The afternoon heat pressed down on Kuala Lumpur like a damp, invisible weight. The sky above University Malaya burned a hazy blue, and the scent of fried noodles and warm tar mingled in the air. Emily Chen sat on a bench beneath the shade of a rain tree, the edges of her scholarship letter curled in her hand.
She had won. A full ride to study architecture in the UK. Her dream.
So why did it feel like she couldn't breathe?
The numbers were cruel. Flights, visa, rent, daily expenses — the scholarship covered tuition, yes, but not life. Not her father's collapsed car workshop, not the debts in her mother's name, not the stack of unpaid bills waiting back home in Klang.
Her phone buzzed again. A familiar name on the screen. The debt collector. Again.
She sighed, thumbed the notification away, and stared into the rustling trees as if answers might fall with the leaves.
"Emily," a voice called, pulling her back.
She looked up.
Ryan Lee stood in the sunlight, holding two cups of iced latte from the campus café, one already sweating condensation. His navy T-shirt clung to him in the heat, and his usual messy brown hair looked a little too perfect to be accidental.
She blinked at him. "You're back from Johor?"
"Just last night." He handed her a cup and took a seat beside her, legs stretching out as if he owned the patch of earth in front of him. "Thought you might be here."
"How'd you know?"
He pointed at the crumpled envelope in her hand. "Scholarship letter. You always come here when you need to think."
Emily gave a small smile. "You remember that?"
Ryan shrugged. "Some things stick."
They sat in silence for a beat, sipping through straws, the melting ice clicking against plastic.
Finally, Ryan spoke. "I need to ask you something."
His voice was lighter than usual, but his eyes — dark brown, almost black — didn't match the tone.
Emily frowned. "What kind of something?"
"It might sound crazy," he admitted.
She gave him a look. "Now I'm worried."
He hesitated, then set his cup down and turned slightly toward her. "What if we got married?"
Emily almost choked on her drink. "What?"
"Not real-married," he said quickly. "Fake-married."
She blinked. "You're joking."
"I'm not."
Emily stared at him like he'd grown another head. "You're serious?"
"Look." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You need a financial cushion to go. I need to disappear for a while."
"Disappear?" she echoed.
"My family—" He exhaled sharply. "My brother's breathing down my neck. My relationship's… not working. I'm done pretending. I want out, even for a bit."
Emily didn't speak. Her brain was trying to catch up.
Ryan took a breath. "We could make it look real. Announce it. Plan a small wedding. Six months, tops. I'll take care of everything. You won't owe me anything."
She stared at the grass. It sounded ridiculous. Impossible.
But not unhelpful.
"My father doesn't even know I got the scholarship," she said softly. "He's still trying to borrow money from cousins to keep the lights on."
"I know," Ryan said.
Emily looked up sharply. "How?"
"You told me. Last semester. During that night we stayed up working on the community housing project."
She had forgotten.
He hadn't.
"Why me?" she asked.
"Because you're the only person I trust not to screw this up," he said. "And because you'd tell me if you changed your mind."
She ran a hand through her hair. The heat clung to her skin. "You're asking me to fake marry you… so you can run from your brother and your boyfriend?"
Ryan gave a dry laugh. "When you say it like that, it does sound a bit dramatic."
"It is dramatic."
"Come on. You love drama."
"I love K-dramas, not being in them."
He grinned. "Then think of this as character study."
Emily groaned but didn't move away. Her mind spun faster than she could control.
Ryan. Marriage. Escape. Support. Lies.
Freedom?
And yet… a small part of her, the part that had been drowning under reality, felt the surface again.
"You really think this could work?" she asked.
He met her eyes. "If we're careful. If we commit to it. Yeah, I do."
Emily looked back down at the scholarship letter in her lap.Paper-thin, like her certainty.
"This is insane," she whispered.
Ryan nodded. "Totally."
And waited.
She didn't answer him that day.
But she didn't say no either.