The studio door shut behind Reyhaan with a padded click. Warmth greeted him – not just in temperature, but the kind woven into music, memory, and things built together. A familiar bassline looped low from one of the monitors, more texture than sound. Coiled cables snaked across the wooden floor like roots. The scent of soldered wires and espresso floated quietly in the air.

Jay lounged backward over a chair, twirling a guitar pick between his fingers with the deliberate focus of someone waiting to be noticed. Ilan crouched near the synth station, adjusting a cable connection, his brow furrowed in concentration, as if coaxing it into cooperation.

Jay looked up, grinning. “Look who’s finally graced us with his moody presence.”

“What is that? Ten minutes late,” Ilan added without looking up. “That’s a full hour in soundcheck time.”

He wore that quiet half-smile – the kind that meant he was either humoring them or silently plotting revenge.

Reyhaan raised an eyebrow, set his backpack beside the nearest amp, and shrugged off his jacket. “Five.”

“Five minutes late, or five extra layers of mysterious silence added to your aura?” Jay said, winking.

“He was probably coming from his secret life,” Ilan said, pushing a slider and causing the speakers to emit a high-pitched whine. Jay winced. “You know, the one where he moonlights as a very intense noir detective.”

Jay tossed the pick into a cup and missed. “Okay, okay, tell us – are you coming from somewhere important or just dramatically walking slow for effect?”

Reyhaan hesitated.

The answer was simple – he’d just dropped Aria off at work. But it didn’t feel simple – not with her thank you still echoing in his ears like something fragile. Her silence had fallen like a curtain he hadn’t dared pull aside. And the way she looked at him – still unreadable, but trusting.

His pause stretched too long.

Ilan glanced up. “Oh? That was a long delay.”

Reyhaan recovered with a loose shrug, then signed, “Stopped for coffee. Got caught in a little wind.”

Jay raised an eyebrow but didn’t push.

Ilan snorted. “Fair enough. We're cleaning up Jay’s sonic mess, and maybe putting that second vocal layer on the track from last week.”

Jay pointed toward the pop filter stand. “I fixed it. Kind of.”

Reyhaan raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, it now only falls on your head once every four takes. Which is statistically an improvement.”

A laugh escaped Reyhaan, unexpected and soft. He moved toward the keyboard setup.

Ilan peeked up from the mixing deck. “You missed the part where Jay played a D chord and tried to convince me –.”

Before he could finish, there was a sudden metallic clink – sharp and hollow, like a gear or tool falling onto concrete. Ilan paused mid-reach, glancing down at the synth rig. “Oops,” he muttered. “Loose screw in the stand again.”

But Reyhaan had already gone still.

His fingers curled against the edge of the keys. Pulse kicked once in his throat.

The sound – it wasn’t just metallic. It was familiar. It slid beneath his skin like a scent that stirs an unfinished thought. The same clink, echoing from memory.

Ilan, mid-adjustment, looked up. “You okay?”

Reyhaan blinked, once. “Yeah. Sorry. Just spaced.”

But his gaze had shifted to a shadow stretching across the base of the equipment rack. His throat felt dry; his hands heavier than before. The sound had been similar – identical, almost – to the one he’d heard –

“Rey,” Ilan’s voice softened, stepping in. “You sure?”

There was a pause. Reyhaan opened his mouth, then closed it again. He didn’t want to derail this – didn’t want to be the one who always pulled focus to his own fraying edge.

But Ilan waited.

There was no reason to keep it in, not anymore.

“It’s probably nothing.” He exhaled. “But… there’s been this feeling. Like someone’s watching me. It’s happened a few times.”

Jay straightened. “Where?”

Reyhaan counted on his fingers. “Three times. Once in the Company parking lot, a few weeks back. Another time when I left Aria’s place. And then again… outside Maya and Kian’s place yesterday.”

Ilan frowned. “Yesterday?”

“I didn’t see anyone,” Reyhaan signed. “But Aria… I think she noticed the sound too. She turned the same way I did.”

There was silence in the studio now. Just the low buzz of the amp, the blinking light from the synth deck. Ilan looked at him carefully.

“That’s not nothing,” he said. “You’re saying someone might’ve been following you.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe I’m being paranoid.”

Jay frowned. “Even if it’s nothing, it feels like something to you. That’s what matters.”

Ilan reached for his phone. “We can ask Leo at reception to pull the CCTV from the parking lot. At least from the day you said it first happened. You park on Level B3, right?”

Reyhaan blinked, as if unsure, then gave a hesitant nod. “You don’t have to –”

“We’re not letting this slide,” Jay cut in gently. “If someone’s been tailing you, that’s a security issue. We log it. You don’t get to brush this off just because you’re used to chaos.”

Reluctantly, Reyhaan nodded.

Within half an hour, the studio’s atmosphere had shifted. Jay lingered by the monitor, keeping the session alive. Ilan coordinated with Leo downstairs, patching them into the security system for the building’s underground level.

The footage rolled.

In grainy monochrome, they saw the back of the building's parking zone. At 10:04 AM, Silas’s van pulled in, its discreet VYER crest barely visible. At 10:07 AM, Jay’s sleek electric bike came into view. And at 10:13 AM, Lucian exited the building, tugging on his hoodie.

No one else. No sudden figures lurking. No extra movement beyond standard silhouettes.

Reyhaan leaned in slightly. “Can you rewind… just before I walked in?”

Leo did. And then, there was movement just at the edge of the frame.

“Pause,” Ilan said.

Jay squinted. “You see that?”

A split-second before Reyhaan entered the frame – a faint shadow in the far corner. Just beyond the reach of the ceiling light. But before anything more could appear –

The screen glitched – just for a second.

Static.

Then Reyhaan stepped in, and the moment passed.

The corner stood empty.

“Rewind,” Ilan muttered, then called out, “Hey – can you pull the raw footage from B3 west corner? We’re looking at something odd.”

“There’s a known blind spot there,” Leo’s voice filtered in from the speaker. “Coverage cuts out for about six seconds between camera switchover. Motion sensors lag.”

“Just there?” Ilan asked.

“Yeah. Just that stretch. We’ve flagged it for weeks.”

Jay exhaled through his teeth. “So if someone wanted to stay hidden…”

“They’d know exactly where to stand,” Reyhaan finished.

The three of them exchanged glances. The studio air cooled – not fearful, just sharply alert.

Ilan finally leaned back. “Then this wasn’t accidental.”

Jay nodded grimly. “This was planned.”

And Reyhaan, still composed, didn’t look away from the frozen frame. The shadow echoed – not in sound, but in certainty.

The city was dipped into a velvet blue beyond the railing, lights blinking in a slow hush beneath the settling sun. The rooftop garden above the VYER studio breathed with a stillness – vines curling along the rails, the scent of lavender faint in the silence.

Reyhaan stood near the railing, coat collar turned up, one hand lightly resting on the cool metal. He was half-listening to the quiet wind in the trees above, the hum of the rooftop heaters kicking in, until Lucian’s shadow blocked the glow beside him.

He didn’t start with questions. He only leaned against the glass railing, held his phone out. The screen lit up with a quiet glow as he turned it toward Reyhaan without preamble.

“We flagged this from the building’s side entry footage. Time-stamped. Last night.”

On the screen, a paused still of a CCTV frame. Grainy, but clear enough. A man, too still for comfort, half-shadowed behind a column in the parking lot.

Reyhaan didn’t reach for the phone. His jaw ticked, tightening. His thumb pressed into the railing, knuckle whitening. But his shoulders stayed still. No panic. Just processing. Something in him had already shifted.

Far below, the distant hum of city traffic rose like a tide – softened by height, steady in its rhythm. The world was still moving, even if he wasn’t.

Lucian flicked to another frame. Same man. Different spot. Same gaze.

“This one's from the basement cam archive,” he said, voice steady, no rise or edge. “The number plate is fake. They knew what they were doing.”

He lowered the screen.

“We don’t know who he is yet. But we’re already ahead of it.” He added. “You’re not alone in this.”

Reyhaan nodded once, then reached for the notebook kept in his coat pocket. He didn’t speak – not tonight. Not because he didn’t want to. But because he’d recorded vocal harmonies earlier in the afternoon, the familiar scratch at the back of his throat had returned. He was deliberately resting his voice, scribbling instead when needed, letting his throat recover gently.

“One step ahead is good,” he wrote. “But it might not be enough.”

Lucian glanced at him sideways. “Security will start tailing discreetly. You don’t have to say anything unless you want to. But if it were me –” He trailed off. “I’d want to make sure the people I care about aren’t caught in the ripple.”

That made Reyhaan’s eyes flick toward him, then down to his notebook, pen still in hand.

“I’m not sure how to tell her.”

Lucian didn’t answer immediately. He just nodded, as if to say, Then don’t. Not yet. But don’t disappear either.

Reyhaan pulled his phone from his pocket. Opened Aria’s message thread.

The chat blinked up – last seen a little while ago.

He paused. His thumbs hovered over the keypad. Then, he began typing: Hey. Just wanted to ask – have you noticed –

Paused.

Backspaced.

Rewrote: Be careful when you –

Deleted again.

His reflection stared back at him on the screen.

He locked it and let his arm rest on the glass railing.

The air was cooling as Reyhaan stood alone after Lucian left, notebook shut in one hand. City lights were beginning to glitter. The silence stayed with him as he tucked the notebook away and turned toward the elevator – the decision not quite made, but the direction already forming.

Over the next few days, Reyhaan found himself forming new habits without entirely admitting why.

He waited for Aria across the street from her workplace on quiet evenings – not only to check the corners, the shadows, the passing cars – but to catch the way she walked toward him with a soft smile already on her lips. Not surprised anymore. Expectant, even.

“Rough day?” he asked once, when she slid into the passenger seat and dropped her bag at her feet.

She shook her head. “Not really. Just long.” Then, after a beat: “It helps. You being here.”

Sometimes they took the longer route home. A walk, she’d say, simply because the sky looked nice. And he never said no.

They brushed hands once – during one of those walks – their knuckles grazing. Neither of them pulled away at first. But the pause stretched, quiet and weightless, until Reyhaan gently moved his fingers back, just a fraction. Enough not to let something happen. Enough to let it almost happen.

One night, while dropping her home, Aria tugged at her seatbelt. It jammed.

“Hang on,” Reyhaan murmured, leaning over, gently guiding the belt loose from where it had caught. She stilled, breath catching for a second, too aware of how close he was. As he clicked the buckle into place, his shoulder brushed hers.

Aria looked at him – this time longer. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

Reyhaan gave her a half-smile, then looked ahead.

As she stepped out, she paused before closing the door. “My parents are arriving in a few days,” she added, voice lighter. “They’ve been meaning to visit. We finally worked out the dates.”

He nodded. “That’s good. You’ll be with family.”

She lingered for a moment longer, something unreadable in her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “But this… It’s started to feel like something, too.”

He didn’t ask what this meant. Just watched her walk up the path to her door – safe. Whole. Here.

Back in the silence of the car, Reyhaan leaned his head back against the seat, fingers still tingling from where they’d brushed hers.

Streetlights spilled across the windshield in passing gold – fleeting, like everything he wasn’t saying.

He didn’t know if he was protecting her from the truth – or from himself. There were days he wanted to tell her everything. But what if the knowing broke the quiet they’d built? What if it asked her to carry something she hadn’t chosen?

But he knew one thing:

He wasn’t doing this merely out of fear.

He wasn’t just staying to keep her safe.

He was staying because this – the walks, the silence, the way she looked at him now – had started to feel like the only place he still belonged.