Morning didn't break; it glared.
The sunlight in Roy's living room was too bright, too clean, and far too quiet. Roy and Rohan were already dressed for the office, standing like twin pillars of judgment in the center of the room. They were running late, but the air was thick with a heavy, expectant silence. Neither was willing to leave until the mystery in the guest room walked through the door.
Roy had prepared a hangover soup and placed a glass of water with medicine on the wooden table. He stood with his hands behind his back, calm but watchful. Rohan, however, was restless. He leaned against Roy's shoulder, trying to look like his usual bored self, but his eyes were fixed on the bedroom door.
Click.
The door handle turned. Both men straightened instantly.
When she stepped out, she didn't look like the firebrand from the night before. She looked small, her clothes wrinkled, her hair a messy cloud around her pale face. The moment she saw them, she froze. Her breath hitched, and the color drained from her skin until she was as white as the walls.
"Where am I?" she rasped, her hand clutching the doorframe so hard her knuckles turned white. "What did you... Who are you?"
Her eyes darted to the front door, calculating the distance. She looked like a trapped animal.
"You're safe," Roy said immediately, his voice dropping into a low, soothing register. "I'm Roy. This is Rohan. You fainted at the club last night after... well, after a misunderstanding. You were alone and your phone was dead. We couldn't leave you there."
She didn't move. Her gaze skipped over Roy and landed on Rohan. She saw the faint red scratch on his neck, the memory of her own hand swinging the bag flashing back like a nightmare.
"I have to go," she whispered, turning to find her shoes.
"Eat first," Roy urged, gesturing to the table. "You're shaking. You won't make it to the end of the street like that."
"I'm not hungry," she snapped, though her stomach betrayed her with a hollow growl. She felt exposed, humiliated. Waking up in a stranger's house was the ultimate failure for a girl who had spent her life trying to be invisible.
"The soup isn't poisoned," Rohan drawled, his voice laced with his signature arrogance. "And honestly? After the way you rearranged my face with your handbag, I'm the one who should be worried about being in a room with you."
She flinched at his tone, but it worked. The sheer normalcy of his sarcasm broke through her panic. She looked at the soup, then at Roy's kind face, and slowly sat at the edge of the chair. She swallowed the medicine and took a few sips of the broth, her hands trembling against the ceramic bowl.
"It was a dare," she said suddenly, her voice muffled.
Rohan froze. "A what?"
"A dare," she repeated, looking at her reflection in the soup. "My friends... they said I was too stiff. Too 'boring.' They dared me to hit the first guy I saw. They were laughing. I was... I had too much to drink, and I just wanted them to stop calling me invisible."
Rohan felt a sharp sting of insult. He wasn't a person to her; he had been a punchline. He was a pawn in a game played by people he wouldn't even deign to look at.
"Glad to know my head is a playground for your 'friends,'" Rohan said, his eyes darkening.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, finally looking him in the eye. "I'm so sorry. I'm not like that."
"We know," Roy said gently, cutting off Rohan's biting retort. "But there's more, isn't there? You were terrified before you even hit him."
She hesitated, her thumb tracing the rim of the bowl. "There's a guy. A stalker. He's been following me for a week. To the office, to the hostel... everywhere. I called my friends because I was scared, but they just joked about it. They said I should be 'flattered' that someone noticed me."
A heavy silence fell over the room. Rohan's annoyance vanished, replaced by a cold, protective instinct he didn't quite understand. He thought of his own sisters, of the women he flirted with—none of them dealt with this kind of shadow.
"Is he still out there?" Roy asked, his voice firm.
"It's my problem," she said, standing up abruptly, her pride snapping back into place. "I shouldn't have told you. I'll deal with it. Don't worry... Roy."
She used his name with a hesitant softness that made Rohan's chest tighten.
"If he shows up again," Roy said, stepping closer, "you call us. No dares. No jokes. You call."
She looked at Roy, then at Rohan. Rohan looked terrifying—his jaw set, his gaze sharp enough to cut glass. Strangely, that look didn't scare her anymore. It made her feel, for the first time in a week, like she wasn't standing in the dark alone.
"Okay," she whispered.
They dropped her at her hostel in silence. As she stepped out into the morning humidity, the world felt different.
"Call us," Roy repeated through the window.
She watched their car disappear into the city traffic. Her heart was still racing, but the fear was different now. It was no longer just about the man in the shadows; it was about the two men who had just stepped into the light.