The final week of school had its own kind of madness—projects, debates, exams, and the sort of tension that wrapped itself around everyone like a tight thread. But for Manal and Nayel, even the chaos had a rhythm. A quiet pact neither of them had ever spoken aloud.
She handled essays, debates, anything that needed flair or words.
He handled numbers, logic, and every math nightmare she had ever faced.
It just was.
That morning, the classroom buzzed with the usual pre-exam panic. Nayel sat at his desk, tapping his pen against the half-written debate speech he didn’t know how to fix. His jaw was tense, his eyes fixed on the page without really reading it.
Then—like always—a set of papers slid onto his desk.
Manal didn’t look at him. Didn’t smile. Didn’t wait for acknowledgment.
She just placed the polished, corrected essay next to his elbow and walked away, flipping through her own notes as if helping him was as routine as breathing.
Because it was.
Nayel glanced at the sheets—clean corrections, sharpened arguments, a tightened structure. Better than anything he could have written, and he knew it.
But the shift came the next morning.
The exam hall echoed with scraping chairs and whispered prayers. The maths final was always brutal, and Manal hurried in, late and breathless, scanning instinctively for the one person she always sat beside. The one who whispered formulas when she panicked. The one who nudged her foot when she forgot a step.
Her eyes found him.
But he didn’t wait.
He didn’t even pretend.
Nayel picked up his bag, walked to the opposite end of the room, and sat down.
Just like that.
He didn’t look at her again.
Manal froze for a moment, the sting hitting deeper than she expected. No bickering. No taunt. No warning.
A clean, quiet revenge.
She walked to another seat and put her things down without a word. For the first time in years, she wrote a maths exam without him beside her. Without his voice. Without the familiar scratch of his pen. Without… him.
Her face stayed blank, expression unreadable, but her fingers trembled once—just once—before she steadied them.
However, she did not confront him afterward.
She didn’t storm, didn’t snap, didn’t hurl an insult over her shoulder.
When the final bell rang and the school gates opened for the last time that year, Manal walked right past him. No glance, no pause, no trace of their usual chaos.
She passed him like he was nothing more than another student in the corridor.
A stranger.
And that—more than anything—caught Nayel off guard.
He had expected her to explode. To demand an explanation. To argue.
He had expected the fire.
But her silence stayed with him long after she disappeared through the gates.
That evening, Nayel paced his room, restless. Annoyed at himself. Annoyed at her. Annoyed that he cared at all. He checked his phone more times than he would ever admit.
Still nothing from her.
Not even a sarcastic message.
He hated it.
He hated how empty the silence felt.
Finally, with a muttered curse, he grabbed his wallet and stormed out of the house. The bakery lights were too warm, the glass counter too bright, and he stood there far longer than necessary before choosing a cake.
Not chocolate.
Not vanilla.
But pineapple.
Her least favorite.
The one she despised.
The one he teased her about endlessly.
It was the perfect apology from Nayel.
Half-serious. Half-ridiculous. Entirely him.
He had it delivered without a note.
Just a box, just the cake, just enough for her to know he’d thought about her—even if he’d pretend he hadn’t.
Manal opened the box after dinner.
The moment she saw the yellow frosting, her eyes narrowed slightly, a breath slipping out of her nose in disbelief.
Pineapple.
Of course.
Manal didn’t touch the cake that night.
She simply lifted the lid again, stared at the ridiculous pineapple frosting, and understood instantly—this was Nayel’s way of saying what he’d never say out loud.
Sorry.
Fine.
Whatever.
We’re good.
It was everything and nothing at the same time.
The next morning, the box was gone from her room. Inaara spotted it on the dining table and teased her, but Manal ignored her, cutting a clean slice with the same calmness she used to hide every bruise on her heart.
She hated pineapple.
She hated it more because he knew she hated it.
But she ate the cake anyway.
And that was that.
No text.
No confrontation.
No smug apology from him.
No sarcastic comeback from her.
Just the quiet return to the unnamed space they lived in.
Here is the present-day scene, smooth, cinematic, psychologically sharp, and perfectly aligned with everything you’ve built.
Nothing added outside your world.
Tone: cold, emotionally restrained, aching underneath.
( Present day)
The office smelled of sandalwood and mint tea—quiet, warm, deliberately calming.
Nayel sat on the leather couch across from the psychologist, one leg crossed over the other, jaw clenched, eyes unreadable.
He’d spoken for thirty minutes straight, recounting the flashback like someone describing a weather report. Detached. Controlled. Almost bored.
Except the therapist wasn’t bored.
She leaned forward, tapping her pen against the notepad.
“So… the pineapple cake. The project everyone believes is your tribute to ‘your lost love’… it was actually something she despised?”
Nayel didn’t flinch.
“Yes.”
“And you chose it intentionally? As a symbol?”
He shrugged, gaze fixed on the carpet.
“It was her least favourite thing. And she ate it anyway.”
A pause.
That was us.Dost hum reh nahi sake... Dushmani hui nahi.
The silence stretched.
The therapist let out a quiet breath, genuinely stunned.
“Nayel… do you understand how—unusual—that is? Most people honour love with something the other person likes. But you—”
“—chose what she hated,” he finished lazily. “I know.”
“And later you built an entire brand campaign around it,” she said gently. “People think this project is your emotional confession. A tribute to your first love. The lost one.”
A beat.
“But it wasn’t her favourite. It was her least favourite.”
Nayel’s eyes flickered, dark and tired.
“I wasn’t lying,” he murmured. “It is tied to her. Just not the way anyone thinks.”
The therapist stared at him as if seeing a new version of him—more complicated, more damaged, more transparent than the one who walked in.
“Nayel… this isn’t grief,” she said carefully.
“It’s devotion. Twisted… but devotion.”
That did it.
Nayel uncrossed his legs, stood up calmly, and pulled his blazer over his shoulder. The session wasn’t over, but he clearly had no intention of sitting back down.
He flicked open his lighter, the flame reflecting in his eyes.
“Well,” he said flatly, lighting the cigarette,
“now I’ll be needing both the therapist and the cigarette.”
The psychologist opened her mouth to say something—anything—but he was already walking to the door.
Cold. Composed. Untouched on the surface.
But the moment he shut the door behind him, the camera of his life panned to the quiet interior of his private lounge.
Soft light.
Glass shelves.
A slow swirl of cigarette smoke.
And on the centre table—
a wedding card.
White. Gold-embossed.
Painfully elegant.
Manal Shah weds Bassam shah.
Nayel stood still for a full second.
Then another.
No outburst.
No visible heartbreak.
Just a long, deep inhale of smoke…
and the quiet shattering of something he’d never admit he still carried.
The evening lay thick over Shah Mahal, the kind of golden, suffocating dusk that had seen too much blood, politics, and inheritance wars. In the central hall, Bassam Shah sat across from Zubair Shah, the senior-most surviving figure of the dynasty.
Documents, estate files, and Shah’s succession notes lay scattered across the table.
Bassam’s jaw was set—sharp, aristocratic, specifically feudal. There was a kind of entitlement in the way he sat, not arrogant, just inherited.
Zubair closed the final file.
“You were supposed to take this seat, Bassam,” he said, tapping the successor line Sikandar Shah had written.
“The feudal mantle, the constituency… all of it was to be yours.”
Bassam didn’t flinch.
“I know.”
“Then why London?” Zubair asked quietly.
“Everyone thinks you’re doing it for Manal. I don’t.”
Bassam looked up, expression unreadable.
“I am doing it because of Manal. Not for her.”
Zubair leaned back. Bassam continued:
“If she stays here, in Shah Mahal, in her father’s world, she’ll never escape Nayel.”
A beat.
“Every corridor, every guard, every file—something will remind her.”
There was no jealousy in his voice. Only strategy.
“London is a reset. Away from this land.”
He paused.
“Away from Nayel.”
Zubair’s lips tightened.
“You think distance erases history?”
Bassam’s eyes were steady, almost cold.
“It erases influence.”
Zubair chuckled—not out of humor, but disbelief.
“Manal… isn’t built like us, Bassam.”
“She’s not political by choice, but by blood. She is fatalistic. When she says she will marry you, she will. Even if it kills her.”
Bassam looked away—just briefly.
Zubair added, voice lowering:
“But don’t mistake her silence for forgetting.”
Bassam’s eyebrow lifted.
“Meaning?”
Zubair folded his hands.
“Nayel is to her what an appendix is to the body.”
A pause.
“Not useful. Not needed. But it exists. Quiet. Hidden. And when it pains… the whole body collapses.”
Bassam’s stare sharpened, feudal pride wounded.
“If it becomes painful,” he said, voice smooth as venom,
“I will get the appendix removed.”
Zubair closed his eyes.
He had seen men like Bassam rule.
He had also seen them destroy.
London — Next Day
Nayel sat across from his therapist, posture arrogant, chin up—a man who had restructured his grief into ego.
Not wounded.
Not abandoned.
Just unforgiving.
The therapist watched him.
“If letting her go hurts so much… why don’t you forgive her and let her in?”
Nayel’s eyes hardened immediately—the way they always did at Manal’s name.
The therapist spoke again, calmly:
“Or maybe you can’t forgive her because you don’t actually believe she wronged you.”
A flash of something crossed Nayel’s face. Anger. Disgust. Pain?
The therapist continued:
“Let her be the culprit. Hate her. Then forgive.”
Nayel gave a slow, humorless laugh.
“Do you know the meaning of Manal?”
The therapist shook his head.
“Achievement.”
A beat.
“And Nayel means… achiever.”
Something bitter curled at his lips.
“Tell me, doctor… how does the achiever forgive the achievement?”
The therapist had no answer.
Nayel stood, lighting a cigarette with practiced arrogance.
“Your logic is stupid.”
A faint smirk.
“But I’ll try.”
He headed toward the door.
“I’ll be needing both the therapist and the cigarette now.”
He walked out—cold, composed, unbothered.
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