The living room felt smaller than it had an hour ago.

Aria's father leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped tight enough to whiten the knuckles. Across from him, Reyhaan's parents sat with the stillness of people who had already weathered the worst of the storm and were simply waiting for the debris to settle.

The television was muted, but the headline crawled across the bottom of the screen in an endless, toxic loop. Blurred photographs. Speculation. His daughter's name, invisible but implied in every pixel.

"They won't stop," Reyhaan's father said. His voice was low, gravelly with exhaustion. "Truth doesn't matter to them. Only the feed."

"And in the feeding, they drag down anyone close enough to touch," Aria's father replied. He didn't look at the screen. He couldn't. "My daughter didn't ask for this."

"Neither did Reyhaan." The mother spoke up, her tone steady, though her eyes betrayed a fatigue that mirrored his own wife's. "He guards his life fiercely. He would rather stand alone than risk anyone else carrying his weight."

Beside him, his wife let out a breath that trembled. "That sounds familiar. Aria thinks needing help is a failure."

A current of recognition passed between the two couples—parents watching their children drown in stubborn silence.

Then the boy, Ayaan, pushed off the wall where he'd been hovering. "I don't know Aria," he said, his voice cutting through the heavy air. "But I know my brother. This mess... it wouldn't be this complicated if it was true. If they did actually care."

The room seemed to contract.

Aria's father looked up. He exchanged a glance with his wife. They had seen it too—in the way Aria checked her phone, the way Reyhaan had sat at this very table a week ago, peeling oranges with a patience that didn't belong to a casual friend.

"You think they aren't strangers to each other?" he asked.

"I think," Ayaan said, crossing his arms, "that he's changed this year. He's softer. That only happens when he has something to lose."

Reyhaan's mother leaned in. "Does she speak of anyone else? Is there anyone else?"

"No," Aria's father said instantly. "If there were, we'd know. She doesn't hide what matters."

"Then I'll tell you what I know," Reyhaan's mother said, her voice dropping to a hush that carried more weight than a shout. "My son loves her. He hasn't admitted it to the world, maybe not even to himself fully, but I hear it. He has never given his trust lightly. He gave it to her."

Aria's father felt a pang in his chest. He looked at the closed door of Aria's room, then back to these strangers who felt suddenly, terrifyingly, like kin.

"Then maybe," Reyhaan's mother continued, "we stop waiting for the storm to pass. Maybe we can build a shelter."

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Marriage."

The word landed on the coffee table like a gavel.

"The press won't stop chasing a scandal," she said. "But they will stop chasing a wife. It legitimizes them. It shields her. And perhaps..." she hesitated, looking at her hands, "...perhaps it gives them the excuse they need to stop hiding."

His instinct was to recoil. To say no. His daughter was young, she was building a life, she wasn't a pawn to be moved for PR.

But he looked at his wife. She didn't look shocked. She looked... resigned. As if she had already done the math and found the same answer.

We can't protect her from the world, her eyes seemed to say. But maybe he can.

The protest died in his throat.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside—quick, uneven.

Ayaan moved to the door before the bell could ring. He pulled it open.

Reyhaan stood there, looking drawn and grey, with Aria just beside him.

Her father watched her face as she stepped in. He saw the confusion, the sudden rigidity as she realized who was in the room. He saw her look at him—her father—for an explanation.

And he realized, with a heavy heart, that he was about to break her trust to save her future.

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The apartment didn't feel like hers.

It smelled of her mother's tea and her father's cologne, but the air was displaced by strangers. Reyhaan's parents sat on her sofa. His brother stood by the partition. And Reyhaan... Reyhaan stood behind her, a shadow she couldn't read.

Panic pricked at her skin.

"Mom? Dad?" Reyhaan's voice was rough. "What are you doing here?"

"We had to know," his father said, standing. "The reporters wouldn't stop calling. We needed to know you were handling it."

"We tried reaching you," his mother added, eyes scanning Reyhaan's face for cracks.

Reyhaan's hand went to a pocket that was empty. "Left my phone in the studio," he muttered.

"Avoiding this won't make it vanish," his father said. He looked at Aria then. A look of apology, but also assessment. "And it's not just your name anymore, Reyhaan. It's hers."

Aria retreated, her back hitting the wall. They were talking about her like she was a concept. A problem to be solved.

"I won't let her be dragged further into this," Reyhaan said. His tone was clipped, controlled.

"She already is," his mother said gently. "She doesn't deserve this scrutiny, Reyhaan. None of it."

The walls felt too close. Aria couldn't breathe.

"Excuse me," she whispered.

She slipped down the short hall, needing distance, needing air. She leaned against the bedroom door, pressing her palms to her eyes.

But the voices carried.

"...peace..." "...shield..."

Her stomach buckled, sharp and sudden. She pressed closer to the wood, straining. The words sharpened.

"...you can't decide that for us."

"...marriage ends the story..."

Her blood went cold.

Her body moved before her thoughts could catch up. She pushed off the door, stumbling back into the living room. "What did you say?"

The conversation snapped off. Every head turned.

"We're talking about a solution," her mother said. Her voice was calm, terrifyingly steady. "Marriage. It's the only way to kill the story before it consumes you both."

Marriage.

"No." The word tore out of Aria. She looked at her parents, then at Reyhaan. "Tell them. Tell them this is insane."

Reyhaan held her gaze. His eyes were dark, bottomless. His hands were curled into fists at his sides—a gesture she knew. A gesture that meant he was fighting something.

Say no, she begged silently. Tell them we're just friends. Tell them you don't want me.

His mother looked between them. "Reyhaan. What do you say?"

The room seemed to tilt. The clock ticked—loud, mocking.

Reyhaan's jaw flexed. He took a breath.

Aria waited for the refusal. She waited for him to protect her, the way he always did.

"Yes."

The word was quiet. Final.

Aria's lips parted. "No..."

He looked straight at her. There was no softness in his face now. Only a terrifying resolve. "Yes," he repeated.

Her ribs felt like they were collapsing.

He hadn't asked her. He hadn't even looked at her until it was done.

Her mother was speaking, her father was nodding, but the sound blurred into static. All she could see was Reyhaan. Standing there. Agreeing to bind his life to hers not because he wanted to, but because it was a way out.

A transaction.

She looked at him, and for the first time, she didn't see her friend. She saw a stranger who had just signed her life away.

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The door clicked shut.

The sound shouldn't have been loud, but it echoed like a gunshot in Reyhaan's chest. He didn't look back at the apartment building. He couldn't. If he looked back, he would see Aria's face again—the betrayal etched into her features when he said the word.

Yes.

It tasted like ash.

His parents and Ayaan followed him out into the cool Rotterdam night. The streetlamps hummed, casting long, sickly shadows across the pavement.

"Take them," Reyhaan said to Ayaan, his voice unrecognizable to his own ears. He didn't stop walking toward his car. "Take them to your place. Or back to Amsterdam. Not mine."

"Bro—"

"Do it." He stopped at the car door, gripping the handle. He glanced at his mother. "I don't know who's watching. I won't drag you into this."

Ayaan hesitated only a moment before nodding.

"You made the right choice," his mother said softly. "It protects her."

Reyhaan laughed—a short, sharp sound that had no humor in it. "No. This isn't a solution. It's just a different kind of disaster."

He got in the car before she could answer.

The drive was a blur of neon and rain-slicked asphalt. He drove on autopilot, his mind stuck in the living room he had just fled.

She looked at me like I was the enemy.

And maybe he was. He had just trapped her in a marriage she didn't want, with a man she didn't love, all to save her from a headline.

He pulled into the underground lot at the studio. The darkness was a relief. He killed the engine and sat there, gripping the wheel until his hands shook.

He had promised to protect her.

He just hadn't realized that protecting her would mean breaking her heart.

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The studio was dark, save for the glow of the monitors.

Reyhaan let the door shut behind him. He felt like he was walking into a confession booth.

They were all there. Ilan at the console. Silas on the couch with a guitar. Jay drumming his fingers on his knees. Lucian by the window.

The motion stopped when he entered.

"Finally," Jay said, sitting up. "Where have you been? You've been offline for hours."

"What happened?" Silas asked.

Reyhaan didn't answer. He walked to the nearest chair and sat down, dropping his head into his hands.

Lucian moved first. He walked over, placed a bottle of water on the table, and set Reyhaan's phone down beside it.

The screen lit up.

Missed Call: Aria. Missed Call: Aria. Missed Call: Aria.

His stomach twisted. She was calling him. Asking for an explanation he couldn't give without breaking down.

He pressed the power button, plunging the screen into darkness.

"Why aren't you answering her?" Ilan asked, his voice sharp. "She's been frantic."

"I can't," Reyhaan whispered.

"Did you fight?" Jay asked.

"Worse." Reyhaan looked up. His eyes burned. "I broke it. Whatever we had... I broke it."

The room went still.

The admission scraped his throat raw. He dragged in a shaky breath, searching for stability.

"What did you do?" Lucian asked.

"I said yes." Reyhaan took a breath that rattled in his lungs. "My parents... her parents. They decided the only way to stop the press was marriage. They asked me."

He looked at his friends. The people who knew him better than anyone.

"She was standing right there. She looked at me, begging me to stop it. And I said yes."

Jay swore softly.

"It's done," Reyhaan said. His voice was flat, dead. "In two days... we're getting married."

The silence that followed wasn't peaceful. It was the heavy, suffocating silence of a crash. The hum of the monitors sounded like a flatline.

He had saved her reputation.

And in doing so, he had lost her.