Chapter 1: The Bubbles of dreams

Heer’s favorite version of the world always began with the sharp, intoxicating scent of chilled Champagne and the sound of a heartbeat that wasn't her own. While the mundane world outside moved in shades of dusty gray, Heer was drunk in her own imagination in a mental suite of marble and moonlight. In this space, he was always there—a presence that felt like expensive silk and cold logic.

He didn't just love her; he possessed the very air she breathed, his eyes tracking her with an obsessive intensity that made her real life feel like a pale imitation.

She called him her "Specialist," a man who could fix the world with a word but would burn it down for her smile. To anyone else, she was just a girl staring blankly out a window, but to herself, she was the center of a glittering, champagne-soaked universe that was far too perfect to ever be true.

She leaned back in her imaginary chair, almost feeling the phantom touch of a hand adjusting her hair with a "Diamond-level" fragility. In her head, he was leaning down, his voice a low vibration that promised to fix everything she hadn't even realized was broken. It was a beautiful, addictive lie. It was a world where she didn't have to be the Fighter of her world—she just had to exist, and that was enough to keep him breathing.

​The dream was intricate, built with the precision of a computer program. She could see the way his brow furrowed when he thought she was too close to a drafty window, or the way his hand would instinctively find the small of her back in a crowded room. He was "Crazy-Protective" even in her thoughts—a ghost who would burn down his own marble mansion if it meant she had a warmer place to sleep. She breathed in the imaginary bubbles of champagne, letting the warmth settle into her bones, wishing she could lock the doors of her mind and throw away the key.

But the transition from the imaginary world to the realization was always the hardest part for Heer; it was a silent, violent crash from a champagne heaven back down to a concrete earth. She blinked, the searing, intrusive glare of the apartment hallway stripping away the velvet shadows of her mind. She exhaled the ghost of a man who didn't exist, forced to face the hollow quiet of her own reality. She didn't know that the hallway was about to shrink, or that the air was already thickening with a presence she had only ever met in her sleep but the marble floors of her daydream dissolved into the cold, scuffed tiles of reality.

The moment Heer stepped out of her room, the air didn't just shift—it vanished, replaced by the heavy, suffocating scent of the exact cologne that had haunted her dreams. There, leaning against the hallway wall with a terrifyingly familiar authority, stood the man she had spent a lifetime inventing, his sharp gaze cutting through her with the precision of a Specialist.

​Her heart didn't just skip; it recognized him instantly. He wasn't just a figment of her imagination; he was Daksh—her first crush and former classmate from years ago. Back then, he had been the quiet genius three rows behind her, but the man standing in the hallway now had evolved into something far more dangerous.

​His brain worked like a computer—sharp, fast, and cold—but Heer’s own mind had just completely crashed. Physics told her it was impossible for a boy from her past to suddenly materialize like a ghost, yet her heart recognized the heavy, steady rhythm of his footsteps. It was a sound she had memorized over a thousand lonely nights, a beat that told her she was no longer in control. Her "Specialist" had finally stepped out of her past, out of her head, and into her life.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***