Noah woke up to silence.
Not the normal kind — no city hum, no voices, no sound at all.
He was lying on a white surface that seemed to stretch forever. No sky, no walls — just blank space.
He sat up slowly. "Okay… definitely not the hotel. Or Earth. Or… sanity."
> SYSTEM: "Rebooting narrative channel."
Noah groaned. "Oh, now you wake up? Where am I?"
> SYSTEM: "You have fallen out of the story."
He blinked. "I what?"
> "The reality thread collapsed when your emotional link exceeded authorized boundaries. You and Ethan Reid were about to trigger a full narrative rewrite."
"So… I broke the story because I almost kissed him?"
> "Affirmative."
Noah dragged a hand down his face. "Well, that's just perfect. Love literally breaks worlds now."
The blank space shifted.
All around him, faint words began glowing in the air — sentences, paragraphs, whole chapters floating like fireflies.
He reached out, touching one.
Suddenly, images bloomed — the original novel.
Ethan Reid, cold and ruthless, destroying his rival Noah Wilder in business and reputation.
Noah saw the ending: his own character ruined, the villain undone, forgotten.
He flinched. "So that's what I was supposed to be."
> SYSTEM: "The story was designed for tragedy. Your actions disrupted it."
"Good," Noah said. "It deserved to be disrupted."
> "Without restoration, both you and Ethan Reid will be deleted when the narrative resets."
"Deleted?!"
> "In approximately forty-eight narrative hours."
Noah bit his lip. "There has to be a way to fix it."
> "One option remains: stabilize the emotional thread."
"Translation?"
> "Make the connection mutual."
Noah blinked. "You mean—make Ethan fall in love with me?"
> "Precisely."
Noah sighed. "So the only way to save reality… is romance?"
> "Affirmative."
He grinned weakly. "Finally, something I'm qualified for."
The white world began to crack. Light streamed in, pulling him back.
He felt gravity again, warmth, sound—
Noah gasped awake on a couch. The office. Ethan's office.
He sat up. Ethan was there, kneeling beside him, eyes wide and panicked.
> "Noah. Hey—look at me."
Noah blinked groggily. "Ethan…?"
> "You fainted. Everything went dark — the whole building flickered. I thought—" He stopped, his voice unsteady.
Noah stared. He had never heard Ethan sound afraid before.
> "You were worried about me," Noah said softly.
> "Of course I was."
Noah smiled faintly. "You really have to stop saying things that make my heart glitch."
Ethan exhaled, tension leaving his shoulders. "You scared me."
> "Guess we're even," Noah murmured. "You terrify me daily."
For a second, Ethan laughed — a small, broken sound.
Then his hand came up, brushing Noah's hair back gently.
> "Don't disappear again," Ethan said quietly.
> "Promise me."
Noah's heart ached. "You don't get it. If I told you what's really happening, you'd think I'm insane."
> "Try me."
Noah hesitated… then smiled. "Later. For now, let's just pretend this world makes sense."
Ethan's gaze softened. "Fine. But I'm not leaving your side."
> "Possessive much?"
> "Call it precaution."
Noah sat by the window again, watching the city lights shimmer faintly wrong — little glitches still visible, like pixels floating in the air.
He whispered to the empty room:
"Forty-eight hours. Two days to make a fictional CEO fall in love with me."
A pause. Then he smiled.
> "Challenge accepted."
The reflection in the glass flickered — for a moment showing not him, but the old novel version of Noah Wilder: cold, bitter, doomed.
He raised his glass to it.
> "Sorry, old me. I'm rewriting the ending."