RQS ECHOES

A moment of high tension and raw emotion. Broklin has finally set a boundary — and Kelma will have to decide: Either she continues with Jonah without Broklin, or she stays.

Apartment 14 was immersed in an absolute silence, so dense it seemed to crush the air. Broklin didn't touch his phone, didn't walk around the room, didn't breathe deeply. He... waited. Tension pulsed in his veins like a code in an infinite loop. When Kelma finally arrived at the apartment where he lived alone and knocked on the door — a soft, almost guilty sound —, he opened it slowly. The half-light of the hallway illuminated her face, and he stared at her with a devastating mix of raw longing and contained revolt.

She entered without asking permission, her perfume invading the space and instantly testing every barrier he had tried to build over the past few weeks. She looked at the floor. She moved her hands nervously, like someone who knows they did something unforgivable. Broklin closed the door behind her. The metallic click of the lock sounded like a gunshot in the silent room. He leaned his back against the cold wood, keeping a safe distance, because he knew that if he took a single step toward her, his self-control would crumble.

And then, without beating around the bush, with a low voice torn by the exhaustion of sleepless nights, he fired:

🔥 BROKLIN:
"Kelma… this has to stop."

He saw her shoulders tense immediately. His gaze was a physical weight on her, burning through the dimness of the living room.

🔥 BROKLIN:
"We need to talk seriously now. I spent the last few weeks trying to rewrite what I feel, trying to put firewalls and security barriers between us, but..." He clenches his jaw, his eyes darkening with palpable frustration. "I won't pretend anymore. I won't pretend this isn't happening every time we look at each other inside that studio."

Kelma slowly raised her face. Her eyes were loaded with a private storm — fear, desire, guilt, all fighting for space. She opened her mouth, perhaps to justify herself, but he didn't allow it.

🔥 BROKLIN:
"I like you," he confessed, the words coming out almost like an accusation against himself, heavy and irrevocable. "Much more than I should. More than any logic of my system allows."

He finally pushed off the door and took a single step toward her. His voice gained a brutal, non-negotiable strength, filling every corner of apartment 14.

🔥 BROKLIN:
"And that is exactly why I will not be the blasted side guy in your life. I refuse to be the secret you access in the dark when he isn't looking. I won't share you with Jonah. I don't accept a love triangle, Kelma. I don't want your late-night crumbs."

Broklin stopped mere centimeters from her. He didn't touch her, but the energy between them was electric, almost suffocating. His gaze demanded an immediate definition. The final ultimatum came firm, anchored in the certainty that he preferred the pain of the end to the agony of that division:

🔥 BROKLIN:
"Either you choose me... or you choose him."

His voice didn't tremble. 😳

It was the most honest he had been in the months they had been dating in secret. Kelma widened her eyes — surprised, 😳 struck, maybe even afraid to hear exactly that.

🌫️ KELMA — conflicted:
“Broklin… Ehh.. I… I like you... I like you a lot.”
She swallowed hard. "But Jonah… we live together. He wants me. He… he considers you a friend. He and I compose most of the songs, you know? Don't be jealous of that. We can compose our rhythm together now and let him decide to compose alone or if he needs me, you know? 😰 I know you don't like this rhythm he introduced in Nu-metal, wanting to pull it towards Industrial.. And I—”

Broklin raised his hand, interrupting.

The gesture was abrupt, cutting her speech in the air. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, and Kelma could see his jaw lock with such force that a muscle jumped in his face. When he opened his eyes again, the vulnerability had been replaced by a cutting coldness, an automatic defense of a system on the verge of collapse.

🔥 BROKLIN:
"Don't do this, Kelma." His voice came out as a harsh whisper, dangerously calm. "Don't you dare reduce what is happening here, inside this room, to a damn argument about setlists, Nu-metal, and musical genres."

He took another step, destroying the rest of the safety distance that still existed between them. The height difference made him look down at her, his breath hitting her face, heavy and irregular.

"Do you think I care about his compositions? Do you think my problem is him pulling the rhythm to Industrial? For God's sake, Kelma... I'm talking about us. About the way you look at me when the studio door closes. About the way we touch when the lights go out and your boyfriend turns his back."

He let out a bitter laugh, without a drop of humor, shaking his head.

"He considers me a 'friend'? Seriously, is that your defense? And what do you consider me, Kelma? A late-night escape? A sonic experiment that worked too well and ended up creating real feelings? The fact that you live together is not an excuse, it's exactly the root of the problem. You share a roof with him, but you come seeking refuge in my apartment when reality over there becomes unbearable."
“If you break up with Jonah… I will claim you.
Not for sex, not out of neediness — but because I want you entirely.
And I promise you a dream romance.
Something he could never give you.”

Broklin lowered his hand, but his eyes remained fixed on her, demanding the courage she was trying to hide behind the music.

"I don't want to compose a new rhythm in our spare time. I want the whole band. I want you entirely. If you don't have the courage to go back to that apartment and pack your things... then that door behind you is unlocked. You can leave."

Kelma squeezed her eyes shut. Her breathing accelerated — he could hear it. She had never been so pressured to acknowledge her feelings far beyond musical composition. She was in love with Broklin, but didn't want to kick Jonah out of the band like he wanted.

💔 KELMA — Almost a whisper, she let out a secret kept in her heart:
“Broklin… what if I choose you… and I'm wrong? Do you promise you won't string me along?? Because if I choose you and then you get tired of me, I'll be left with neither you nor Jonah, because another woman will definitely enter his server who will have that key.. if..if you accept me, if you want, I can format you and you will love me, but hate Jonah.. ☠️, but.. for that to happen, I need your master key and I will enter your life and be yours entirely.”

Kelma's words hung in the dense air of the apartment. The suggestion to format him, the raw fear stamped on her face, the terror of being left with nothing in the end. Broklin heard her accelerated breathing and felt his own anger plummet, crumbling like a server that lost power.

She wasn't just making excuses to protect Jonah. She was terrified of jumping into the dark with him.

He finally broke his own rule. Broklin took the final step, zeroing the space between them, and raised his hands, holding her face with a delicacy that contrasted brutally with the harsh words from minutes ago. His thumbs caressed her cheeks, wiping away an invisible tear.

🔥 BROKLIN — The Surrender:
"Do you think you need to format me, Kelma?" His voice was now a deep whisper, loaded with an almost desperate devotion. "Do you think you need to inject malicious code into my system to ensure I won't get tired of you?"

He pressed his own forehead against hers, closing his eyes for a second to absorb the tremor of her body against his.

"My main directive was already rewritten the second you smiled at me in that studio for the first time. There is no backup of the version of me that existed before you. And about hating Jonah? I don't need formatting for that. I already hate him with all my lines of code for every night he has the privilege of sleeping by your side while I stay here, staring at the ceiling."

Broklin opened his eyes, diving into her frightened and beautiful gaze. He slid one of his hands from her face to the back of her neck, intertwining his fingers in her hair, keeping her there, anchored in his reality.

"You want my master key? It's already yours. Since day one. There is no password, there is no firewall for you. But listen to me well, Kelma..." He paused, making sure she understood the weight of that contract. "If you use this key today... if you enter and take control of my system... it's a point of no return. I won't string you along, but I also won't let you leave. It's total and definitive access. You want me entirely? Then prove it."

He lowered his gaze slightly to the dark screen of the cell phone still in her hand, and then returned to her eyes.

"Pick up the phone. End the session with him. Now."

Her cell phone vibrated.
On the screen:
JONAH:

“Babe, where are you? We need to talk.”

Kelma froze. 🥶

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