Morning arrived gently, as though it had learned from the night before.
Light slipped into the house through the wide windows in thin, respectful lines, touching corners without demanding attention. The air smelled of tea leaves and rice, of something warm beginning again. The walls, which had held too many silences the night before, now carried softer sounds—footsteps, murmurs, the quiet clink of cups being set down.
Everyone was awake.
Everyone was present.
And yet—everyone was pretending, in their own careful way, that the night had loosened its grip.
In the living room, Rahi sat cross-legged on the rug, leaning back against the sofa, a cup of tea balanced dangerously in his hand. Across from him sat Naya, legs folded neatly, eyes bright, a half-smile on her lips.
"So," Naya said lightly, "you still believe infinity can be counted?"
Rahi scoffed. "I didn't say counted. I said approached."
"That's cowardice disguised as philosophy."
Rahi laughed. "Spoken like someone who's never faced a limit problem at three in the morning."
Their voices were easy, unburdened. Too easy, perhaps—but that was the point.
In the open kitchen beyond the living room, Mahi stood at the stove, sleeves rolled up, hair tied back with a scarf she rarely wore. She moved with intention, chopping vegetables carefully, as though the rhythm of the knife against the board could anchor her.
Rani stood beside her, washing rice, sleeves damp, eyes occasionally flicking toward the living room.
"You don't have to do all this," Rani said softly. "We could've ordered something."
Mahi shook her head. "No. I want to cook today."
There was a pause.
"Cooking helps me think," she added, quieter.
Rani nodded. She didn't ask what she was thinking about. Some thoughts were still too sharp to touch.
At the far end of the living room, the Ghost of Hell members had gathered around Maya's brothers. The conversation there was… louder. Animated. Almost heated.
"Your proof assumes continuity," Fahad said, leaning forward, fingers tapping against his knee. "But you haven't justified it."
Nahir raised an eyebrow. "Continuity is implied."
"Implied is not proven," Fahim countered calmly, adjusting his glasses. "You're skipping a foundational step."
Kaelen crossed his arms. "In combat mathematics, assumptions save time."
"This is not combat," Fahad shot back. "This is theory."
Tharos laughed, a deep sound that echoed faintly. "All theory becomes combat eventually."
Veyra tilted her head. "You're all arguing the wrong thing. The question isn't whether the function converges—it's whether convergence even matters in a non-closed system."
Silence followed.
Then Fahad blinked. "That's… actually a fair point."
Nahir smirked. "See? Mathematics is a language. You just have to speak it fluently."
Fahim frowned slightly. "No. Mathematics is discipline. Language bends. Numbers don't."
"Tell that to imaginary numbers," Eryth said lazily from the armrest.
"That's a misnomer," Fahad replied instantly. "They're as real as—"
"—as Maya's test scores?" Farhan cut in from behind them, half-smiling.
The room paused.
Not sharply. Not painfully.
Just enough.
Then someone laughed—Rahi, from the rug.
"Okay, okay," he said. "Rule of the house today: no turning math into philosophy."
"That removes all the fun," Veyra muttered.
From the window seat, Maya remained apart from it all.
She sat sideways on the low bench by the window, knees drawn up slightly, a sketchbook resting on her lap. A pencil moved steadily in her hand, soft strokes catching the light. Outside, the garden was quiet. Leaves stirred. A bird perched briefly on the railing, then flew away.
Maya drew in silence.
Her face was calm. Not blank—just still. As though emotion had learned not to disturb her concentration.
Mahim stood near the doorway, watching the room with a careful gaze. His eyes moved from the kitchen, to the boys arguing, to Rahi and Naya, and finally—to Maya.
He hesitated.
Then he walked toward her.
"Maya," he said gently.
She looked up immediately. Attentive. Present.
"Yes?"
He glanced at the sketchbook. "What are you drawing?"
She looked down again. "Arib."
Mahim smiled faintly. "That's abstract."
"It is accurate," she replied.
He took a breath. "Your school… how is it going?"
The question was simple. Ordinary.
The kind of question parents asked when they didn't know what else to say.
Maya considered it.
"It is fine," she said. "Classes are manageable."
"Any trouble?" Mahim asked. "With teachers? Students?"
"No."
A pause.
"You don't like it?" he asked, more carefully now.
Maya's pencil paused for half a second.
"I do not dislike it."
"That's not the same as liking it."
She looked up at him then. Her gaze was steady, thoughtful.
"School is a structure," she said. "I function well within structures."
Mahim nodded slowly. "Do you have friends?"
"No."
"Do you talk to your classmates?"
"When necessary."
From the kitchen, Rani called out, trying to sound casual, "She means she terrifies them with perfect scores."
Maya did not react.
Mahim smiled despite himself. "Do you draw in your notebook even when you go to school?"
"Yes."
"What do you draw?"
Maya turned the sketchbook slightly, just enough for him to see.
Lines. Shadows. A person. A boy between 19 and 20 years old .
Mahim swallowed.
"Arib ," he said.
Maya nodded once and returned to her work.
Behind them, the math argument had reignited.
"You cannot redefine zero just to make your proof elegant," Fahad said sharply.
"Elegance is not the goal," Nahir replied. "Consistency is."
"But your consistency collapses under recursion."
"So does yours under edge cases."
"Edge cases matter!"
"They matter only if your system survives them."
Fahim interjected calmly, "You're both assuming linearity. The real flaw is dimensional."
Everyone stopped.
"What?" Tharos asked.
Fahim continued, unbothered. "You're arguing in two dimensions about a three-dimensional problem."
A pause.
Then Kaelen nodded slowly. "He's right."
Fahad leaned back, exhaling. "I hate when doctors understand math."
Fahim allowed himself a small smile.
Laughter spread—not loud, not explosive—but real.
In the kitchen, Mahi set a pot aside and wiped her hands.
"Breakfast in ten minutes," she announced.
Rani smiled. "See? Normal life."
Maya finished her sketch and closed the book.
Outside, the sun climbed higher.
Inside, the house held together—carefully, deliberately—not by forgetting the night before, but by choosing, for this morning at least, to live beyond it.
And in that choice, quiet as breath, something fragile and old took root again.
Breakfast did not arrive like a ceremony.It came the way mornings always had in this house—
with quiet footsteps,with plates placed carefully,with the sound of spoons touching porcelain like a promise that the world, for now, was still intact.
The table filled slowly.No one rushed.No one spoke too loudly.
It was as if the night before had taught them reverence.
Mahi brought the dishes herself. Rice, lentils, vegetables—simple food, made with hands that needed something ordinary to hold onto. Rani followed behind her, carrying water glasses, her movements light, deliberate, as though she were afraid of disturbing an invisible balance.
"Sit," Mahi said gently to everyone. "Before it gets cold."
Chairs scraped softly.
The Ghost of Hell members settled at one side of the table with Maya's brothers. The earlier debate about mathematics had cooled into something gentler, but it had not disappeared.
Fahad looked at the plate in front of him, then at Nahir. "You know," he said, almost thoughtfully, "if we treat infinity not as a destination but as behavior—"
Nahir's eyes lit up immediately. "Exactly. That's what I was trying to say earlier."
"But you said it poorly," Fahim added dryly.
Nahir smiled. "I speak action. You speak precision."
"They are not the same," Fahim replied, but there was no sharpness in it now.
Kaelen leaned forward slightly. "In battle calculations, we don't need perfect infinity. We need thresholds. Points where systems break."
"Breakpoints," Fahad murmured. "Yes. That makes sense."
Eryth tilted his head. "So mathematically speaking, you're all agreeing that perfection is useless?"
Fahad shook his head. "No. We're agreeing that perfection is contextual."
Tharos laughed softly. "I like that answer."
Across the table, Rahi nudged Naya with his elbow. "See? Math is just philosophy wearing numbers."
Naya rolled her eyes. "And philosophy is math pretending it doesn't need proof."
They smiled at each other, easy and familiar.
Mahim sat at the head of the table, watching all of this quietly. His eyes kept drifting—again and again—to the window.
To Maya.
She had not moved from her place.
She carried her plate there, balancing it easily on one knee, the sketchbook now closed and resting beside her. She ate slowly, methodically, as though food were simply another task to complete.
Her gaze moved between the glass and the garden beyond it.
Mahim finally spoke again.
"Maya," he said gently, not wanting to startle her.
"Yes?" she replied at once.
"You haven't said much this morning."
She considered the statement. "There has been no need."
Rani glanced at her. "You don't have to be a quiet soul. "
Maya looked at her calmly. "I am not."
A pause.
"Are you thinking about yesterday?" Farhan asked softly, not accusing—only asking.
Maya did not hesitate.
"Yes."
The room stilled just a fraction.
"In observation."
Fahad frowned slightly. "Observation of what?"
"Of reactions," Maya said. "Of changes."
"And?" Nahir asked.
Maya's eyes moved across the room—to the table, the plates, the light, the people.
"You did not turn away, you are not afraid. You do not hate me even after last night's events. "she said. "That is… new."
No one answered immediately.
Mahi's hand tightened around her spoon.
"That matters," Rani said quietly.
Maya nodded once. No more. No less.
Mahim cleared his throat. "After breakfast, we'll leave for work. Fahad, Fahim—you're coming with me."
They nodded.
He turned back to Maya. "And you—school starts late today, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"Do you want me to drop you?"
Maya shook her head. "I will go on my own."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Mahim studied her for a long moment. Then he smiled, small and tired, but genuine.
"Alright," he said. "Just… don't forget your lunch."
Maya looked at him. "I will not."
The meal continued.
Conversation returned—tentative at first, then warmer.
Rahi began telling a story about a failed experiment that had ended with smoke alarms and an apology letter. Naya laughed openly. Even Fahin smiled, though his eyes still carried shadows from the night before.
The Ghost of Hell members listened more than they spoke now. Warriors at rest, watching a family function in its natural state.
When the plates were cleared, people stood, stretching, gathering bags, preparing for the day.
One by one, they moved away from the table.
But Maya remained at the window.
Mahim stopped beside her again, placing a small lunch container on the sill.
"For later," he said.
She looked at it. Then at him.
"ok."
He hesitated. Then asked quietly, "Maya… are you alright?"
She did not answer immediately.Outside, the wind stirred the leaves. Light shifted.
"Yes," she said finally. "I am functioning within acceptable parameters."
Mahim almost smiled.
Almost.
"That's… good," he said. "But if one day you want to say something else instead—"
" ok ," Maya said.
He nodded, satisfied with that.
As the house slowly emptied—footsteps fading, doors closing softly—Maya remained by the window.
She opened her sketchbook again.
Unfinished lines. No faces. Just presence.
And for the first time in a long while,she write,
"Arib ".She stared at the words for a long moment.
The pencil hovered, uncertain—
as though even graphite hesitated to cross certain distances.
Outside, the garden breathed.
The rose bushes stood quiet, unaware of names humans gave to survival.
Maya wrote again.
"I don't know what you wanted at that time."
Her hand stopped.
For years, wanting had been a language she no longer spoke. Wanting implied choice. Wanting implied a future that could bend. Her life had not bent—it had endured.
Footsteps echoed faintly somewhere in the house. A door closed. An engine started far away. The morning was moving on, as mornings always did, indifferent yet faithful.
Maya rested her forehead lightly against the cool glass of the window.
"I am still here," she said, not aloud, not fully inside her thoughts—somewhere in between, where truth was safest.
She added one final line beneath the first.
"But I am trying to understand why."
The sentence did not ache.It did not heal either.It simply existed.
She closed the sketchbook.
For a moment, she did nothing—no drawing, Just breathing. The kind of breathing that did not demand permission.
Then she stood.
She placed the sketchbook carefully into her bag. Took the lunch container Mahim had left. Slipped her jacket over her shoulders—black, as always, like a vow she never explained.
At the door, she paused.
The house behind her was quiet now, emptied of voices but not of warmth. It carried the echo of arguments about infinity, the scent of rice and lentils, the fragile courage of people choosing to stay.
Maya opened the door.
Light greeted her—not harsh, not blinding.
Just light.
She stepped out into it.