Till Discord Do Us Part

When Aayan proposed to Hira, it wasn’t under a string of fairy lights or on a scenic mountaintop—it was in the middle of a gaming marathon during a voice chat. His avatar knelt in front of hers with a diamond ring power-up floating in the pixelated air. Hira laughed, cried, and typed “/yes” before whispering it aloud. It was weird, modern, and perfectly them.

They met through a Discord server for indie game developers. Aayan was a coder, obsessed with sandbox engines and mods. Hira was a digital artist with a knack for turning code into visual poetry. Their romance grew through midnight bug fixes, shared Spotify playlists, and DMs that turned into six-hour calls. Eventually, pixels turned into plane tickets, and those calls turned into cuddles on a shared couch.

Marriage was easy at first. Their work-from-home routines blended into each other. Aayan would pass her chai between meetings, Hira would massage his neck after long coding sprints. They were each other's world—and the digital universe they shared made everything feel infinite.

But as time passed, something shifted.

Aayan dove deeper into virtual reality. He joined a rising metaverse project, and with it came long hours, VR headsets, and a growing distance Hira could feel through the silence. He wasn’t “gone,” not physically. But emotionally? He was logged out.

“I made lasagna,” Hira said one night, placing the plate beside him.

“Mhm,” Aayan mumbled, eyes fixed on the floating city he was building in VR. She watched his hands twitch on the controllers, his mouth open slightly in focus. She waited. And waited.

He never touched the food.

The next evening, she tried again. This time, she booted up the game. Her avatar stood beside his in silence. She messaged: “Hey. Can we talk?”

His avatar jumped. “IRL or here?”

“Does it matter?”

Aayan pulled off the headset that night. “You know this is important. This is our future.”

“But what about our present?” Hira asked. “I feel like I’m living alone.”

That was the start of it: the drift. Like a controller with a loose joystick, they veered slowly apart. Conversations became functional. Meals turned silent. Nights passed where their only contact was the hum of machines and the glow of screens.

It wasn’t about the game. Hira loved games. It was the way he chose that world over hers. She could draw the most stunning artwork, but he wouldn’t look up unless it glitched.

One evening, she stumbled upon an old project of theirs—a retro game they’d started during their honeymoon phase. It was a two-player adventure: one character was a coder who created paths, the other an artist who painted life into them. The levels required them to move in sync. If one sped ahead, they’d fall into darkness.

It hit her.

They had stopped playing together.

She reinstalled the game. It was buggy, incomplete, but it loaded. And she played. Alone at first. Dying, respawning, painting bridges, waiting for a player who never logged in.

The next day, she left her art tablet beside Aayan’s coffee mug, with the game’s launch screen blinking gently on the laptop.

No words.

Just a chance.

He didn’t respond that day. Or the next. Hira quietly packed her bags one evening and left to stay with her sister. Not forever—she just needed to be somewhere she didn’t feel invisible.

Two days later, a ping.

From: Aayan
Subject: Player Two Ready?

Hira opened the link.

It was their game—fully debugged, polished, and renamed.

Title Screen: "Till Discord Do Us Part"
Press Start to Reconnect

She clicked.

The first level loaded. A pixelated version of Aayan stood there, holding a sign: “I’ve been stuck in a world without you.”

She moved her character forward.

A new level began. They had to collaborate—solve puzzles, trigger switches together, jump in sync. Just like before.

But this time, he didn’t rush ahead. He waited.

When the final level ended, fireworks exploded over a pixel sunset. The screen faded, replaced with a message:

“Real love isn’t just code or color. It’s two imperfect people pressing 'Continue' even when the game gets hard.”

Tears blurred her screen.

The doorbell rang.

Aayan stood there, holding a controller in one hand and her favorite snacks in the other. “Player One reporting for apology quest,” he said sheepishly.

She laughed, pulling him into a hug. “Only if we co-op this time.”

They talked for hours—not through avatars or chat windows, but with messy emotions and raw honesty. They set new boundaries: tech-free dinners, Sunday walks, working together on games again. It wasn’t perfect. But it was real.

Sometimes, love isn’t about unplugging completely. It’s about remembering who you’re playing for.