Waiting for someone he swore he wasn't waiting for.
Zhou Mingyu hadn't spoken to him since that night in the standard room.
At first, Lin Chen thought he'd be relieved. No teasing. No warmth curling around his carefully drawn boundaries. No unpredictable smiles that made him forget how to breathe.
He was wrong.
The silence from Mingyu hurt in ways he couldn't put into words. It sat heavy in his chest, cold and hollow.
He turned another page, though he hadn't read the last one. The ticking of the wall clock was sharp in the quiet. Somewhere, a fluorescent bulb hummed faintly overhead.
He was alone. Completely alone. Just the way he wanted.
So why did it feel so unbearable?
He reached for his pen, then froze when he heard footsteps—steady, unhurried, growing closer.
His heart stumbled.
No one came to the library this late. No one except—
"Still here?"
Lin Chen's hand tightened around his pen. He didn't have to look up. He knew that voice too well.
Calm. Low. Warm.
Zhou Mingyu.
Of course, it was him.
"Library closes at ten," Lin Chen said evenly, eyes fixed on his notebook. "You shouldn't be here."
"I could say the same to you."
Mingyu's voice carried a faint smile, but it didn't reach his tone tonight. There was something quieter about him. Less teasing. More… searching.
Lin Chen swallowed and turned a page that didn't need to be turned. "I'm studying."
"Liar."
The word was soft, but it hit him like a challenge.
He looked up, startled. Mingyu stood by the end of the table, hands tucked into the pockets of his hoodie, dark hair falling over his eyes. There was a faint sheen of rain on his shoulders, the kind that came from walking without an umbrella.
He looked tired. And for the first time, Lin Chen realizedrealized he wasn't the only one avoiding something.
"I didn't come to fight," Mingyu said quietly, taking a step closer.
"Then what did you come for?" Lin Chen asked, though his voice betrayed a tremor.
Mingyu's answer was simple. "You."
The word lodged itself in Lin Chen's throat.
He pushed his chair back slightly, needing space, needing air. "Don't joke like that."
"I'm not joking."
"Zhou Mingyu—"
"I've given you space," Mingyu interrupted, voice still calm but firm. "For three days, I didn't text, didn't come near you, didn't say anything. You looked miserable. You think I didn't notice?"
Lin Chen's breath hitched. "You're imagining things."
Mingyu shook his head slowly. "I'm not. You're here at ten o'clock pretending to study because it's easier than thinking. That's what you do. You hide behind perfect notes and quiet rooms so you don't have to feel anything."
His words were sharp, but not cruel. Just honest.
Lin Chen stood up abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. "You don't know me."
"I want to," Mingyu said. "But you keep running every time I get close."
Lin Chen opened his mouth—then closed it again.
His inner turmoil was softly accompanied by the quiet patter of rain against the towering library windows.
He intended to tell Mingyu to go. He attempted to leave.
However, his feet remained immobile.
Mingyu had a steady gaze that gave patience rather than demanding answers. Silently, he added, "I'm not here to push you." "I simply wanted to know why you keep excluding me."
Lin Chen glanced down at his book, which was open and shook in the light draft. "You wouldn't comprehend."
"Give me a try."
In the long silence between them, everything that was not spoken hummed.
And for the first time, Lin Chen could not hold his mask together.
The rain outside deepened to a low, steady murmur, soft enough that every sound inside the library seemed sharper—the quiet rustle of pages, the faint echo of breathing, the quickened thud in Lin Chen's chest.
He didn't sit back down.
He didn't move at all.
Mingyu stayed where he was for a moment, hands still in his pockets, eyes searching Lin Chen's face as if looking for the right key to open a locked door. Then, without asking permission, he pulled out the chair across from him and sat.
The scrape of wood against the floor felt louder than thunder.
"You don't have to talk," Mingyu said softly. "Just don't pretend."
Lin Chen's fingers clenched. "Pretend what?"
"That you don't care."
He looked away, jaw tight. "I don't."
"Then why are you shaking?"
Lin Chen froze. His fingers were trembling—barely, but enough for Mingyu to notice. He shoved them under the table, heart pounding. "You're imagining things again."
"No," Mingyu said, his voice gentler now. "I've imagined plenty of things, but this isn't one of them."
The words hung between them like the faint smell of rain and paper.
Lin Chen sat down slowly, the chair legs scraping as if reluctant to move. He stared at his open notebook, though he could no longer see a single word written there.
Mingyu leaned back, gaze fixed on him. "You always do that, you know. Act as if you stay quiet long enough, the feelings will go away."
"They do," Lin Chen murmured.
"No, they bury themselves until they hurt worse."
That earned him a glare. "You think you know everything."
"I know enough to see you're tired," Mingyu said. "And lonely."
Lin Chen wanted to laugh—wanted to throw the words back and deny them—but something inside him cracked.
Lonely.
He'd never said it aloud, but the word fit like a truth he'd been avoiding for years.
He swallowed hard. "You shouldn't say things like that."
"Why not?"
"Because they make it hard to breathe."
Mingyu's expression softened instantly. He leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Lin Chen…"
"Don't." The word came out sharper than intended, but it trembled. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you see me."
Mingyu didn't flinch. "That's the point."
The rain outside grew louder for a moment, as if the world wanted to fill the silence they couldn't.
Lin Chen stared down at his notebook, voice barely audible. "You don't understand. People expect things from me. They expect me to be… flawless. If I'm not, they stop trusting me. They stop looking at me the same way."
Mingyu tilted his head slightly. "So you built a cage made of perfection."
"It keeps me safe."
"Does it?"
Lin Chen looked up at him then, eyes tight with something raw and unguarded. "It keeps me from being disappointed."
Mingyu's gaze didn't waver. "Or from being known?"
The question landed like a quiet strike to the heart.
Lin Chen couldn't answer. His throat ached. He pressed a palm against the page as if to steady himself.
Mingyu's voice softened again. "I get it. You've been told your worth depends on how well you perform—grades, composure, control. But that's not you, Lin Chen. That's armour. And armour's heavy. Don't you ever get tired of carrying it?"
Lin Chen's breath stuttered. "Every day."
The admission slipped out before he could stop it.
Mingyu's eyes softened. "Then maybe you should let someone help you take it off."
A shiver ran through Lin Chen at the phrasing—too close, too tender. He looked away quickly, pulse racing. "You don't know what you're asking."
"I'm not asking you to fall in love with me," Mingyu said quietly. "I'm asking you to stop pretending you don't want to feel anything."
Lin Chen's chest hurt. "It's not that simple."
"It never is."
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The only sound was the slow tapping of rain against the windows and the faint hum of the fluorescent lights.
Mingyu's chair creaked slightly as he leaned forward. "You don't have to say anything. Just stop running. Sit here. Let me exist next to you without you trying to disappear."
Something in his tone—steady, patient—made Lin Chen's defences falter.
He exhaled shakily, fingers curling against the edge of the table. "You make everything so complicated."
Mingyu's mouth curved, not quite a smile. "No. You do. I refuse to let you get away with it."
The faintest breath of laughter escaped Lin Chen before he could stop it. It wasn't much—more like the memory of a laugh—but it was real.
Mingyu's eyes warmed at the sound.
For the first time that night, Lin Chen felt the tension in his chest ease, just a little.
He glanced toward the tall windows, where the world outside shimmered silver under the rain. The glass reflected the two of them—one steady, one uncertain—framed by lamplight and shadow.
It was fragile. Quiet. But something was changing.
He didn't know what would come next, only that for the first time in a long time, he didn't want to leave.
The library felt even quieter now, as if the air itself were listening.
Lin Chen hadn't planned to say anything else. He wasn't good at this—words, feelings, cracks in his armour. He was built for silence, for calculation, for solving problems that had clear answers.
But this—whatever this was—had no formula.
He stared at the soft glow of the desk lamp for a long moment, then said, almost under his breath, "When I was younger, I learned that being perfect made things easier."
Mingyu didn't move, didn't interrupt. Just listened.
Lin Chen's voice stayed quiet. "My parents argued a lot. Not loud—just… constant. Little things. Expectations. Disappointments. I figured out early on that if I stayed invisible and got perfect grades, they would stop arguing for a while. So I did."
He let out a slow, uneven breath. "It became a habit. Every time something went wrong, I thought—maybe if I just did better, it'd stop. Maybe if I never made mistakes, people wouldn't leave."
The last words slipped out softer than a whisper, and once they were out, Lin Chen wished he could take them back.
But Mingyu didn't say anything. He didn't pity him or reach for him. He just nodded slowly, his expression unreadable but warm.
"So you kept building walls," Mingyu said quietly, "because walls don't leave."
Lin Chen almost smiled at that. Almost. "You make it sound so simple."
"It's not simple. It's just sad."
The words hit harder than expected—not because they were cruel, but because they were true.
Lin Chen looked down at his hands. They were trembling again.
He tried to steady them, but Mingyu noticed. He always noticed. Without a word, Mingyu reached across the table and lightly brushed his fingertips against Lin Chen's wrist: just that—barely a touch, as if asking for permission.
Lin Chen stiffened at first. But he didn't pull away.
It wasn't like before—this wasn't teasing. The touch wasn't electric or flirtatious. It was grounding. Human. Real.
Mingyu's voice stayed low. "You don't have to be perfect with me."
Lin Chen blinked. The words shouldn't have mattered so much, but they landed deep, unguarded.
He looked up, and their eyes met—steady brown against warm amber. For a moment, the world fell away.
All the years of silence, of pretending not to care, of keeping people at arm's length—they felt distant, like a life that belonged to someone else.
And in that tiny, fragile space between them, Lin Chen realizedrealized something terrifying: he wanted to believe him.
He wanted to believe there could be someone who didn't see him as a list of achievements. Someone who wouldn't flinch when he faltered.
Mingyu must have sensed the shift, because his thumb brushed against Lin Chen's wrist—barely a fraction of a movement, enough to make Lin Chen's heart trip over itself.
"See?" Mingyu said softly. "Still here."
Lin Chen's throat ached. "You make it sound easy."
"It's not. But it's worth trying."
For a long while, neither of them moved. The rain outside softened into a steady drizzle, tapping faintly against the tall windows. Somewhere, the night guard's footsteps echoed down a distant hallway, but neither paid attention.
It felt like the world had shrunk to just this table, this light, this moment.
Lin Chen exhaled shakily, pressing his other hand over Mingyu's for the briefest heartbeat before pulling back, as if the contact burned.
Mingyu smiled faintly. "You know, for someone who insists he doesn't care, you're terrible at pretending."
Lin Chen glared weakly. "You talk too much."
"You overthink."
"Someone has to."
"Maybe you should let someone else do it once in a while."
He wanted to argue, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him—just the slightest twitch upward. Mingyu caught it, eyes softening further.
"That's better," he murmured. "You look human when you smile."
Lin Chen rolled his eyes, though the warmth spreading in his chest betrayed him. "I'm going to ignore that."
Mingyu leaned back in his chair, studying him for a moment. "You really shouldn't."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means," Mingyu said, his tone turning gentle again, "that you don't have to hide behind being 'fine' all the time. Not with me. You can be quiet, awkward, uncertain—it's still you. And I like you that way, too."
The words landed like soft thunder.
Lin Chen's pulse roared in his ears. He wanted to look away but couldn't.
There was nothing romantic in Mingyu's expression—not yet. Just a steady, open sincerity that disarmed every defence Lin Chen had left.
He swallowed. "You shouldn't say things like that."
Mingyu tilted his head. "Why not?"
"Because you'll make people misunderstand."
"Maybe I want to be misunderstood."
The air between them thickened again, charged but fragile. Lin Chen looked down quickly, breaking eye contact before his heart could betray him further.
He stacked his notebooks, pretending to busy himself, but Mingyu's presence stayed there—unmovable, quiet, constant.
And when Lin Chen finally dared to glance back up, Mingyu was still watching him—not with the intensity of a hunter, but with the softness of someone willing to wait.
Lin Chen's defences, thin as glass, trembled under that gaze.
He didn't know what to say, so he whispered the only truth he could manage.
"I don't know how to do this."
Mingyu's smile was barely there, but his eyes said everything.
"That's okay," he said softly. "You're already doing it."
The silence that followed wasn't heavy anymore. It was… soft.
For once, Lin Chen didn't feel the need to fill it with explanations or excuses.
They just sat there—two students in a dim library, surrounded by books and rain and the faint hum of air conditioning—breathing in the same rhythm.
Mingyu leaned back slightly, resting his chin on his hand, eyes thoughtful. "You know," he said after a while, "you don't have to have everything figured out tonight."
Lin Chen glanced at him. "I wasn't planning to."
"Good," Mingyu said lightly. "Because I'm not going anywhere."
Lin Chen looked away again, trying to disguise the way those words unravelled him from the inside. He wasn't used to this kind of patience—this quiet steadiness that didn't demand, didn't push, didn't fade.
The sound of rain filled the pause. The scent of wet earth drifted through the half-open window near their table.
For a fleeting moment, Lin Chen imagined what it would be like if this became routine—their late nights, quiet conversations, laughter between deadlines.
It was dangerous to want things, but this—this felt dangerously easy to enjoy.
He stood up, collecting his notes to signal the end of the night, but his voice betrayed him with a faint tremor.
"I should go. It's getting late."
Mingyu stood too, stretching a little. "I'll walk you back."
Lin Chen frowned automatically. "It's fine. My dorm's not far."
"Yeah, and it's raining." Mingyu gestured toward the window, where raindrops streaked down the glass in silvery trails. "What kind of gentleman would I be if I let you walk alone?"
"You're not a gentleman."
"I can pretend."
Lin Chen sighed, but the fight in his tone was gone. "You're stubborn."
Mingyu grinned. "You're one to talk."
They left the library together. The moment they stepped outside, the rain greeted them with a cool, steady drizzle. Not enough to soak them immediately, but enough to make Lin Chen regret forgetting his umbrella.
Of course, Mingyu had one.
He flicked it open with a flourish and held it over them both, tilting it slightly so Lin Chen was better covered.
Lin Chen shot him a look. "You'll get wet."
"Worth it," Mingyu said easily.
The word slipped out so naturally that it took Lin Chen a full three seconds to process it. By the time he did, Mingyu was walking beside him, whistling softly under his breath as if nothing had happened.
They walked like that—close enough that Lin Chen could hear Mingyu's breathing, could feel the warmth of him through their damp sleeves. The soft patter of rain filled the spaces between their footsteps.
At one point, Mingyu angled the umbrella a little more toward Lin Chen again, his shoulder catching the edge of the drizzle.
Lin Chen frowned and, without thinking, reached up to tug it back to the centre. "You're going to get sick."
Mingyu's eyes softened at the gesture. "You do care."
Lin Chen froze. "That's not—"
But Mingyu just laughed, low and warm. "Relax. I wasn't teasing."
They reached the dorm gates too soon. The campus lights shimmered faintly in the mist, reflecting off puddles like scattered stars. Lin Chen stopped just short of the steps, unsure of what to do with the ache in his chest.
Mingyu didn't say anything for a moment either. He just stood there, umbrella still open above them, both of them caught in that small circle of dry space that felt oddly intimate.
Finally, Mingyu said quietly, "You know, I meant what I said earlier. You don't have to be perfect. Not with me. Not ever."
Lin Chen met his gaze, heart beating a little too fast. "And if I fail anyway?"
"Then you fail," Mingyu said. "And I'll still be here. Probably teasing you about it, but still here."
Lin Chen huffed out a breath that wasn't quite a laugh. "You make it sound easy."
"It's not easy," Mingyu said, smiling faintly. "It's just… real. And real's better than perfect."
For a second, Lin Chen thought about saying thank you—but the words felt too small, too fragile to hold everything he felt. So instead, he did something uncharacteristic: he reached out and had the edge of the umbrella handle with him, their fingers brushing lightly.
The contact was barely there, but it sent a quiet spark through the air.
Mingyu's smile deepened, softer now, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. "See? You're already doing it."
Lin Chen looked down, his hair damp at the edges, his pulse racing. "Doing what?"
"Letting someone in."
For once, Lin Chen didn't have a comeback.
The world seemed to blur around them—the sound of the rain, the glow of the streetlamp, the faint warmth of their joined hands. It was all fleeting, but in that moment, it was enough.
Mingyu tilted the umbrella toward Lin Chen as he took a half-step back. "Go on. Get inside before you catch a cold."
Lin Chen hesitated, his lips parting like he wanted to say something—then stopped. Instead, he reached up and tugged at Mingyu's hoodie sleeve lightly, just once, before letting go.
It was a small gesture, but it carried everything he couldn't say yet.
Mingyu understood. He always did.
As Lin Chen turned to head inside, Mingyu called softly behind him, "Hey."
Lin Chen paused.
Mingyu's grin was faint, lopsided. "Next time you hide in the library, at least text me. Saves me the trouble of searching the whole campus."
Lin Chen rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth lifted despite himself. "Noted."
Then he disappeared into the dorm entrance, the sound of rain swallowing the rest of his words.
Mingyu watched him go, still smiling faintly, then lifted his face toward the drizzle.
It was late, it was quiet, and for the first time in a long while—both of them felt a little less alone.