The city shimmered under a high sun, wrapped in the humming rhythm of business and ambition. Skyscrapers stretched like steel fingers toward the heavens, each pane of glass reflecting stories in motion, lives unraveling in silence behind modern walls.
Bai Qi's car slid through the bustling roads with the quiet authority of someone who didn't need to hurry—because the world always waited for him.
The black vehicle pulled up before a towering building—sleek, elegant, and ruthlessly symmetrical. Its facade gleamed with reflective glass panels, catching both sky and street, ambition and memory.
This was the kingdom of his so-called father.
And today, it belonged to him.
The driver stepped forward with practiced precision, opening the door in one smooth motion. Bai Qi emerged, one polished shoe at a time, the light brushing over his dark suit like a crown that followed his every step. His expression was unreadable—too calm to be cocky, too focused to be carefree.
He moved toward the front entrance, where the massive glass doors—tinted and towering—sensed his approach and opened without a sound. They parted like gates at a coronation.
Inside, the lobby swallowed him in marble and mirrored grandeur. The employees scattered across the glossy floors straightened as if commanded by unseen drums.
Heads bowed.
Voices hushed.
Phones were lowered mid-call. Coffee cups frozen mid-sip.
Everyone knew who he was.
Bai Qi.
The Boss's son.
The heir they couldn't ignore.
He didn't acknowledge the stares. His gaze remained forward, sharp and unreadable, as he passed rows of desks and glass-partitioned offices. His shoes tapped against the floor like clockwork—steady, final.
He reached the elevator. Pressed the button. Waited.
The mirrored doors opened, and he stepped inside, surrounded by his own reflection on every side—fragments of a man on the cusp of something larger than himself.
The ride upward was silent.
Thirty floors of steel ascent.
When the elevator finally opened, the executive floor unfolded like a private universe. Polished wood met soft carpets. The ceilings were higher. The air richer.
And ahead—his father's office.
A wall of glass looked out across the city, where the sun was beginning its slow descent, casting gold over towers and windows, like light touching things too proud to ask for it.
Bai Qi stepped in.
The office was spacious—almost cold in its perfection. Black leather. Mahogany. No clutter. Just the illusion of order built by decades of power.
He crossed the room and settled into his father's chair.
It was bigger than he expected.
It smelled of sandalwood and old decisions.
He didn't lean back immediately. Instead, he looked out the glass wall before him, the whole city sprawling beneath him like a kingdom he might one day own.
His hand rested on the edge of the desk.
Then—
A knock.
Polite. Crisp.
The door opened, and the assistant entered—a trim man in his early forties, with a posture as practiced as his patience. He bowed respectfully.
"Sir," he said. "Here is the day's schedule."
Bai Qi took the tablet from him and glanced through it. Reports. Meetings. Approvals. Negotiations. Financial outlines. Nothing thrilling, and yet… everything vital.
"Very well," he said simply.
And so the hours began.
One task after another.
One signature after the next.
The sun climbed. The tea cooled. Voices came and went. Deadlines moved like shadows across the desk.
And Bai Qi, for once, said little.
There was no smirk. No dramatic pause.
Just quiet focus.
Poise.
Precision.
He answered calls. Reviewed documents. Listened carefully and dismissed the unnecessary. When one executive tried to condescend, he corrected him with such calm finality that the man left red-eared and apologizing.
There was no mistake.
He was not just the boss's son.
He was becoming the boss.
The afternoon faded into evening.
And when the golden hour slipped over the skyline, bleeding amber across the glass walls, Bai Qi finally leaned back.
He loosened his tie, undoing the top button of his shirt. A long breath escaped him, threading through his lips like smoke after a long-held flame.
He smiled.
Not a smirk. Not a game.
Just a real, private smile—directed at the view beyond the glass.
Below him, the city pulsed. Lights flickered on, one by one, like the stars were being reversed—this time, rising from the earth instead of falling from the sky.
And within that quiet blaze of buildings and windows, Bai Qi whispered to no one:
"My dream is starting to breathe."
He remained there for a while longer, bathed in light and silence, surrounded by ceilings taller than doubts and glass that knew how to keep secrets.
The boy who once followed shadows…
Now sat in a tower of glass and steel.
And somewhere—across the city—someone might've felt that shift in the air. That quiet tilt of fate.
The heir had arrived.
And this time, he was staying.
Night stretched thin across the sky, folding the city into hush and hush again. Streetlights hummed outside like distant memories, and the walls of Shu Yao's room, once silent, now pulsed with shadows that didn't quite stay still.
He lay curled sideways, a pillow hugged loosely against his chest, his bandaged ankle propped delicately on a folded blanket. The pain didn't scream—but it whispered cruelly, endlessly, each throb like a clock ticking deeper into exhaustion.
And sleep—sleep had abandoned him.
Every time he closed his eyes, he was dragged back into that fog-drenched nightmare.
Where Qing Yue stood beside Bai Qi.
Where they smiled.
Where they looked… perfect.
And he?
He was always the one behind the glass. Watching. Forgotten.
Shu Yao blinked at the ceiling now, hollow-eyed, the fan above slicing moonlight into moving pieces across his walls. His chest ached in that quiet, maddening way—where pain wore no name, and tears refused permission.
He pressed his back lightly against the bed board, sitting upright slowly, breath shallow as if speaking too loud might shatter something already on the brink.
He exhaled.
Soft.
Defeated.
His mind ran in circles—Qing Yue, sweet and bright, loving him like only a sister could. Bai Qi, sharp and golden, lighting parts of him that had never known warmth before.
No matter how much I love him…
The thought lingered. Poisoned.
He will never be mine.
A tear slipped down his cheek without drama, trailing over skin like it had traveled the same path many nights before. He didn't sob. He didn't break. But the hurt was a tide—rising, steady, inevitable.
He turned his face slightly, gaze falling on the corner of his room—where his school bag rested by the small study table, untouched.
His journal.
Still inside.
Still waiting.
The thought tugged at him.
He reached for the crutches leaning near the bedside—Qing Yue had bought them with the gentlest fuss, her eyes warm with worry and affection. She'd even adjusted them for his height herself. She meant well.
It's me, Shu Yao thought bitterly. It's me who's wrong. For loving like this. For feeling too much.
He slipped his arms into the crutches slowly, moving with quiet grit. The floor was cold beneath his toes, the journey to the table short but not without effort.
Once there, he pulled the chair back awkwardly, dropped into it, and reached into the bag.
His fingers brushed over the leather spine of his journal, and something inside him cracked further.
This book held all the words he never spoke.
Tonight, it would hold a few more.
He opened it.
Picked up his pen.
Paused.
Then, with delicate fingers and a heart heavier than the moon, he began to write—slow strokes, the ink almost trembling as it touched the page.
Even if you don't know, I still love you.
Even if you find it disgusting… I will still love you.
Even if my world crumbles into pieces, I will smile at you—
As if nothing happened.
As if I am still alive.
As if you were never, ever stolen away from me.
He stopped.
The pen shook in his hand.
His vision blurred.
Hot tears spilled from his smoke-grey eyes—silent and steady—cutting lines down his porcelain-pale cheeks. He didn't wipe them. He let them fall, like rain over a letter that would never be sent.
His lips trembled.
And still he kept writing.
Not because it helped.
But because it was all he had left.
There was no one in the room to witness it. No one to see how his shadow curled along the floor like a broken wing, or how his shoulders slumped like the weight of love had grown too heavy for one boy to carry alone.
His heart…
It still beat.
But it no longer belonged to him.
Somewhere along the way, quietly and foolishly, he had offered it to Bai Qi.
And even now—even knowing it might never be wanted—he was still offering it.
Willingly.
Hopelessly.
Whole.
A quiet sob escaped him then, sharp and brief, vanishing into the dark.
The ink blotched slightly beneath his fingertips.
He closed the journal softly, as if afraid even the paper might judge him.
And then he whispered into the empty air, a voice so faint it was almost a prayer—
"You're worth every wound… even if you never know."
And the night held him gently,
But not kindly.
The journal lay closed on the desk now, its final lines still fresh—ink smudged where his tears had fallen, like rain on a letter never posted. Shu Yao sat motionless for a long moment, the silence in the room so deep it felt like something alive, breathing with him.
Outside, the world moved on.
Inside, time felt broken.
His hand, the one that had written with such aching gentleness, now pressed over his chest—as if trying to hold something in. Or keep something from breaking loose.
But it was too late.
The pain was already pouring through the cracks.
With trembling limbs, Shu Yao leaned forward—his slender frame folding in like paper under rain. His head came to rest against the cool wood of the study table, the journal just beneath his cheek. His-brown hair spilled across the desk like quiet silk, catching what little light the moon offered through the window.
And then—he clutched his chest.
Not dramatically.
Not like in novels.
But like a boy trying to hold his own heart together.
A soft, strangled sound escaped his throat—half-sob, half-breath. No one was there to hear it. No one ever was.
His shoulders trembled.
And his lips moved, barely parting with the words he'd buried too deep for daylight.
"I love you…" he murmured, voice hoarse, tender, crumbling.
"No matter what."
The words dissolved into the empty room, like petals scattered into the wind—beautiful, unclaimed, unseen.
His tears ran freely now, slipping over his cheeks in silence. They kissed the pages of his journal, the sleeve of his shirt, the back of his hand.
And still, he whispered it.
Again.
And again.
"I love you… no matter what…"
Each time softer.
Each time more broken.
Until it was nothing more than breath.
No one answered.
The walls didn't speak.
The shadows didn't soothe.
But the pain—
It stayed.
Wrapped around him like cold lace, too delicate to tear, too cruel to wear.
And yet, somehow… even in his sorrow, Shu Yao looked beautiful. Tragic, yes—but beautiful in that rare, unbearable way that only someone truly in love can be. The kind of beauty that doesn't seek to be seen—only to feel, even if it's alone.
And in that quiet hour, slumped over a study desk with ink-stained fingers and tear-wet cheeks, Shu Yao didn't pray to be loved back.
He simply offered his love to the silence—
As if it were a sacred thing.
And as if someone, somewhere, might hear.
His breath had quieted now, the tears drying slowly against his pale cheeks. The ache in his chest had not gone—but it had settled, like a storm that no longer raged, only wept in the distance.
Shu Yao still sat at the desk, his head resting against folded arms, his slender body curled slightly as though trying to make itself small enough to disappear.
He didn't move.
Didn't speak.
Only breathed—shallow, steady, tired.
And at last…
He closed his eyes.
Not in peace.
Not in comfort.
But because there was nothing else left to do.
And as darkness claimed him, he didn't know what might come.
Would it be a dream?
A gentle memory of golden light, soft hands, and laughter too sweet to be real?
Or would it be the nightmares again?
Those same haunting visions of Bai Qi and Qing Yue standing together—just out of reach—smiling while he remained in shadow, alone, invisible.
He didn't know.
He only knew the edge of exhaustion, the weight of love too heavy for one boy's chest, and the silence that followed him everywhere like a second skin.
And so he let go—
Not of his love,
But of the moment.
Sinking slowly into the unknown behind closed eyes.
And as the night stretched deeper across the city,
A soft wind rustled the curtains—
Like a hand reaching through the dark
Just a second too late.