright."

The booth lights were dimmed, casting a dusk-colored hush across the foam-padded walls. On the monitors, a loop of layered harmonies played gently – expanding, overlapping, dissolving, like something drifting just under the surface.

Jay stood beside Ilan at the console, arms folded, gaze sharp. His usual grin was replaced by a thoughtful frown as he listened to the playback. He had run the take twice already – a descending harmony meant to thread between two existing layers. Just shy, each time.

“That last part,” he said, without looking at anyone, “I think I was a breath too late.”

From the couch, Silas said – not unkindly, “You were. Let it fall, don’t push it.”

“That’s what I was hearing too.” Ilan tapped the metronome on his phone once, twice. “Come in on four and push just slightly into the fifth beat.”

Jay nodded and moved toward the glass door, slipping back into the recording booth without another word.

“If we keep this up,” Lucian said, seated at the corner of the console, one leg crossed over the other, “we’ll finish before midnight. Shocking.”

“Don’t jinx it.”

Reyhaan – seated beside him – gave a dry smirk while adjusting a subtle EQ notch, somewhere in the ambient haze near bar twelve.

“You okay with the balance on that last reverb swell?” Lucian asked quietly.

Reyhaan nodded, eyes on the screen. “The tail’s a little long. I’ll cut it tighter after the third take.”

“Good. Felt like it trailed out past what you meant.”

“I didn’t mean that much.”

Lucian smiled faintly. “Didn’t think so.”

The studio was quiet but focused – no laziness in the air. Even Jay’s usual looseness had steadied into precision. The others responded in kind.

Jay gave a short nod through the glass. Ilan tapped the talkback mic. “Whenever you’re ready.”

This time, when the music played, his voice came in early – soft and steady. It wove through the existing vocals with ease.

Reyhaan marked something lightly in a notebook balanced on his knee, thumb tracing the folded edge of the page. A pencil tapped once, then stilled. His other hand adjusted a slider on the desk, easing the backdrop under Jay’s voice.

When the track ended, Silas sat up and tilted his head toward the monitor. “There it is.”

Jay exhaled and gave a small nod.

Reyhaan leaned forward and pressed the mic button near the console. His voice, though used sparingly today, was calm and clear. “Hold that version. Don’t change the way you land the last line.”

Jay gave a small salute. “Noted.”

It wasn’t often he heard himself that clearly – not just the take, but the way it sat inside the track.

Lucian clicked to the ambient layer and isolated a short swell – one that dipped beneath the new harmony and returned quietly after.

“This section,” he said, dragging the timeline slightly. “That’s you, right?”

Reyhaan didn’t look up. Just nodded.

Lucian listened a moment longer, watching the soundform move – a shimmer and retreat.

“Feels like something’s still moving inside it. Like it hasn’t settled yet.”

Reyhaan didn’t answer immediately. His pencil paused on the page. Then – quietly – he said, “It’s not done telling me yet.”

He didn’t say what he thought it was trying to tell him.

Maybe he didn’t know yet.

Or maybe he wasn’t ready to name it.

Lucian didn’t press. He let the silence settle. Then reached forward and added a marker just beside the loop: Hold – draft.

Jay came back in, not grinning. Just calm. Reyhaan glanced up briefly, then back to the console.

Ilan turned slightly from the console. “Rey, want to try a variation tonight?”

Reyhaan shook his head, voice quieter now. “Let’s wait. The tone’s still changing.”

Behind Ilan, Jay stretched his arms over his head. “I like where it’s going. It’s got… weight. But not heavy.”

“Like memory,” Ilan said, glancing towards him.

Jay made a face. “Why are you always saying weirdly beautiful things?”

“Because I spend less time playing video games at 3 a.m.,” Ilan deadpanned.

“Low blow,” Jay muttered, grinning.

Silas, who had stayed on the couch, stood stretching and walked toward the console.

“We’re clean up to here,” he said, tapping a few beats after Jay’s track. “Let’s wrap the section. We can pick it up tomorrow with fresh ears.”

“Agreed,” Lucian said, saving the project. He stood as well. “We’ve got shape now.”

Jay ran both hands over his face, finally letting the weariness show. “Feels good. Haven’t layered like that in a while.”

Reyhaan closed his notebook. “It’s coming alive. You can hear it breathing under the others.”

Ilan smiled as he gathered his papers. “That’s exactly what it sounded like. Like breath under snowfall.”

Jay blinked. “That’s way too poetic. But accurate.”

Silas just huffed a laugh. “Let’s not get sentimental. Pack up before you all start writing metaphors on the walls.”

The group chuckled softly, but the warmth in the room was real. Not loud – just present. The light outside had faded into soft dusk. One layer done. More waiting.

They gathered their things in a slow rhythm – headphones unhooked, mugs collected, banter returning in pieces. But in the air, the sound they’d made still hovered.

Reyhaan lingered by the console as the others filed out, each in their own cadence. He tapped once on the desk, leaned forward, and muted the loop.

His fingers brushed the console edge, almost absentmindedly. Then, without a word, he turned off the screen and followed the others out.

The track still looped in his head – unfinished, but not unsteady.

Behind him, the silence wasn’t empty. It was still saying something. Just not in words.

It held the shape of what they’d made.