The only place I ever saw him now was in newspapers.
His face stared back at me from glossy business columns and front-page headlines — the youngest tycoon to rescue a collapsing empire, the heir who stepped into power with impossible efficiency. Every article painted the same portrait: Adithya Krishna, brilliant, ruthless, untouchable.
The prince of hell had traded sharp smiles for tailored suits, dark amusement for boardroom authority. And somehow, the world adored him for it.
I caught him accidentally sometimes — waiting at cafés, passing newsstands, sitting beside Pierre as the television murmured in the background. There he would be again, beneath flashing cameras, calm as if nothing in his life had ever fallen apart. As if he had never once sat beside me in silence with tears in his eyes.
The worst came one quiet morning. I unfolded the paper absentmindedly over breakfast, and his photograph consumed half the page.
Adithya Krishna confirms engagement — identity of fiancée to be announced.
The words blurred before settling into meaning. Engaged.
A strange ache pressed into my chest — sudden, sharp, humiliating. Not anger. Not heartbreak exactly. Just the sting of realising that while I stood still, trapped in memories and unanswered questions, he had already moved forward without me.
I stared longer than I should have. He looked perfect beneath the cameras — elegant, untouchable, belonging entirely to a world I had never truly been part of.
Whatever.
I was no one important in his story now. Just a girl wandering through ruins while he built futures beneath city lights and headlines. Maybe that was all I had ever been — a passing chapter, a temporary distraction in the chaos of his life.
Still, the betrayal lingered. Not because he owed me anything — perhaps he never had — but because some foolish part of me believed what we shared had been too real to vanish so easily.
I folded the newspaper slowly, leaning back into the silence.
Perhaps the cruelest part was this: I could no longer understand how Adithya Krishna had become my past so quickly.
Because once upon a time, he had felt inevitable.
Now he existed only in headlines, photographs, and the quiet ache I carried like a secret I no longer knew how to let go of.
── ∘◦ ❁ ◦∘ ──
Victory came slowly at first. Within a year, we had firmly established ourselves in the industry.
Competition after competition, the dance academy began building a name for itself. Our routines became sharper. Cleaner. Stronger. And somewhere along the way, people stopped being surprised when we won.
The trophies lined the glass cabinets near the entrance of the academy. Articles called us "the academy redefining modern performance choreography."
Pierre loved every second of it.
"Do you realise," she said one morning while dramatically waving a magazine in my face, "that we are becoming famous?"
"We are not becoming famous," I replied without looking up from my choreography notes. "You are becoming unbearable."
"Success changes people, Shreya."
"You were unbearable before success."
Sam nearly choked on her coffee laughing while Pierre clutched her chest like I had mortally wounded her.
Life had become chaotic, exhausting, and strangely comforting all at once. Somewhere in between, without fully noticing when it happened, I had built a life for myself again. A real one.
I had my own apartment now. Small, on the seventh floor overlooking the city lights, filled with scattered dance notes, oversized sweaters, half-dead plants Pierre kept insisting she could revive, and the constant smell of coffee.
For the first time in years, I had a place that belonged entirely to me.
And yet, some nights, the silence inside it felt heavier than it should have.
Especially when memories arrived uninvited.
── ∘◦ ❁ ◦∘ ──
I never found Stacy again.
After the information she had given me — the fragmented warning she dropped just days before Adithya left without explanation — she disappeared completely. No calls. No replies. No trace. At some point, I stopped trying to understand it.
Unfortunately, life compensated for the mystery by giving me Daniel instead.
If irritation could take human form, it would undoubtedly look exactly like him.
"Your timing is late again," Daniel said flatly during rehearsal one evening. "At this point, I think your left turns are emotionally unstable."
I stared at him. "Do you gain personal happiness from being insufferable?"
"Yes," he replied immediately. "It's one of my hobbies."
The group burst into laughter.
Daniel had become a permanent fixture in my life over the years — stoic, observant, and deeply committed to testing the limits of my patience. And somehow, despite all of that, he had also become fiercely protective. Too protective.
Which became painfully obvious anytime a man attempted to speak to me for longer than thirty seconds.
The worst incident happened after one of our performances at a national event in Seoul.
A dancer from another academy approached me backstage.
"You're Shreya, right?" he asked with an easy smile. "Your choreography tonight was incredible."
"Thank you," I replied politely. For once, the conversation felt normal. Calm. Civilised.
Which, naturally, meant the moment could not survive.
"She's busy."
Pierre had appeared out of nowhere carrying two iced coffees. Beside her stood Daniel, expression unreadable in the exact way that usually meant someone was about to feel deeply unwelcome.
The poor dancer blinked. "I was just talking to her."
"And now you're done," Daniel said calmly.
"Daniel," I warned.
"What?" he asked innocently. "I'm being polite."
"You once told a man to 'walk carefully' because he asked for my number."
"He survived."
Pierre handed me one of the coffees. "Barely."
The dancer laughed nervously. "Right… well, I should go."
"Yes," Daniel agreed immediately. "You should."
I turned slowly toward the two of them. "You both need professional help."
Pierre gasped dramatically. "We are protecting you."
"From what? Basic human interaction?"
Daniel took a slow sip of coffee. "Statistically, men are disappointing."
"You are a man."
"Exactly. I know what I'm talking about."
I stared at them in complete disbelief while they continued walking like this conversation made perfect sense.
And suddenly — painfully — I was reminded of someone else.
Someone with dark eyes and unbearable confidence who used to stand too close and speak like every word out of his mouth belonged exclusively to me.
The memory arrived without warning, sharp enough to make my chest ache.
I hated that it still could.
Because even now — years later, oceans apart, engaged to another woman — Adithya Krishna still somehow managed to linger in the quiet corners of my life like a habit I had never successfully broken.
The prince of hell had left long ago.
But apparently, the damage he caused had decided to stay.