Chapter Text
Caleb stood alone in the bathroom, staring at his reflection as though he were looking at a stranger wearing his face.
The mirror stretched from the marble counter to the ceiling, polished so perfectly that every flaw was mercilessly visible beneath the cold white lights overhead. Every shadow, every sleepless night, and every fracture he had spent the last year trying to bury beneath discipline and silence.
The man in the reflection looked immaculate.
His black wedding suit fit like it had been sewn directly onto him, sharp lines contouring broad shoulders and a lean frame hardened by years of combat and relentless work. Silver threading traced subtle patterns along the cuffs and collar, elegant enough for the occasion without appearing extravagant. His dark hair had been neatly styled, though a few strands had already fallen loose near his forehead, softening an otherwise severe appearance.
Anyone else would have called him handsome, hunky, or stunning—untouchable even.
Yet, Caleb could only see the exhaustion buried beneath his pretty violet eyes.
Those eyes used to hold warmth and softness once, full of life for someone he would willingly pour his heart and soul to.
Now, they looked dull and hollow.
He loosened a slow breath through his nose and lowered his gaze toward the marble sink, fingers curling against the edge of the marble countertop until his knuckles whitened slightly.
In a few hours, he would be married.
The thought echoed in his head strangely, like hearing news about someone else’s life.
Married.
To a stranger.
To a woman he had never met.
The thought should have unsettled him more than it did, but numbness had a strange way of dulling even life-changing moments. Marriage no longer felt sacred to him. It felt procedural, political, and necessary. After all, he is Ever’s puppet, and since he’s handsome and a Colonel, they decided to let their daughter marry him, tightening their leash on him.
Well, whatever.
It would be easier this way—marrying a stranger and not expecting anything from it. No love, affection, or even dreams of a perfect marriage. This is just a duty.
Caleb let out a quiet laugh then, humourless and brittle.
Because once upon a time, he had been stupid enough to want those things. It wasn’t the ceremony, the politics, or the title of husband.
He just wants her to love him back.
The memory surfaced before he could stop it.
A warm summer evening years ago, the sound of laughter spilling through open windows, and she was sitting beside him with sunlight caught in her hair. She was beautiful—her smile, her laughter, the soft cadence of her voice. Everything about her drew him in, and Caleb found himself helplessly drowning in love with her.
Back then, Caleb had been hopelessly, irrevocably in love with a girl he had grown up beside—a girl he knew so well he could recognise her footsteps before he ever saw her face. He knew the way she scrunched her nose when she laughed too hard, the drinks she always ordered without looking at the menu, the songs she hummed absentmindedly when she thought no one was listening. He knew which days silence meant comfort and which days it meant something inside her was hurting.
Loving her had become so natural that it lived inside every unconscious thing he did.
She was the first person he searched for whenever his phone lit up. The first face his eyes hunted for in crowded rooms, instinctively, desperately, until relief loosened something tight in his chest the moment he found her. Every single time he did, his expression betrayed him completely—his entire face lighting up like Christmas morning, warm and boyish and unbearably obvious.
He remembered things about her without trying—her favourite drink with the extra sugar she pretended not to like, the books she reread when life became too heavy, and the way she tucked strands of hair behind her ear whenever she was nervous. Caleb carried all those tiny details like sacred things, memorised so deeply they had become part of him.
Everything in his life bent toward her naturally, like flowers straining toward sunlight. Every plan included her without thought. Every good thing that happened made him reach for his phone to tell her first.
He loved her so completely.
She was his whole world.
But she—
God.
His chest tightened so painfully that it felt difficult to breathe.
What ruined him wasn’t cruelty. It would have been easier if she had been cruel. It would have been easier if she had looked disgusted, uncomfortable, or annoyed by his feelings.
Yet, she looked at him gently, like she was sorry she couldn’t love him more than a brother.
Caleb could still remember every detail of that conversation, no matter how violently he tried to tear it from his memory. It haunted him in fragments that returned at the worst moments—quiet and sharp enough to cut him open all over again.
He remembered the small café was tucked between crowded streets, the muted clatter of cups and silverware around them, the untouched coffee grew cold between his hands because he had been too nervous to drink it, and the way she kept twisting her fingers together beneath the table, over and over, as if she was trying to gather the courage to break his heart carefully.
After he poured his heart and soul out to her, she said those words—
“I’m sorry.”
He remembered staring at her afterwards, unable to understand what she was saying beyond the roaring in his ears. It felt impossible that the future he had spent years building silently around her could disappear in the span of a conversation. Every imagined moment collapsed at once—the late nights, the shared apartment he sometimes caught himself dreaming about, the idea of growing older beside her.
Gone, just like that.
Then she told him about choosing Zayne.
Caleb thought that was the moment something inside him truly broke. Because while he had spent years loving her quietly—aching for her quietly—she had been falling in love with someone else right in front of him.
Someone better.
Someone softer.
Someone softer around the edges in ways Caleb had never known how to be.
Zayne had always been soft, respectful and supportive, which made him easy to love, while Caleb was the contrast. He was chaotic, but that was what he was after all.
Still, Caleb accepted her rejection quietly.
What else could he do?
He sat there swallowing down every shattered piece of himself because the last thing he wanted was to make her feel guilty for not loving him back. His hands trembled beneath the table hard enough that he had to curl them into fists just to hide it. The pressure behind his eyes burned unbearably, but he refused to cry in front of her. Refused to let her see just how completely she had unravelled him.
Because if she saw him break, maybe she would pity him, and Caleb thought pity might hurt even more than rejection.
So he forced himself to nod and smile in that horrible, strained way people do when they are trying not to fall apart in public. He forced himself to tell her it was okay, even as something inside his chest caved inward violently enough to leave him hollow.
Afterwards, he felt like a stray dog abandoned in the rain—pathetic, unloved and unwanted, still stupidly waiting at the same doorstep despite knowing no one was coming back for him.
The worst part was that he genuinely didn’t understand what he had done wrong.
He had loved her with everything he had.
He put her above himself so naturally that he never even questioned it. He memorised her likes and dislikes, rearranged pieces of his life around her happiness without complaint, stayed whenever she needed someone, listened whenever she called. If love were measured in devotion, Caleb had given her every part of himself willingly.
So why wasn’t it enough?
That question hollowed him out more than the rejection itself.
If she had told him he was too clingy, he would have given her space.
If she had told him he wasn’t attentive enough, he would have tried harder.
If she had told him exactly what was wrong with him, Caleb would have torn himself apart piece by piece just to rebuild into someone she could love.
But there was nothing to fix.
She simply didn’t choose him, and that was somehow worse.
Because how was he supposed to compete with that? How was he supposed to fight a battle that had already been lost long before he even realised there had been another person standing beside her?
The months afterwards blurred together in lifeless shades of grey.
Days. Weeks. Seasons.
Caleb lived through all of them like an empty shell pretending to still be human. He buried himself in work because it was easier than thinking, easier than going home to an apartment that felt too quiet without her voice somewhere inside it. He volunteered for assignments no one else wanted, took extra hours, longer shifts, and more dangerous jobs with a recklessness that stopped concerning even him after a while.
Danger felt preferable to silence.
At least the physical pain made sense.
Bruises could be cleaned. Cuts could be stitched shut. Broken bones healed eventually if you stayed still long enough. Physical pain had logic to it—clear beginnings, clear endings, wounds that could actually be seen.
Heartbreak was different.
It lingered like rot beneath the skin, invisible and festering, consuming him slowly from the inside out while everyone else continued as though nothing had happened.
His new house changed little by little until it no longer looked lived in at all—dust gathered untouched in corners, the refrigerator remained mostly empty, takeout containers were piled beside the sink before eventually being thrown away untouched.
Cooking used to calm him.
He used to love it—the steady rhythm of chopping vegetables, the warmth curling from the stove, the quiet comfort of making something he knew she would enjoy. He could still picture the way her face lit up after the first bite, the soft curve of her smile, her cheeks puffed slightly as she kept eating while talking at the same time. Those small reactions had once felt enough to make his entire day worth it.
Back then, Caleb caught himself building recipes around her without even realising it. He memorised ingredients she casually mentioned liking, tucked away passing comments about flavours she preferred, all so he could make those dishes for her someday without needing to ask twice.
Now the thought of standing alone in that kitchen made him feel physically ill.
Everything reminded him of her, and all he wanted right now was to move on and let go of the suffocating heartache.
How?
Until now, he hasn’t known how.
Caleb exhaled once—slow, controlled, and practised. Then he turned away from the mirror.
Each step out of the bathroom echoed faintly against polished tile, his shoes striking the floor with quiet precision. The sound felt distant and detached—as if it belonged to someone else walking through his life instead of him.
By the time he reached the hallway, the version of Caleb that remained was already sealed shut—composed, straight-backed, and unreadable.
A hollow shell dressed in a perfectly tailored suit.
The wedding suit.
The irony of it did not reach him anymore. Nothing really did.
The corridor outside the bathroom was dimmer than the stark white interior he had just left behind. Softer lighting spilt from sconces along the wall, casting long, quiet shadows that stretched across marble flooring like spilt ink. Somewhere deeper in the venue, voices murmured faintly—guests arriving, staff preparing, the slow and inevitable unfolding of an event he could not escape.
Caleb turned the corner and stopped so abruptly it felt like the air itself had collided with him.
Something—or someone—had run straight into his chest.
It wasn’t hard enough to hurt. It was more like a soft impact, a startled bump that pushed the breath out of him in a quiet exhale. The figure rebounded instantly, stumbling back a step before catching their balance with an almost stubborn quickness, as though falling simply wasn’t an option they were willing to accept.
Caleb blinked.
Then frowned.
Because the person in front of him was… wrapped completely.
A thick white blanket—soft, heavy, and entirely out of place in a corridor like this—enveloped them from head to toe like a makeshift ghost costume. The fabric hung unevenly over their shoulders, pooled slightly near their legs, and shifted every time they moved, swaying as if it had a life of its own.
For a moment, Caleb just stared.
What… is this supposed to be?
His mind, usually sharp even in exhaustion, stalled in a way it hadn’t in years.
A ghost?
On his wedding day?
Was there a Halloween banquet nearby—wait, but it’s not Halloween.
A faint crease formed between his brows, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and reluctant amusement—like his mind was still trying to make sense of the absurd sight in front of him while something quieter, more curious, had already decided it didn’t want to look away.
The figure steadied itself again, taking a cautious step back, then another, until a small but deliberate distance separated them. The blanket tilted slightly, like the person beneath it was peering at him through a gap, trying to figure him out just as much as he was trying to understand them.
Caleb frowned faintly.
“Who—”
He didn’t get to finish because the figure moved again, slowly and deliberately, the edge of the white sheet lifted until it slipped back just enough to reveal a face.
Striking ruby eyes stared back at him.
And everything seemed to stop.
Caleb’s entire body went utterly still, so abruptly it felt as though something inside him had been pulled taut and snapped into silence. The sound of the world—the distant movement, the vague hum of life beyond this moment—collapsed into nothing.
His world tilted.
For the first time in a very long time, Caleb forgot how to breathe.
She was… breathtaking.
Her hair was the first thing that struck him properly—curly, jet-black strands falling in soft, untamed waves around her face. A few curls framed her cheeks, slightly uneven, as though she never bothered to force them into obedience. They softened her features rather than hiding them, giving her an almost unintentional warmth.
And then her eyes.
Ruby-red.
They weren’t dull or decorative, but vivid in a way that felt almost unreal, like embers caught in stillness. They didn’t waver under his gaze. If anything, they held him more steadily than he was holding her.
Caleb felt something twist painfully in his chest at that alone—at the quiet courage in her stare, the way she didn’t look away from him even when the silence between them grew too heavy to name.
Her features were striking up close, defined in a way that made her impossible to overlook, yet softened by something gentler underneath it all. There was a quiet openness in the curve of her expression, as if she had never fully learned how to hide what she felt. It made her seem both strong and vulnerable at the same time—like someone who had been shaped by life but not hardened by it.
She was wearing a dark purple hoodie, the fabric loose on her frame, sleeves slightly long as they covered part of her hands. The colour deepened the warmth of her skin and made her eyes even more vivid by contrast. Light denim jeans fell straight and simple, grounding her in something ordinary despite how unreal she felt in that moment—like she belonged to a different kind of story entirely.
Still, she was there.
Standing in front of him and looking at him like he wasn’t just a stranger passing by, like this moment mattered.
Caleb swallowed, but it did nothing to ease the sudden tightness in his throat. His fingers twitched slightly at his side, betraying him in a way he couldn’t control.
Because something about her—about the way she looked at him with curiosity and confusion, or about her striking beauty—felt like the first crack in a long, suffocating hollow shell he had been living inside for far too long.
“I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
God—her voice.
It was honeyed in the softest, most unguarded way, like it hadn’t been shaped to impress anyone, just to exist. It was the kind of voice that didn’t demand attention but somehow stole it anyway.
Caleb felt something in his chest give a quiet, painful lurch.
He could listen to her speak for hours, days, even—about anything, anything at all. It didn’t matter what she said. It could be trivial, meaningless, or something as simple as the weather or a passing thought she forgot she had. He would still listen as if it were the only sound keeping him grounded.
Before Caleb could respond, the air behind the girl shattered with a sharp, furious shout.
“Charlotte! Get back here—you can’t run away from your own wedding!”
Both of them turned almost at the same time.
The special, enchanted moment between them snapped instantly.
Down the corridor, a woman in formal attire—likely the wedding planner—was storming toward them with the exhausted desperation of someone who had already accepted that today would be the worst day of her professional life. Her heels struck the marble floor in rapid, angry rhythm, and her expression was nothing short of betrayal and panic.
She wasn’t running toward Caleb.
She was running toward Charlotte.
Caleb’s gaze shifted slowly back to the girl in front of him.
Charlotte.
It suits her.
For the first time, something resembling clarity cut through his numbness.
And then—
Charlotte reacted.
“Fuck off!” she yelled immediately, voice sharp with defiance. “I am not marrying anybody today! And no one can make me! This is clearly a mistake!”
There was no hesitation or polished politeness. It was just a raw and unfiltered rebellion bursting out of a girl wrapped in a ridiculous white blanket in the middle of a luxury wedding venue.
Caleb blinked once, then twice.
Before he could even process it, Charlotte darted forward, slipping around him with unexpected agility. The white blanket flared slightly as she passed, brushing against his arm like a passing gust of wind. For a brief second, she was so close he could feel the faint warmth of her presence and even smell her scent—roses and something unique, something her.
God, he wished to drown himself in that scent.
Then, in a second, she was gone, running straight down the hallway and leaving chaos in her wake.
“Charlotte—get back here! I swear to God—”
The wedding planner skidded to a stop near Caleb, slightly out of breath, one hand pressed dramatically to her chest as if she had just survived a disaster she would absolutely be billing someone for later.
Then, as if switching masks in a single heartbeat, she turned to him.
“Oh! Hi, Mr Xia.”
Her smile appeared instantly—strained, polite, and entirely incompatible with the chaos unfolding behind her.
“I am so sorry, there has been a slight problem, but don’t worry,” she said quickly, already half-turned back toward the fleeing figure. “I will chase your bride to the ends of the earth and drag her back just in time for your wedding.”
Caleb didn’t answer immediately.
He couldn’t.
His eyes were still fixed down the corridor where Charlotte had disappeared, the white blanket fluttering like a lost flag in retreat.
Bride.
The word echoed in his mind slowly, and it felt heavy and unreal. He had been introduced to her exactly ten seconds ago, and she had immediately declared she would not marry anyone, insulted the institution, and run away from him as if he were part of a misunderstanding she refused to accept.
It should have offended or irritated him, but instead—
Something warm and unfamiliar tugged faintly at the edge of his chest.
Caleb exhaled through his nose, a quiet sound that barely counted as a laugh.
“…I see,” he murmured.
The wedding planner, already halfway into pursuit mode, paused just long enough to glance at him again.
“Sir, I—”
“Go,” Caleb said simply.
The planner hesitated for a fraction of a second, clearly unsure if she had heard correctly, then gave a sharp nod and bolted after Charlotte again.
“CHARLOTTE! GET BACK HERE!”
Her voice faded rapidly down the corridor, and just like that, silence returned.
Caleb remained standing in the empty hallway alone, but something in him had shifted.
He looked down the corridor where Charlotte had vanished, his expression unreadable.
A few seconds passed. Then, unexpectedly—
The corner of his mouth lifted in a small and amused smirk.
So that was her.
His bride.
The girl who had collided into him, wearing a blanket like a wandering ghost, looked him in the eye, spoke to him with that gentle voice… and then ran away from him in under a minute.
Caleb found himself thinking something far more dangerous—he prayed that she successfully managed to run away. Because she looked like she deserved every happiness in the world.
A happiness bright enough to run toward without looking back.
A happiness he had long since stopped believing he could offer anyone.
Especially not someone like her.
The smirk faded slowly from his face, replaced by something quieter.
He turned his gaze forward again, expression settling back into its familiar calm emptiness.
***
The chapel was quiet in that suffocating, carefully curated way only formal ceremonies could achieve.
It was not true silence—never true silence. There was the soft rustle of expensive fabric shifting against polished wood pews, the faint cough of a guest who didn’t know where to look, the distant echo of footsteps that had already carried Charlotte down the aisle. Yet all of it was dulled and flattened, as though the entire world had been wrapped in thick glass that muffled everything except the parts no one wanted to feel.
Caleb stood at the altar.
Perfect posture. Perfect suit. Perfect stillness.
A man sculpted out of composure and restraint, shaped so precisely that nothing about him looked out of place—not the slight angle of his shoulders, not the steady set of his jaw, not even the way his hands remained controlled at his sides despite the weight of everything pressing inward.
Beside him, the pastor’s voice flowed on without pause, reciting vows that were ancient and ceremonial, carefully structured to sound like they still meant something in a room like this. Words about commitment, devotion, partnership, and a lifetime shared.
They were meant to feel profound.
They didn’t.
Caleb heard them the way one hears rain through a closed window—recognisable, distant, irrelevant. The sound existed, but it didn’t reach him in any meaningful way. It passed through the space without ever truly touching him.
Because his attention was not on the words.
It was on her.
Charlotte.
Even thinking her name felt like acknowledging something that had already begun to shift the air around him.
When she had first appeared at the end of the aisle, everything inside him had stopped without permission.
Even now, he could still feel the echo of that moment like a bruise that hadn’t faded.
The doors had opened, and she had stepped forward.
The wedding dress she wore was unlike anything he had expected. She was elegant beyond reason. Flowing fabric that caught the chapel light with every slow, deliberate step she took, as though the fabric itself had learned how to breathe. It wasn’t just beautiful—it was striking in a way that made the room feel suddenly too small for her presence, as if it didn’t know how to contain something so deliberately composed.
For a single and unguarded second, Caleb’s breath had caught, and his chest had tightened as if something had reached inside him and pulled without warning.
His heart—
It had betrayed him.
A sharp and unsteady rhythm he hadn’t felt in a long time, not since her.
Then she had walked further down the aisle, unbothered and unshaken, as if she belonged to the moment in a way no one else did.
She moved as if she knew she was the most beautiful person in the room—and worse, as if it didn’t change anything for her, as if beauty was just another detail in a list of obligations she had already accepted.
Well, it was her wedding, after all.
The thought came and went with a strange emptiness attached to it.
Then reality settled back in, cold and precise, as if reminding him what this actually was.
An arranged marriage between two strangers.
Caleb forced his expression to settle.
Whatever had flickered across him—whatever momentary lapse had betrayed him—was gone before it could be recognised. The warmth disappeared beneath practised control, buried so deeply it might as well have never existed at all.
By the time Charlotte reached him, he was still again.
Cold. Composed. Unreadable.
It was the same expression that made his subordinates lower their voices instinctively when he entered a room. The same look that ended arguments before they had the chance to begin. The same mask that ensured no one ever asked him questions he couldn’t afford to answer.
Charlotte stopped beside him and turned.
For the first time that day, they were close enough to truly see each other without chaos between them.
The pastor continued speaking, oblivious to the quiet collision happening at the altar.
Caleb extended his hand, and Charlotte hesitated for less than a second before placing her hand in his.
Her hands are so delicate and small.
That was the first thing he noticed, but soon he forced himself to ignore it.
The pastor spoke again—something about vows, about promises, about loving and honouring—but neither of them reacted as though they were truly listening. The words drifted past as if they belonged to another room, another life, another version of people who had chosen this willingly.
Caleb’s gaze stayed on Charlotte, and hers stayed on him.
Up close, she was even more striking than he had registered before. She wasn’t just beautiful in the obvious sense, not just the kind of face people turned to notice—but composed in a way that felt deliberate, like she had decided exactly how much of herself to show the world and stopped there.
Her makeup softened her features for the ceremony, carefully applied but not excessive, as though even that had been negotiated into place. It made her look unreal in the soft chapel light—like something carefully placed rather than something that simply existed.
But her eyes—
They told a different story.
There was no admiration in her gaze, no warmth or expectation. It was just distance. Boredom, almost. A quiet, detached patience, as if she were simply waiting for the scene to conclude so she could step out of it and breathe again.
Caleb recognised it instantly because it mirrored his own.
***
The wedding and reception blurred together in a haze of ceremony and polite performance, as though time itself had decided to move faster just to get them through it.
After the final vows were spoken and the pastor pronounced them husband and wife, they exchanged a brief kiss—barely more than a formality. A soft and restrained brush of lips that meant nothing beyond tradition. There wasn’t any hesitation, intimacy, or promise lingering in it. It was purely completion.
Applause followed immediately, warm and congratulatory, as if everyone else in the room had agreed to pretend that something meaningful had just happened.
Both stood side by side with perfect composure, a fake smile spread across their lips as cameras flashed and guests congratulated them.
Husband and wife.
The words no longer felt real.
At the reception, they were seated side by side at the head table, arranged like a pair meant to be displayed rather than shared. Glasses clinked, conversations flowed, and music softened the edges of the room.
Yet, between them, there was nothing. There were no shared glances, quiet exchanges, or subtle acknowledgements that they were even aware of each other’s presence.
Charlotte turned to speak with guests on her side of the table, polite and effortless, her laughter appearing at the appropriate moments as if it had been practised in advance. Caleb did the same on his side—controlled, courteous, distant in a way that made people assume he was simply reserved rather than absent.
Not once did their eyes meet.
Not once did they reach for each other across the space between them.
It was as if an invisible line had been drawn down the centre of the table, dividing them into two separate worlds that just happened to share the same seat.
To everyone else, they were newlyweds.
To each other, they were strangers sitting too close to pretend otherwise, and neither of them tried to change that.
The moment they stepped out of the reception hall, the world became unbearably quiet. There wasn’t any applause, or music, or polite laughter masking discomfort. It was just night air, cool against flushed skin and the distant hum of a city that had no idea a marriage had just taken place.
Caleb’s car waited at the curb.
Black, polished, and expensive in a way that didn’t need to announce itself. Now, for reasons neither of them had commented on, it carried a ridiculous addition: two pale ribbons tied neatly to the back, fluttering faintly in the wind as if embarrassed to exist.
Just Married.
Those two words felt artificial and decorative, as if something had been placed there for appearances while the truth sat quietly underneath, untouched and unspeakable.
Charlotte stared at them for a brief second before getting into the passenger seat.
Neither of them said anything about it, as if pretending they weren’t somehow made this entire situation easier to survive.
The doors closed with a soft, final sound, and the silence that followed was different from before.
At the wedding, silence had been public—filled with expectations, witnesses, performance. Now it was private, with everything unmasked and unprotected. There was no audience now, no vows to recite, no need to pretend they were anything other than two strangers legally tied together by circumstances neither of them had chosen.
Caleb started the engine without hesitation.
The car pulled smoothly away from the venue, merging into the river of city lights with practised ease. His hands rested steadily against the steering wheel, fingers relaxed but precise, every movement controlled to the point of detachment. His eyes fixed ahead with that same composed distance he wore like a second skin. Streetlights slid across the sharp lines of his face in fleeting streaks of gold before disappearing again into shadow.
Beside him, Charlotte leaned her head back against the seat.
The fabric of her white dress rustled softly as she shifted, no longer bothering to sit perfectly now that there was no one left to impress. The exhaustion of the day seemed to settle into her bones all at once, pulling at her shoulders, dulling the sharpness of her posture.
She watched the city blur past the window instead.
Long streaks of white and amber melted across the glass, distorted and fleeting, like moments that couldn’t stay long enough to become real.
For a while, neither of them spoke. It wasn’t the awkward silence of strangers forced together in conversation. It was something heavier and final, as if the version of them that existed in the ceremony had been left behind at the altar, and only what remained was real.
Charlotte exhaled softly first, breaking the silence before it swallowed the entire car whole.
“I heard my things will be delivered to your place today.”
Her voice came out calm, almost detached, as if she were discussing a business arrangement instead of the beginning of a shared life.
Caleb didn’t turn his head.
“Oh,” he replied after a second, his tone smooth and unreadable. “That’s great.”
That was all.
The words landed cleanly between them and stayed there.
Charlotte blinked once, then let her gaze drift back to the window.
So that was it. Their entire conversation about moving in together was reduced to two sentences and a flat acknowledgement.
She had expected… she wasn’t even sure what she had expected from him.
Tension, maybe. Awkward negotiation? Reluctance? At least establishing rules and boundaries between two unwilling people suddenly forced into intimacy.
Yet Caleb didn’t give her anything to push against.
He remained polite, distant and composed, as if this were an arrangement rather than a marriage.
Charlotte shifted slightly in her seat again, the dress whispering against leather as she crossed one leg over the other. A quiet breath slipped past her lips, half sigh and half frustration she refused to name.
Then, despite herself, she turned to look at him properly for the first time since leaving the venue.
And—
Damn.
He really was handsome.
His jawline looked carved too precisely beneath the passing lights, his nose elegant and severe in profile. Everything about him carried an almost dangerous kind of restraint, like he had been built entirely out of control and silence.
But it was his eyes that caught her.
They were like galaxies—purple with faint pink undertones hidden beneath them.
They were truly beautiful. Cold, but beautiful.
Honestly, he was unfairly attractive. He was the type of man who could walk into a room and immediately become the centre of attention without even trying, the kind of face people stared at instinctively before remembering to act normal.
And if Charlotte were being painfully honest with herself—
He was exactly her type…which was deeply inconvenient.
Because if his personality turned out to be terrible, then nature had clearly played some kind of cruel joke by giving him a face like that.
Still, Caleb appeared entirely uninterested in her.
Not even slightly curious.
He hadn’t glanced at her once or attempted to strike up a conversation. He didn’t bother to ask if she was tired, uncomfortable, or even nervous—nothing.
It was almost impressive how thoroughly detached he seemed from the fact that they had just gotten married.
To him, she was probably just another obligation.
A responsibility handed to him that he intended to fulfil efficiently and nothing more.
Charlotte let her gaze linger on him for one second longer before forcing herself to look away again.
It didn’t matter anyway.
Because beyond his face, nothing about him drew her in. He was cold in a way that made entire rooms feel distant, the kind of person who seemed impossible to truly reach, and Charlotte wasn’t the type to fall helplessly for someone just because they were attractive.
They were strangers.
That was all.
Two strangers who happened to share a last name now.
Two strangers who would live beneath the same roof while continuing to exist in entirely separate worlds.
***
That night, Caleb used his Evol to carry the luggage upstairs.
Charlotte had watched silently as box after box and suitcase after suitcase lifted effortlessly into the air under his command with a lift of a finger, floating behind him through the quiet hallway like obedient shadows. He moved without complaint, without visible strain, simply guiding everything toward the guest room at the far end of the corridor with the same calm efficiency he seemed to apply to every part of his life.
Not once did he ask her to help.
Not once did he make conversation.
And somehow, that almost made the entire thing feel lonelier.
Well, at least she learned something about him besides his occupation as a Farspace Fleet Colonel, that he was an Evolver, and his Gravity Evol really comes in handy.
When he finally set the last suitcase down beside the wardrobe, Charlotte stood awkwardly near the doorway, arms folded loosely against herself.
“Thank you,” she said politely after a moment.
Caleb glanced at her briefly.
“It’s fine.”
Just that.
Then he stepped back toward the hallway, giving her space without needing to be asked for it. His hand rested lightly against the doorframe for the briefest second before he straightened again.
“If you need anything, let me know.”
The words sounded courteous and distant, as if something memorised rather than genuinely offered.
Charlotte nodded anyway.
“Okay.”
A pause lingered between them, thin and strange. Then Caleb gave a small nod of acknowledgement and walked away down the hallway without another word.
Charlotte stood there listening to the sound of his footsteps fade into silence, and only after she closed the bedroom door behind her did the carefully constructed mask finally slip from her face.
The silence hit immediately.
She exhaled slowly and leaned back against the door for a second longer than necessary, her body suddenly feeling exhausted in a way no amount of sleep could fix.
Married.
The word still felt unreal.
Charlotte lowered her gaze absentmindedly toward her left hand.
The diamond ring caught the dim light instantly. It was small, elegant, and expensive enough that she didn’t even want to imagine the price.
It looked beautiful on her finger, which somehow made it worse. Because it sat there like proof of something she still couldn’t emotionally process. A symbol of permanence attached to a life that still felt temporary and unfamiliar.
Her thumb brushed lightly against the ring before her hand slowly dropped back to her side.
Then she finally looked up properly at the room around her.
Empty.
It wasn’t cold exactly, but untouched in the way guest rooms always were—as though no one had truly lived there long enough to leave pieces of themselves behind. The walls were neat, the furniture arranged too carefully, and even the air smelled faintly clean, carrying traces of detergent and freshly changed sheets.
Charlotte blinked.
The bed had clearly been prepared before her arrival.
Fresh linens stretched smoothly across the mattress without a single crease. Extra blankets had been folded neatly at the corner. A glass of water sat untouched on the bedside table beside a charging cable someone had thoughtfully placed there beforehand.
Caleb.
The realisation settled strangely inside her chest.
He must have prepared this room himself.
Or at the very least, made sure someone else did.
It wasn’t romantic.
There were no flowers, candles, or any attempt to make this feel like a honeymoon suite for newlyweds hopelessly in love. Yet somehow the quiet practicality of it all felt more sincere than forced affection would have.
Charlotte slowly walked further into the room, the soft fabric of her dress whispering against the floor with every step.
***
Days passed after the wedding.
Then weeks.
Somehow, despite sharing the same address, the same hallways, the same silence that settled over the house every night, Caleb and Charlotte remained exactly what they had been from the very beginning—
Strangers.
The house itself was enormous, quiet enough that it often felt abandoned. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the glowing city skyline, expensive furniture sat untouched in carefully arranged rooms, and every hallway carried the faint stillness of a place that had never truly been lived in.
The house was pristine and painfully empty.
Charlotte noticed it most during the evenings.
Sometimes she would walk downstairs late at night for water and hear nothing except the quiet hum of the refrigerator and the distant ticking of a clock somewhere deeper in the house. The silence wasn’t peaceful. It pressed against her skin too heavily, stretching endlessly through each room until it almost became unbearable.
It didn’t feel like a home.
It felt like a place designed for surviving in.
The more Charlotte observed it, the more she realised the house reflected Caleb perfectly.
Beautiful.
Everything about it was polished to perfection—sharp lines, clean surfaces, controlled elegance in every detail.
Organised.
Nothing was ever misplaced. Everything had a designated position, as though disorder itself was unwelcome here. Caleb moved through the house the same way—quietly efficient, precise in everything he did, never lingering long enough to leave traces of himself behind.
And cold, not cruel.
That was the strange part.
Caleb was never cruel to her. Well, not like she cares about him anyway.
Every morning, Caleb left before sunrise.
She only knew because sometimes, half-awake beneath tangled blankets, she would hear the faint click of the front door closing somewhere in the distance. By the time she actually got out of bed, he was already gone, leaving behind no sign he had ever been there besides the fresh-cleaned coffee mug with water droplets, occasionally sitting near the sink.
Not that she cared.
At least, that was what she told herself.
Their schedules barely overlapped anyway.
Her mornings quickly settled into routines built entirely around efficiency. Waking up late because she stayed up working too long, rushing through the bathroom while mentally organising reports for the day, throwing on neatly pressed work clothes without much thought, and fingers moving automatically through motions she had repeated for years.
Most mornings, she tied her hair back hastily while walking through the kitchen at the same time, black curls still slightly damp from the shower.
Breakfast was rarely more than toast and coffee. She would lean against the marble kitchen counter, scrolling through reports on her tablet while forcing herself to eat a simple toast, eyes skimming casualty updates, mission requests, and field assessments before she was fully awake enough to process any of it properly.
The blue-white glow from the screen often reflected against her tired expression while the city outside slowly brightened through the enormous windows.
As Captain of the Hunter Association, she had an image to maintain.
People looked at her expecting confidence, expecting leadership, and expecting someone untouchable enough to carry the weight of others without faltering beneath it. Hunters trusted her decisions with their lives. Subordinates watched her constantly for weakness, even unintentionally.
There was no room for exhaustion and uncertainty.
No one at work would ever guess she had recently entered an arranged marriage with a man she barely spoke to.
Honestly?
Sometimes, even Charlotte forgot she was married.
That was how distant Caleb remained.
After work, she often stopped by grocery stores before heading home. At first, it felt strangely intrusive to place food into someone else’s refrigerator. The kitchen belonged to Caleb long before she did. Every cabinet, every shelf, every empty space felt like entering territory she technically occupied but did not own.
The fridge had been nearly empty when she first moved in, and it disturbed her more than she expected.
Did he seriously live like this?
The first time she cautiously asked if he minded her buying groceries, Caleb barely looked up from his work laptop.
“Do whatever you want,” he replied flatly. “Treat this like your house.”
Not our house—your house.
Charlotte noticed the wording immediately.
Still, permission was permission.
So she stopped worrying about boundaries after that.
She filled the fridge with actual food—fruits, vegetables, meat, snacks, frozen meals for late nights, and other things that made the kitchen feel alive instead of forgotten.
As long as neither of them interfered with the other’s life, things remained peaceful.
That was the arrangement they silently settled into.
At first, Charlotte tried to be considerate.
The third night after moving in, she cooked dinner for both of them.
Nothing complicated—just a simple homemade meal because eating alone in such a large house felt unbearably depressing. She prepared two portions automatically without thinking too deeply about it.
Maybe because it felt awkward not to.
Maybe because somewhere deep down, she still believed married people were supposed to eat together occasionally.
The food sat on the table, growing colder by the minute.
Charlotte checked the time again.
Nine-thirty.
Her stomach growled painfully.
“…Seriously?”
She sighed and slumped against the dining chair.
Caleb still wasn’t home.
No message.
No explanation.
Nothing.
Eventually, hunger won.
Charlotte reheated her own food and sat alone at the dining table with a drama playing softly on the television nearby just to fill the silence. The glow from the screen flickered gently across the dark kitchen while she ate slowly, exhaustion from work settling heavily into her shoulders.
Halfway through her meal, the front door opened.
Charlotte looked up instinctively.
Caleb walked in his Colonel outfit, which Charlotte would secretly admit that he looked more attractive wearing his uniform. He looked tired—though with him, tiredness appeared more like emotional absence than physical exhaustion.
Then he stopped.
His eyes landed on her immediately.
Charlotte paused mid-bite.
For a brief second, neither of them spoke.
The scene probably looked strangely domestic from the outside.
A wife is eating dinner late at night, and a husband is returning home from work.
Normal.
Except nothing between them felt normal at all.
Charlotte glanced toward the untouched plate she had prepared for him.
“Oh,” she said simply. “I made dinner.”
Caleb’s gaze shifted briefly toward the second portion sitting on the table.
Something unreadable flickered across his expression so quickly she almost missed it.
Then it vanished.
“I already ate,” he said coldly.
The atmosphere cooled instantly.
Charlotte stared at him for a moment, then shrugged lightly.
“Fine by me.”
There wasn’t any anger, hurt, or argument.
If that was the boundary he wanted, she could respect it easily.
Without another word, she stood and packed the untouched portion neatly into a container before placing it into the refrigerator.
“More for my lunch tomorrow, then,” she said casually before returning to her seat on the sofa.
Caleb went still.
Charlotte didn’t notice immediately because she had already returned to finishing her own meal, attention drifting back toward the television. Caleb remained standing near the kitchen entrance, staring at her blankly.
As if he had expected disappointment, or annoyance, or at least some visible reaction to his rejection. Instead, Charlotte simply adapted to his absence as if it didn’t matter at all. Somehow, that unsettled him more.
Eventually, Caleb looked away first.
“You only need to cook for yourself next time,” he added after a pause. “You don’t have to make anything for me.”
His tone wasn’t cruel. It was detached and practical, as if he were correcting an unnecessary misunderstanding before it became a habit.
Charlotte stared at him for a moment.
Then shrugged lightly.
“Fine by me.”
No anger.
No hurt.
No argument.
If that was the boundary he wanted, she could respect it easily.
“…Goodnight,” he muttered quietly.
Then he retreated down the hallway toward his room.
Charlotte listened to his footsteps disappear into the distance before taking another bite of food.
That was the first and last time she cooked for him.
After that night, she stopped asking whether he had eaten, stopped waiting for him to come home by glancing at the clock, and stopped setting aside portions. Everything quietly returned to how it had been in the beginning.
Caleb noticed immediately.
He noticed that, despite how emotionally withdrawn he seemed, Caleb observed everything with terrifying precision. Small changes never escaped him.
Especially when they involved her.
The absence of those tiny gestures settled strangely into the house afterwards. The silence between them didn’t become cruel. If anything, it became gentler.
Charlotte’s presence still slowly spread through the house in ways neither of them acknowledged aloud.
Before her arrival, the house had felt pristine but lifeless, like a beautifully decorated place no one had truly belonged to. Everything had been sharp edges, untouched surfaces, and space.
Now there was evidence of someone living there.
Scented candles appeared first.
Soft amber and vanilla linger faintly in hallways that once smelled only of cold air conditioning and expensive furniture polish. Then came the cushions scattered across the couch—warm colours Caleb never would have chosen himself—deep golds, burnt orange, and soft cream tones that made the living room feel less like a showroom and more like somewhere people could actually rest.
An armchair eventually appeared beside the enormous window overlooking the city skyline.
Then books were stacked carelessly on tables, left open face down on cushions.
And finally—
A piano.
Black and polished, tucked quietly into the corner of the living room where moonlight sometimes spilt across the keys at night.
Caleb still remembered stopping in the hallway the first evening he saw it there.
He hadn’t said anything, but something strange had settled inside his chest at the sight of it. Because the house no longer looked empty anymore, and Caleb didn’t know when exactly he had started noticing her presence everywhere.
Or perhaps worse—
He refused to admit how much he didn’t mind her presence.
Sometimes, during weekends, he would come downstairs early in the morning and find Charlotte curled into the armchair beside the window with a blanket loosely draped over her legs, completely absorbed in whatever book she was reading. Sunlight would spill over her dark curls while she absentmindedly tucked strands behind her ear, brows furrowing slightly whenever the story upset her.
Other times, soft classical music drifted through the house from the piano, filling rooms that had once only known silence.
And Caleb—
He listened quietly from hallways, staircases, and kitchen entrances.
Never close enough for her to notice.
There were evenings he found her sprawled lazily across the couch, watching old sitcom reruns, laughing under her breath at jokes she had probably heard a hundred times already. The sound always startled him slightly—not because it was loud, but because laughter felt so out of place in a house that had gone years without it.
Without meaning to, Caleb started noticing the smallest things about her. The cute little pout she made while reading heartbreaking scenes in novels, the way her nose wrinkled when concentrating too hard on difficult piano pieces, the unconscious sway of her foot whenever she got invested in a melody, the soft hums she made while cleaning without realising anyone could hear her.
Tiny, meaningless, and dangerous things that made him feel real and terrified.
Still, he never disturbed her.
Neither of them did.
They simply existed beside each other in strange, quiet coexistence—sharing space without demanding anything from one another. Sometimes hours passed with them sitting in the same room doing entirely separate things without exchanging more than a few words.
Oddly enough… those became the easiest moments to breathe.
Charlotte, meanwhile, slowly began learning things about Caleb, too.
She learned he loved planes because model aircraft sat carefully displayed across his living room shelves, detailed enough to reveal genuine passion rather than casual interest. There are some that looked worn from handling, suggesting he touched them more often than he realised.
She discovered he was secretly a gamer after accidentally finding an Xbox hidden beneath the television console one evening.
That discovery alone nearly made her laugh out loud.
Caleb—cold, unreadable Caleb—staying up late playing games somehow felt absurdly humanising.
Then there was the ukulele.
She found it one afternoon while cleaning, tucked carefully into the back of a closet as though forgotten on purpose. Dust had settled lightly across the case, but the strings were still perfectly maintained.
That surprised her most because Caleb didn’t seem like someone who created music.
He seemed more like someone who buried it.
None of those discoveries compared to the one that truly unsettled her—the photographs of a girl.
The first time, Charlotte noticed a framed selfie near the bookshelf. Then, another was tucked beside a lamp, and one half-hidden between stacks of documents in his office.
A girl, bright and beautiful, smiling happily beside Caleb in every single picture.
And Caleb—
God.
She had never seen him smile like that before. It wasn’t one of his small, polite smiles that he occasionally gave her out of courtesy, nor the faint, amused smirks she had accidentally witnessed once or twice.
No, this Caleb looked devastatingly alive—and in love.
He was soft around the edges, warm and entirely unguarded in ways she couldn’t even imagine from the man she lived with now. She never knew that Caleb would ever have the kind of smile that only existed when someone looked at a person they loved more than themselves.
The realisation settled quietly but painfully inside her chest.
Caleb had someone in his heart.
And judging by how many pieces of her still remained scattered throughout this house—
He probably never stopped loving her.
"…"
Why did it matter?
Charlotte frowned faintly at herself, fingers tightening slightly around the edge of the frame.
It shouldn’t matter.
Caleb was nothing more than a stranger living under the same roof. They shared hallways and silence and the occasional passing conversation, but that was all. Even after weeks of marriage, they barely knew each other beyond surface-level habits and quiet observations stolen from afar.
Hell—
She didn’t even have his phone number.
The realisation still felt ridiculous every time it crossed her mind.
Husband and wife, yet neither of them had ever bothered asking, or maybe they had both thought about it and simply… stopped themselves, as if there was an invisible line neither of them dared to cross. Because asking would imply closeness, interest, or intimacy, and both of them had become frighteningly good at pretending those things didn’t exist between them.
So if Caleb still loved that girl—
Good for him.
Charlotte forced herself to believe that thought firmly enough that it almost sounded convincing in her own head.
It wasn’t like she loved him.
This marriage was paper-thin outside of legality. A contract and an arrangement built out of obligation and circumstance rather than emotion. They existed beside each other peacefully enough, but that didn’t change what they were.
Strangers.
Strangers wearing wedding rings.
Strangers learn each other’s routines without ever learning how to reach one another properly.
So Caleb having someone in his heart was normal.
Expected, even.
He didn’t belong to her emotionally. She didn’t belong to him either. They simply occupied the same space out of obligation, nothing more dangerous than that.
So why did the room suddenly feel so quiet?
Charlotte exhaled softly through her nose before carefully placing the picture frame of her back onto his desk exactly where she had found it with precision, as if she had never touched it at all. Then she straightened, grabbed the dirty cloth, and stepped away from the desk with quiet, determined resolve, ignoring the strange heaviness that still lingered stubbornly inside her chest.