"Sometimes, the camera sees more truth than the heart is ready to face."
The editing lab buzzed with late-night energy. Screens glowed in dim corners, laughter and frustration blending into one soundtrack of creativity. Echoes of You was nearly done — just one more night of fine-tuning before submission.
Rhea sat in front of her monitor, eyes glued to the footage. Aarav's face filled the frame, raw and magnetic. Every flicker of emotion seemed perfectly timed, perfectly lit.
She sighed. "He's annoyingly good."
From the next desk, Kabir looked up, removing one headphone. "Who?"
"Aarav," she replied, almost defensively. "He doesn't even try. It just… happens."
Kabir smiled faintly. "Some people speak the language of light without knowing it."
Rhea turned toward him. "And you?"
He tapped his headphones. "I prefer sound. You can't fake truth there."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was steady, comfortable — like two artists lost in the same dream.
Hours passed. Aarav had gone home hours earlier, leaving Rhea and Kabir to handle the final edit. The campus outside was quiet, midnight stretching long and deep.
As she adjusted the color tone, Rhea noticed how Aarav's eyes looked in one frame — fiery, alive. Then her gaze drifted to the reflection on her screen — Kabir, behind her, quietly working.
Two very different kinds of presence. One burned; one steadied.
"Do you ever think about how stories change us?" she asked suddenly.
Kabir looked up, thoughtful. "They don't change us. They show who we already were — just louder."
She smiled softly. "You talk like a writer."
"Maybe I am. I just never wrote it down."
The hum of the computer filled the quiet between them.
When the render bar hit 100%, they leaned back in relief. The finished short film played on screen — a boy and girl in silence, separated by walls of their own making, finding connection without words.
Aarav's performance glowed, Rhea's shots lingered like memory, and Kabir's sound wrapped it all together.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then Rhea whispered, "It's beautiful."
Kabir nodded. "Because you saw it that way."
She looked at him — really looked — and for the first time noticed the calm certainty in his eyes.
He wasn't just the quiet one. He was the grounding force keeping their chaos in focus.
The door creaked open. Aarav's voice broke the spell.
"Still here, you two? Don't tell me you pulled another all-nighter."
Rhea laughed, rubbing her eyes. "We finished."
Aarav leaned over her chair, watching the final cut. "Wow… that's stunning." He turned to her, grinning. "You made me look like an actual actor."
"You are one," she teased.
He winked. "Only when you're behind the camera."
Kabir looked away, pretending to check cables, but his silence spoke volumes.
Rhea didn't notice — or maybe she did, but chose not to.
When the others left, Kabir lingered at the door. "Good work tonight."
"You too," she said, smiling. "Couldn't have done it without your sound."
He hesitated, then said softly, "And you couldn't have done it without him."
The words stung, though they weren't meant to.
Rhea blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing," he said quickly. "Just… he brings out a different side of you."
Her heart skipped, uncertain. "And you don't?"
He looked at her, eyes steady. "Maybe I bring out the side that doesn't need to perform."
Before she could reply, he gave a small nod and walked out into the night.
Rhea sat alone, staring at the frozen frame of their film — Aarav's smile caught in motion, glowing in the screen's soft blue light.
Behind her, the ghost of Kabir's words lingered like an echo.
Different sides. Different truths.
And somewhere deep down, she realized — the camera might capture everything, but it couldn't focus on what her heart refused to see.