Slowly, trembling, Shu Yao rose and moved toward the mirror. Its surface waited for him — untouched, unbothered, as pristine as glass could be before it was asked to reflect something broken.
He stood before it.
And for a moment — he didn't recognize the figure staring back.
There was a boy in the glass, yes. A boy with white skin and long hair, now tangled like thread pulled too fast from a spool. A boy whose beauty had once been spoken of like a song, now muted by the hush of grief. A boy whose lips — still bitten red — seemed stitched shut by things left unsaid.
He raised a hand to the glass but didn't touch.
Instead, he reached for his shirt. Or what was left of it. Torn, sagging off his frame like a curtain after a storm, it clung to him with the shame of what it had failed to hide.
He peeled it away slowly — not with drama, but with dread.
Like one unwrapping a letter they never wanted to read.
Each inch of skin exposed felt heavier, colder. The marks were not names, but they read like a story all the same. And he hated it. Not the pain — but the proof.
The proof that he had not disappeared when he wanted to. That he had stayed. Endured. That his body remembered when he begged it to forget.
He turned away from the mirror.
He couldn't bear it. Not the reflection. Not the silence. Not the way his own gaze had looked at him — not in hatred, but in disbelief.
As if the boy he once was had stepped aside and left behind only the echo.
He let the shirt fall to the floor.
He didn't pick it up.
He just stood there, hands at his sides, the air too loud around him, his soul too thin within him. His heart thudded like a knock no one dared answer.
And for the first time since the night split him open — he whispered something.
Not to George. Not to Bai Qi. Not even to himself.
But to the boy in the mirror he could no longer look at.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Not for what had been done.
But for no longer feeling like himself.
His fingers reached up, slow and shaking—
but there were no buttons now.
They had all torn loose in the struggle,
scattered like teeth somewhere across the pavement,
snapped from their threads like truths
ripped from a tongue too afraid to speak.
It wasn't a shirt anymore.
Just fabric—torn, limp,
clinging to him like a memory that wouldn't let go.
One side hung jagged from his shoulder,
the other soaked in silence,
stained not with blood—but with the shape of hands
that never should have touched him.
He peeled it off slowly,
not because he feared the cold,
but because his shame moved slower than his body.
The cloth made no sound as it slipped from him—
a ghost departing.
He folded it anyway,
with trembling hands and clenched jaw,
not out of mercy,
but because even disgrace
deserved a coffin.
Then he buried it deep,
beneath old blankets and dust-laced garments,
far from light, far from eyes.
A silent grave.
A denial wrapped in linen.
With a breath that caught in hiccups,
he stepped into the bathroom.
The light greeted him cruelly—
clinical, clean,
the kind of light that made sinners flinch.
And he,
he was all shadow.
He looked down at his trousers—creased, wrinkled, ruined.
They clung to him like guilt.
He stripped them off,
fingers fumbling like a thief's in a holy place.
Then, barefoot and bare,
he turned the shower knob.
The water came like mercy.
Warm. Constant.
But it wasn't mercy.
It was memory in liquid form.
He stepped under,
not to be soothed,
but to be judged.
To be scoured clean by something
that didn't know what filth was.
And he scrubbed.
First soft—
as if afraid to disturb the bruise beneath the skin.
Then harder—
dragging his palms across his flesh
like he was sanding down sin.
The places where fingerprints bloomed like bruises—
his hips, his back, the underside of his arms—
he attacked them all,
scratching, scraping,
skin flaring red beneath his nails.
Still, he scrubbed.
As if water could unwrite touch.
As if pain could cleanse pain.
But pain only knows how to speak—
not how to forget.
His breath broke in him,
a sob sharp enough to split the steam.
It escaped,
hung for a moment,
then was swallowed by the hiss of falling water.
He leaned forward,
palms flat against tile,
head down, hair slicked and dripping like wet lace.
He didn't move.
He couldn't.
There was nothing noble in it.
No poetry.
Only a boy standing alone,
stripped of illusion,
bathed in judgment.
Not a victim.
Not yet a survivor.
Just Shu Yao—
stitched from silence,
shivering in light,
beautiful even now,
even if he could no longer
recognize himself
in the reflection fogging the glass.
A new wound opened—quietly, without blood—
as if the world had simply shifted again,
and Shu Yao had no choice but to break
along the new fault line.
This one didn't come with screaming.
No, it was the kind of pain that arrived
like frost on glass—
silent, sure, and already too late to stop.
It was Bai Qi.
It had always been Bai Qi.
From the beginning—before Shu Yao even knew
how love could sit in the bones like marrow,
how it could root itself so deep
you'd forget it didn't belong there.
But Bai Qi...
Bai Qi loved Qing Yue.
Openly. Easily.
With the kind of affection that looked effortless,
like he was born knowing how to offer it.
Shu Yao had only ever watched.
Held his breath like a secret
in every crowded room.
Hoped in quiet, sharp-edged ways.
And now he knew—
he would never be precious in Bai Qi's eyes.
Not like him.
Not like Qing Yue,
who seemed carved from Bai Qi's dreams
while Shu Yao remained stitched
from shadows and restraint.
His chest felt too tight.
But his hands—his hands were numb.
He moved like a ghost across the room,
each step slow, weightless,
as if gravity had finally grown tired of him.
He opened the wardrobe with fingers
that trembled like leaves in wind.
Pulled out something soft. Long.
A pale robe, maybe—he didn't even look.
He feared if he saw too clearly,
he'd begin to remember
all the things life had tried to teach him.
That beauty didn't protect you.
That love was not owed.
That being gentle didn't mean you'd be kept safe.
The towel was still wrapped low around his slim waist,
damp and clinging,
revealing a frame thinner than before.
The quiet ache of too much thinking,
too many days without appetite,
too many nights unraveling in silence.
He dressed slowly—
not because he was tired,
but because the stillness between each movement
was the only thing that made sense anymore.
The pajamas clung to his skin,
loose at the shoulders,
a little too long in the sleeves.
They made him look younger somehow—
a child dressed in softness
while the world outside had claws.
He lay on the bed, finally.
Not because it offered rest,
but because there was nowhere else to go.
His gaze found the window.
The moon sat there, patient and pale,
like someone watching
who would never speak.
He stared.
And stared.
And still—sleep did not come.
Only that familiar silence,
curling in the corners of the room
like fog that knew his name.
In that moment, Shu Yao wasn't dreaming.
He wasn't remembering.
He was simply enduring.
The soft rise of his chest.
The distant hum of night.
The ache of knowing—
that sometimes,
the cruelest thing life gives you
is a heart that still dares
to feel.
Sleep had almost taken him.
Shu Yao's lashes, heavy as frost-laced petals, began to close.
His breath slowed. His body softened into the bed,
and for a moment—just a breath—
there was peace.
But then—
a car passed, slicing the silence.
Its headlights carved through the slats of the curtain,
dragging pale streaks across his ceiling like ghostly fingers.
Then—
a giggle. Soft. Familiar.
Too bright for this hour.
Too Qing Yue.
His eyes shot open.
Red-rimmed. Exhausted. Raw.
Not from sleep,
but from enduring too long without it.
And then he heard his voice.
Bai Qi.
Low. Warm. Unbothered.
And just like that,
something twisted in Shu Yao's chest—
sharp and sudden,
like a thorn catching old scar tissue.
He sat up.
A strange smile touched his lips.
The kind of smile people wear
when they're drowning and trying to be polite about it.
He rose from the bed like a puppet on strings,
steps slow, quiet—almost reverent.
He reached the window.
And then he froze.
The curtains trembled slightly in the night breeze
as he stood there, barefoot and bone-thin,
watching the scene below
as if it were playing out underwater.
There they were.
Bai Qi and Qing Yue.
Qing Yue, radiant in a blush-pink gown
that shimmered like a promise,
her laughter spilling into the air
as if pain were an unfamiliar language.
Bai Qi leaned in.
Soft. Certain.
And kissed her.
Not a kiss of impulse,
not one stolen under confusion—
but one drenched in choice.
In love.
The kind Shu Yao had begged for in silence,
a thousand times in a thousand ways
no one ever saw.
He saw Bai Qi's hand on her waist.
Felt, through the glass, the warmth in his eyes
as he looked at her like she was
the very last thing on earth worth protecting.
Not Shu Yao.
Never Shu Yao.
Qing Yue pulled back with a twinkle in her gaze,
lifted her hand, and blew him a kiss—
a feather of affection in the dark.
And Bai Qi… smiled again.
Still hungry for her.
Still lost in her.
Still wearing the suit Shu Yao had helped him pick—
"Wear the grey, it softens your eyes."
It was the same suit.
Pressed. Perfect.
The one meant for the engagement that Shu Yao never spoke of again.
And now—
now Shu Yao saw the rings.
Their glint caught by moonlight,
like small, cruel stars wrapped around their fingers.
Proof. Finality. A crown to a story
he never got to be written into.
His hand shot to his chest—
clutching hard,
not out of drama,
but out of survival.
Because it hurt.
It hurt.
Not like heartbreak,
but like fatigue.
Like his heart was tired.
Tired of waiting.
Tired of hoping.
Tired of beating for someone
who never once looked back.
And still—he watched.
Still he stood there,
barefoot in soft pajamas,
his silhouette framed in silver moonlight,
his hair damp against his cheek,
and his eyes—
not weeping.
Not blinking.
Just open.
Open to a pain that would not blink back.
Open to a love that had always been someone else's.
Open to a sky that had never once answered him.
And somewhere deep in that stillness,
in the hollowness carved by love's absence,
Shu Yao whispered,
not aloud, but within:
So this is how it feels…
to be forgotten by someone you never forgot.
Bai Qi lingered by the passenger seat,
his hand on the car door, reluctant.
As if parting from her cost him something
he hadn't yet named.
Qing Yue leaned in again, playful mischief dancing in her eyes.
Her fingers reached toward his ear—again.
That teasing gesture she always used
when she wanted to provoke a grin out of him.
"No, no, alright—alright, I won't do it,"
Bai Qi chuckled, raising his hands in surrender,
shoulders shaking with the kind of laughter
that never once belonged to Shu Yao.
Qing Yue beamed,
and for a moment she looked like everything bright and simple
that Shu Yao had never been allowed to become.
Bai Qi's eyes softened as they rested on her.
"Bye, my princess," he said,
voice dipped in warmth,
the kind of warmth you save for only one person in your whole life.
And she—
she blushed so fiercely
the moonlight had to take a step back.
The car pulled away, humming low through the stillness of the street,
its taillights like two small hearts disappearing into shadow.
Qing Yue stood watching it for a moment,
a hand briefly lifted in farewell,
a smile still caught between her lips.
Then she turned and walked toward the door.
It was late—past midnight—
and she knew better than to ring the bell,
knew her brother would scold her gently,
knew the whole house was likely asleep.
So instead, she reached for her phone,
thumb hovering above the screen
as she typed out a quiet message:
"I'm home. Can you unlock the door?"
But before she could hit send—
the door opened.
It opened slow, without sound,
as if the house itself had been waiting.
And there, standing in the hallway's hush,
was Shu Yao.
He hadn't slept.
Of course he hadn't.
He stood barefoot,
wrapped in pale pajamas,
his face cast half in shadow and half in light—
like a painting half-finished,
or a prayer left unanswered.
His expression held no accusation.
No question.
Just silence.
The kind that knew everything
but chose not to speak.
Qing Yue blinked, surprised,
her phone still in her hand.
But Shu Yao didn't look at it.
He didn't look at her blush, or her dress, or the scent of night still clinging to her.
He simply stepped aside,
and held the door.
No welcome.
No words.
Just a gesture
that carried the weight
of everything he had never said.