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. "Do not make me explain quantum mechanics to you again."
You wouldn't.
Maya's expression became completely serious.
"I would."
Yama 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."
Maya 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."
For a moment, Fahish simply stared at Ohi.
There was a long, almost painfully awkward silence between them.
He looked at him as though he were genuinely trying to understand how the conversation had somehow reached this point.
Then he let out a quiet sigh and finally raised both hands in surrender, "Fine, fine, Ohi. She is your sister too. I get it, honestly you don't have to keep reminding me."
He shook his head with a small chuckle, glancing briefly toward Maya before looking back at Ohi.
"Anyway, enough arguing." He reached for his car keys from the table and casually slipped — them into his pocket. "I'll take her to school.
I'm heading out anyway, so it's not a big deal. I'll drop her off at the school gate and then I'll head to wherever I need to be. "
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. Fahish. The exhibition you've been preparing for for months. The one you practically disappeared into your studio for.
And now, suddenly, the entire exhibition can apparently survive without its own artist?"
"It can wait."
"No, it isn't."
"It can wait."
"You keep saying that as if none of that matters."
"It matters. Of course it matters but right now, something else matters more."
Naya 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, so that's how it is now. You are the one who wants to drive her like a proper big brother. How touching."
Ohi leaned back against the sofa with a slow, unhurried ease,
"But isn't that funny? Because I remember what you said that morning. So....
Our magnificent author has decided to remind us of what happened that day? You know—the very same day 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, a quiet memory surfaced in his mind. [ THREE DAYS EARLIER, 8:00 A.M ]
Warm sunlight spilled through the tall arched windows, pooling across the polished marble floor in long golden sheets.
The tea service had been laid out on the low table between the sofas. Plates of toast and pastries sat untouched in careful arrangement.
Fahad sat in his usual leather armchair near the window, laptop balanced on his knee, his gray eyes fixed on the screen.
Fahim occupied the far end of the largest sofa, a medical journal open in his lap, his glasses reflected the pale morning light.
Fahan sat cross-legged on the floor near the coffee table — completely ignoring the chairs — a miniature drone laid out in pieces before him. A tiny screwdriver moved between his fingers with practiced precision.
Faha was sprawled across the chaise lounge, a script resting open on his chest. Occasionally his lips moved, silently rehearsing lines only he could hear.
Fahish sat on the window seat, sketchbook balanced on his knee. His pencil moved in soft, unhurried strokes across the page.
The room was quiet. The comfortable, well-worn quiet of a family that had learned to share space without sharing words.
But one chair remained empty.
The high-backed chair near the grand piano — Farhan's chair — sat untouched, exactly where it always sat, no one looked at it. No one needed to. They all knew it would remain empty.
That was the rhythm of the house now.
[ TAP.TAP. TAP ] Footsteps, light. Mahi stepped into the dining hall. She was dressed in a simple cream-colored sari, her light grayish-brown hair pinned back neatly.
Her black eyes carried their usual calm authority.
But there was something else there today.
Something that made Faha's script lower by an inch.Something that made Fahim's hand pause mid-turn.
Mahi was smiling. Not the measured, polite smile she wore at charity events, this was different. Her eyes were bright, her entire face seemed to have softened.
As though some invisible weight had been lifted from her shoulders. The brothers exchanged - quite glances, Fahim closed his journal without marking the page.
Faha's fork stopped halfway to his mouth. He blinked once. Then twice. Then he set the fork down and stared openly.
Fahan set down his screwdriver. None of them had seen that expression on their mother's face in fourteen years.
Faha was the first to break the silence, his brow furrowed with genuine confusion.
"Mom…?"
"Yes, Faha?"
"What happened? You're— you're smiling like, actually smiling. Did something happen? Did someone die? Is that why you're happy?"
Mahi let out a soft laugh, "Faha, must something bad happen for me to be happy?"
"Yes," Faha said without hesitation. "Historically? Yes." Fahan snorted into his toast.
Mahi shook her head once and walked toward the table. In her hand was a folder, a thin manila folder. She placed it on the table, in the center, where everyone could see it.
Then she stepped back and waited.Fahim looked down at it, then at his mother. "What is this?"
Mahi didn't answer.
The brothers exchanged glances. Fahim set his pen down, reached across the table and picked up the folder. He opened it.
His eyes moved across the first page. Then stopped.
His expression did not change but his fingers — the same fingers that had performed surgeries with impossible steadiness — trembled. Just slightly. DNA Analysis.
His fingers tightened slightly around the paper. He read the report again, this time more carefully.
Fahad noticed. "Fahim, what is it?"
"It's a DNA report. The things that needed to match..." he said quietly, "It matched."
The room went very still. Fahan's toast fell back onto his plate. Fahish's pencil slipped from his fingers and landed soundlessly on the table.
No one dared to interrupt the moment. For years, they had lived with an absence that had never truly stopped hurting. And now—
A single report lay on the table between them.
A possibility they had once been too afraid to hope for.
"We found her."
Fahad was the first to move. He rose from his chair and crossed the room, he took the folder from Fahim's hands and read it himself.
"Oh God. It's her, It's actually her."
Faha let out a breath he had been holding for what felt like an eternity. "She's alive?"
"She's alive," Mahi confirmed.
Fahan pressed both hands to his face. "Oh, oh thank God. Oh, thank God."
He was already on his feet. "Where is she? When can we meet her? Can we go now? Right now? I'll get the car—"
"Sit down, Faha," Fahad said quietly.
"But.... But—"
"Sit. Down."
Faha sat.
Mahi stepped forward. She placed a hand on Faha's shoulder — a small, gentle gesture that none of the brothers had seen in years.
"She is coming home, today evening."
The room exhaled.
Fahan laughed — a real laugh and relieved. Faha pumped his fist in the air. Fahim nodded slowly, a small, rare smile touching his lips.
"I have waited fourteen years for this," Mahi said, her voice steady. "I have waited. I have prayed. I have refused to give up — even when everyone told me to."
"So, when she comes home — don't overwhelm her. Do not demand anything from her. She has been alone for fourteen years. Let her come to us in her own time."
Faha nodded immediately. "Of course. Whatever she needs."
Fahan nodded. "We will be careful."
Mahi's eyes slowly moved toward the far end of the table. She took in her sons' reactions one by one—their stunned expressions, the disbelief in their eyes.
She was satisfied. This was exactly the reaction she had been waiting to see, her gaze shifted. It landed on Fahish.
He was sitting exactly as he had been,expression empty. His pencil lay untouched on the table. His eyes were fixed on a point somewhere in the —middle distance.
Mahi's smile faltered, she stepped back toward the table, her brow furrowing slightly. "Fahish."