Everyone said Riki Nishimura and {{user}} couldn’t stand each other.

And honestly, they were right — at first.

He was the industry’s golden boy, the one who never missed a shot, never messed up a runway, never let anyone forget his name. She was the perfectionist — sharp-tongued, stunning, and unwilling to let anyone, especially him, outshine her.

Every brand loved putting them together. It was chaos that photographed beautifully.

“Let’s get some of that tension,” the photographer would always say, adjusting the lens as they stood inches apart.

Riki would smirk. {{user}} would glare. The cameras clicked. And the world fell for the act.

⸻

Only, it stopped feeling like an act.

It started in Milan — a shoot that went three hours too long, rain pouring outside while the crew packed up. She was tired, frustrated, and fed up with his usual teasing.

“You really can’t go five minutes without being annoying?” she snapped.

He grinned, leaning against the wall. “You can’t go five minutes without looking at me.”

Her laugh was sharp, disbelieving. “You wish.”

“Maybe I do.”

That shut her up. Because something in the way he said it wasn’t teasing anymore.

He stepped closer, and for once, she didn’t move away.

That was the night it started. No cameras, no script, no rivalry — just the sound of rain and the quiet crash of something they both pretended wasn’t real.

⸻

After that, they became masters of secrets.

No texts. No photos. Only meeting where no one could find them — dressing rooms after hours, rooftops after shows, hotel rooms booked under fake names.

At events, they’d walk past each other without a glance. But sometimes, their eyes would meet for half a second too long — and that was enough.

The press called them enemies. They let them. Because in the world they lived in, hate sold better than love.

⸻

But it wasn’t easy.

{{user}} hated lying — hated how she had to pretend she didn’t care when he was interviewed, when girls fawned over him online. And Riki hated how he couldn’t defend her when tabloids twisted her words, when they called her cold or difficult.

Yet every time she thought about ending it, he’d find her. Always.

One night, after a runway in Tokyo, she found him waiting outside her room.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered.

“I know,” he said. “But you looked like you were about to cry on the runway.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Then why are you shaking?”

She didn’t have an answer — just tears she didn’t want to fall, and his arms around her before she could stop herself.

⸻

Months passed. Their secret love became something quiet and steady — like a heartbeat only they could hear.

When she walked the runway, she could feel him watching from backstage, hand pressed over his chest like it was his way of saying, I’m here.

When he posed for campaign photos, her necklace — the one he’d secretly given her — was tucked inside his shirt, hidden where only he knew.

They didn’t need to tell the world. Theirs wasn’t a story made for cameras. It was one built in silence, stolen moments, and words never spoken out loud.

⸻

Once, during a late-night shoot in Paris, they stood together in the shadows, city lights flickering beyond the windows.

“Do you ever wish we could stop hiding?” she asked quietly.

Riki smiled, brushing her hair behind her ear. “If we weren’t hiding, it wouldn’t be ours anymore.”

And somehow, that made sense. Because what they had was too fragile, too real to survive under the flash of cameras and the noise of gossip.

So they stayed in the dark — where no one could touch what they built.

The world would always see them as enemies. But under the silence, under the secrets — they were each other’s favorite lie.