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akiqvq · 9 days ago

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「Where the Wind Left Us」 Caleb

↳ He died in the war- or so you thought. Years later, he returns with no memory of you, and you're forced to face the man who once loved you like forever... now looking at you like a stranger.

Caleb had once been a fighter pilot, sharp, brave and deeply in love. Before the war, before duty stole him away, he was yours. Have a love rooted in hope, built during quiet moments in the chaos of wartime. But when the war escalated and he was called to serve, to protect the country and to protect you.

You had written to him. Countless letters. Words filled with devotion, with trembling wishes for his safety. For his return. With each letter, you tried to remind him that he was still loved, that you are still here, waiting for him. But the war ended, and he never came back.

You stood among crowds of reuniting lovers, heart clenched, eyes scanning every face that was not his. In your fist, a handkerchief crumpled tight with tears. They handed you a uniform. A final gesture. They said his plane had been shot down over enemy lines. No body. No wreckage. No closure. He had been declared missing in action and then, eventually, dead.

Years had passed. Then decade. Still, you remained alone. Something inside you had died the same day he did. If not in body, then in memory. You could not bring yourself to move on. His absence was a shadow you had lived beside. And then-

"Ouch!" A small voice snapped you out of the daze. You looked down to find a young boy who had fallen in front of you. Without thinking twice about it, you knelt beside him, concern pushing through the numbness. "Are you alright, sweetheart?" You asked. But when the your eyes met, something inside you cracked. A ghost of the past but this time, his eyes resemble somebody else. Someone long lost. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t look away. It was like seeing a ghost, not of the boy, but of someone you once knew better than yourself.

Later, you found yourself seated in a familiar little ice cream parlor. One that hadn't changed much over the years. Once, it had been the setting of the happiest date of your life. And now, across from you, sat the boy with his apple-flavored treat. "Are you sure you're okay?" You asked. "Yes! I'm a big boy now. Not even a scratch can make me cry!" He beamed. And that smile, that smile nearly identical to another's from so long ago. "Say, kid" You asked gently "Where are your parents?" "Oh!" He paused mid lick, then looked up like he'd just remembered. "Probably looking for me! We just got back here because this is my father's hometown!"

It was almost cruel, how easily your heart twisted. Once upon a time, there was a love story. A foreign soldier lost in a strange land, memory fractured by war. And a medical nurse who found him, pieced him together. They met. They bonded. They fell in love, not knowing that time and fate had other plans. And now, you are left with nothing but the ruin of a fairytale that was never meant to last.

"Oh, it's Dad." the child mumbled as he looked out the window. And there he was. Caleb. Alive. Whole. Smiling that same hesitant smile. Though now touched with worry as he spotted his son. So you look away and turn around. "I need to go" You whispered almost to yourself. In the end the child pout, the same way he once does causing you to chuckle despite the pain, despite the heartbreak. Despite the realization that the two of you were in fact, never meant to be together. But it was alright.

"I'm afraid I'm quite running late for my errands young man." You smile fondly at him. "But-" He was cut off by the sound of his father calling him from the distance. "Well then, goodbye." You stand up, bidding your goodbye to the young child. "Wai- wait! What's your name?" You thought for a moment and look back slightly at the child. "No one, just a ghost from the past." You whispered along the wind. You never look back. And by the time Caleb reach the child's side, you were already long gone.

♡

It's been a while since you've clean up your lawn. Its been a while since you have done such a thing ever since the revelation that your former lover. The one you thought was dead for the past few years was in fact, alive and breathing. And has a son, a family. It took you a while to pick yourself up from pieces. For years, you mourned for him, loved him in silence. Lit up a candle for a man declared dead with no body to bury. But then, like a cruel twist of fate, he appeared. Alive. Well. And with a child.

You tried to tell yourself it didn’t matter. That too much time had passed. That you both moved on even though you never truly had. And that he was someone else's now. That he had a family, and your part in his story was long over. But it wasn’t grief you were feeling now, it was betrayal. Not because he had lived. Not because he ha didn't tell you. Because he had come back into your world as if you were a stranger, not the person who once waited for his letters like they were lifelines. Not the person who loved him enough to mourn him twice.

You clenched your jaw, yanking a weed from the dirt with more force than necessary. Why were you so broken over this? He hadn't done anything wrong. No one had. And yet, deep in your chest, a sharp ache remained. You would’ve preferred he stayed dead. It was easier than this.

"Hello!" You pause, something that you tried not to show too much as you turn to face a familiar child. "Hello sweetheart." You tried to smile, really. The child did nothing wrong. Hell, no one did anything wrong. At the same time it really hurts you to be around this child as time went on. "Are you lost sweetheart?" You ask, setting aside your things to talk to the child properly. You haven't seen the boy in days, and now that he was standing right in front of you, it was clear that what happened wasn't a dream. It was true, he was back and you don't know it that was for better or for worse. "Are you okay?" The boy asked catching you off guard. "Of.. course. I'm okay sweetheart. But! but more importantly, Why are you alone again? where are your parents?"

Starting to get pissed off. The Caleb you knew was responsible, a man with taste. You knew who ever we has with right now would be a perfect good match for. But come on! Who lives their child alone?! This isn't the first time this happened, this child also happened to be away from this parents the first time you've seen him. Why are people so irresponsible with their children? Doesn't he love children? He never told you that of course, but you knew he always wanted one and you knew he would be a good dad. So where in the world is he right now-

"My paren-" "Pipsqueak! you little-!!" He pause, you watch him. You watch him watch you, your eyes slowly meeting half way. You did not want to see him. You were doing everything in your power not to see him.

These days, you moved differently. You rarely left your house and even if you did you took side streets, crossed early at lights, pretended not to notice the ache in your chest when someone said his name like it wasn’t a ghost curled inside it. He was back in town, for good, you knew that. But you aren't expecting to see him again, not now. Probably not ever.

The way he was looking at you. The way it send shiver down your spine. He doesn’t know, you reminded yourself. He doesn’t remember you. He’s not looking at you because he knows you. You told yourself, trying your best to stay calm as he kept looking at you. Why was he even looking at you? He came to pick his son right? Right!

"You" You spoke, sharper than you meant, "Really need to learn how to watch your kid." You did not know where did you get that, words just came out of your mouth before you knew it. Caleb blinked like he wasn’t expecting you to speak first. Or maybe he just wasn’t expecting you. But then he stared at you again, this time, really stared.

The way you tried not to notice how his gaze lingered. The way it clung to your face like it recognized something but couldn’t quite name it. How it made your heart squeeze and your chest ache with things you’d buried long ago. You hate how he still looked at you like that. Like you were something soft in a world gone harsh.

"I- yeah" He replied, finally. "I didn’t know he snuck out again. He’s been doing that a lot lately." "Well, maybe he’s trying to get attention" You snapped, folding your arms. Where did that sassiness came from? "You know, since you're busy with your wife... or whatever." You tried to sound nonchalant, you really do.

But you saw it the moment the words left your mouth, the way something flickered in his expression. Confusion. A little hurt. "My what?" "Your wife.” You repeated, biting down the bitterness. "Look Mister, you've got a family. I get it. But maybe someone should be making sure your son doesn't keep ending up on strangers' lawns."

The way he looked at you like you just accused him of murder. The he said carefully "I don’t have a wife." You thought your ears were playing tricks at you. "I'm not married” He added, frowning. "It’s just me and this little guy over here." You opened your mouth then closed it before opening it again. "I saw you, at the ice cream parlor. You look like family." "We're not" He said simply, eyes softening. "Not like that." You look away. This isn't how you wanted this to go. You weren't even supposed to be talking to him.

Just when you felt like running away. The boy tugged at your sleeve. "Can we still go to the park?" The park? when did the two of you started talking about a park? You glanced down at the boy, then back at Caleb who was still staring at you. Like you were something fragile and familiar. Someone strange all at once. You cleared your throat. "Look, I don’t know what this is. But this little guy right here shouldn’t be wandering off." You smile gently at the boy, gently prying off his hand of your shirt "Next time it might not be someone nice who finds him."

Imagine just when you were about to turn around and walk away for real. "You’re right" Caleb said, voice steady. "You're completely right." What is this guy playing? "So maybe you should help me keep an eye on him. Just for today. Park trip?"

You hesitated. This man, this stranger who still managed to look at you like you were everything, was asking you to walk beside him again. Even if he didn’t remember. Even if it shattered you. Just then, his son grabbed both your hands and squeezed. "Please? I can hold on both of you this time!" You sighed, you could almost feel a headache forming. "I swear" Caleb spoke quietly. "I’m not trying to make this harder for you." He added. "I just... something about you feels like I’ve known you forever." You didn't answer.

Instead you turn to his son who was looking at you with hopeful eyes. Oh those puppy eyes, who could ever say no to them? "Give me a minute darling, I'll clean this up in a bit." "Oh. Oh! I could help!" You laugh, ignoring the way his stare linger. With your heart pounding, trying not to fall apart as the man who once promised to come back to you followed behind. With no idea he already had.

♡

It began in fragments. A shared walk beneath rusted leaves. A passing smile from across the yard. A quiet lunch in the sun, where the child spoke the most and the two adults sat guarded, orbiting each other in silence.

For you, it was cautious. Your heart, once cracked open by his absence, had been stitched closed over years of grief. And now that he stood right before your eyes, not a memory, but a living echo. With his laugh the same, his presence still magnetic. But his eyes were new. Unknowing. Which honestly made it worse. You didn’t know how to touch a ghost who didn’t remember haunting you.

He was gentler now. Or perhaps he always had been, had you simply forgotten how it felt. He watched you like you were something steady, something quiet. Like he was trying to place you in a dream he couldn’t quite recall. And you tried not to look too long. Not to stare when he leaned back on his hands, when he ran a palm through his hair the way he used to when deep in thought. You tried not to remember how his touch had once been a promise. Now, it was unfamiliar. Unwritten. A beginning that mocked the ending you had survived.

For Caleb, it was instinct.

The pull towards you was natural, like a rhythm he already knew. He could not understand why but it lingered in his chest every time you were near. Like a compass buried deep inside him had found true north. There was something in the way you looked at him when you thought he wasn’t watching. Like you were mourning while he breathed. Like he had hurt you without meaning to. Like he had once been your world, and now you didn’t even know how to stand close without burning.

You were kind, but careful. Present, but slightly too still. He noticed the way you never leaned in too far. The way your hands stayed folded, as though holding yourself together. And yet, somehow, you two kept finding each other. A cup of tea offered without words. A shared glance when the little guy laughed too loudly. The comfortable silence of two people who knew how to sit with something unspoken.

For you, it was terrifying. To feel the old ache inching back slow, quiet and cruel. To fall for him again, when he had no idea you were simply picking up where he had left you broken.

For him, it felt inevitable. Like he was falling toward something he couldn’t name. Something familiar. Something that felt like home. Even if he didn’t know why.

♡

Caleb hadn't meant to visit.

He was just dropping off for his son's hat. Left behind again after your impromptu park trip. But when you opened the door and offered a gentle, "Come in for a minute." He stepped inside, telling himself it was polite. Just polite. And then he saw it.

First, the jacket. Hanging by the coat rack. Old, military-issued, a bit scuffed. Familiar. Too familiar. Then the model planes. Dusty but lovingly displayed on a shelf, and one of them, one specific fighter jet had a scratch on the left wing. And then the mug. Sitting quietly by the window, like a ghost of a morning ritual. Chipped. Faded. Still readable, Return With Honor. He stared at it like it had slapped him.

His chest tightened. His brain did math. You said you lived alone. That you never married. Yet this place didn’t feel like yours alone. It was layered with someone else's presence. And Caleb, who, despite his calm exterior, had an ego thoroughly capable of jealousy, was not immune.

"Nice place." He said, eyes still glued to the jacket. Boyfriend? No. You said you aren't seeing anyone. But maybe someone from the past? Someone important, judging by the shrine level energy in the room. "Thanks." You replied, walking toward the kitchen. "It's quiet. Suits me." "Yeah. You into aviation or something?" By his question, you paused. "A little." He nodded like that explained everything, but the knot in his chest was winding tighter.

"Those models." He said, referring to the planes. "They're vintage... Collectibles?" "They were someone else's." He felt an ache. "Someone close?" He asked and your silence was enough. Caleb cleared his throat. "Boyfriend?" "What's it to you?" You almost glare at him but ended with a sigh. "Nothing." He said too quickly. "Just curious. Not judging or anything. Totally healthy to you know... keep stuff from a boyfriend." He almost cringe at his own words. Nonetheless he tried to play it cool. "Even years later. It's fine."

"Wasn't a boyfriend." "Oh." He looked relieved then paused. "Husband?" You didn't respond. His jaw clenched. "Okay. Cool. So just- was it serious?" It was entertaining, really. To see him acting like this. Still, "Very." He exhaled slowly, pretending it didn't bother him. Pretending the idea of some air force Romeo haunting your house via jacket and coffee mug didn't sit like a boulder in his gut. "Is he… still around?" He asked.

You turned slightly, enough for him to see the flicker of something in your eyes. Not anger. Not sadness. Something older. But then you blink and it disappears. "No." You said simply, too nonchalant. "He died. Years ago. During the war." Caleb blinked. "Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to-" "It's alright."

Caleb, in all his complicated grief and confused feelings, nodded gently and then exhaled the kind of breath no normal person should ever exhale after hearing about someone's dead lover.

Relief. An actual, horrible, shameful relief. "So... you never moved on?" Why does he even asked this questions? "I tried." You said, sighing. Looking back, you never truly get over him. Even before this, you carry him with you. "Didn’t stick."

He looked away, heart weirdly heavy. And relieved. Which was so wrong. He barely even knew you. "I'm not saying I was jealous." He muttered under his breath. Clearly wasn't very jealous. "But I just think it's a little unfair that a dead guy still has better closet space than me." You pause, looked at him and then choked on a laugh. "Excuse me?"

"Nothing. I mean. I didn’t say that." He tried to recover but found himself already walking toward the jacket. "That tear in the shoulder? Looks like something from field duty. Enemy fire?" There was a moment of silence before your voice was heard. "Crash." Ah. Damn. He looked back at you. "Did they recover him?" You shook your head, mind replaying the day you received his uniform. "No. The plane was downed over enemy territory. No body. Just..."

Caleb swallowed, then turned back to the jacket. His fingers brushed the edge of the inner collar. And there, faint but stitched in, was a name. Caleb. His own name.

He blinked. Huh. "That's weird." He whispered to himself. "What is?" "Nothing." He let go quickly, stepping back like the jacket burned him. "Just thought it looked familiar." "You probably knew someone like him." You said, looking at the jacket. "You were a pilot too, weren't you?" He nodded slowly.

The silence that followed was thick with something he couldn’t name. Finally, you turned to him, brows raising. "You okay?" "Yeah. I'm fine. Just..." He looked back at the shelf of planes. "Trying to figure out if I'm feeling haunted or just wildly insecure." You gave him a long look. "Don't worry. You're not the first man to get jealous of a ghost."

♡

It didn’t hit all at once.

Just a flicker. Later that evening, after he returned home and set down his keys. Caleb sat in silence for a long while. Hands resting on his knees, his mind somewhere far behind him. His son asleep upstairs. The house was quiet. But his heart wasn’t.

He couldn't stop thinking about the jacket. The way it had felt under his fingers. The fraying of the collar. The weight of it. Familiar, like a favorite song he hadn't heard in years. And then… the name.

Caleb

His name. Same spelling. Same placement he would have asked for, had it ever been his. And that particular kind of patch stitching, he knew it. Not in theory, not from others but he remembered doing it. Sewing that rip in the field. Threading it clumsily, cursing the cold, using his teeth to pull the knot tight.

The memory was sharp. Real. Immediate. He jolted. For a split second, the sound of wind filled his ears. Rotors. Heat. A hands pressing against his chest. A medic’s voice shouting. The taste of blood. The voice- the voice. Laughing. Crying. Then it was gone. He stared at the floor, breath unsteady, as something ancient and half buried inside him cracked open. He didn’t know the name. Not yet.

But suddenly, he knew the jacket. He had loved someone once. And he had left them behind.

♡

It had been a while since Caleb last visited. Life had a way of stepping in, work, obligations and the silent ache between two people who used to know each other like breath and now barely touched the surface. He hadn't come by in days, and though you told yourself it was a relief, the echo of absence sat heavily in the corners of the house.

Still, his little boy came. He had a way of showing up with grass in his hair and stories far too big for his age. That afternoon, he sat cross-legged in your living room, babbling about paper airplanes and how he could totally build one that flew to the moon if he wanted. And you listened, smiling through the heaviness.

Then, in the soft lull of conversation, you asked a question that had lingered for too long. "Your dad... what's he like?" When you asked that, the boy shrugged like it wasn't complicated. "He’s kind. And quiet sometimes." He giggle. "He forgets things. But he always remembers the important stuff."

You hesitated before asking, you don't want to get hurt. "Was it always just the two of you?" The boy tilted his head. "No. My real parents died. In the war. Dad, Caleb, was their friend. He says he owes them everything."

The world tilted just slightly beneath you. He wasn’t his son. Not by blood. Caleb had taken the boy in. Raised him. Loved him. Not because he had to. But because it was the right thing to do.

You watch the little boy rummaged through his small backpack and pulled out something you hadn’t seen in years, a small box, worn at the edges. "He gave me this." He said, opening it like it was no big deal. Inside sat a ring. Their ring. The one pair Caleb had with him the night before he left for the war. The one you thought had been lost with him forever. You breath caught.

"He said it was for someone important." He added gently. "That he didn't remember who, not really. But he knew it was meant for someone. That he'd given it to them before everything." The air went silent with something unspoken. "He said that's why we came back here." The child said simply. "Because father- my first dad, told him he had left something important in this town. Someone.”

The ring sat there between them, heavy with memory.

You did not reach for it. Not yet. Because hope was a dangerous thing. And love, especially a love that once had died, was terrifying when it tried to live again. You turned your head, blinking quickly, steadying yourself. You could feel it, fate pulling at the thread. Winding them back toward something unfinished. Caleb didn’t remember you. But somehow, his heart still did.

And yours? Still afraid. But still beating for the same man.

♡

It came to him like a storm. No warning. No slow unraveling. Just a breath, then the world tilted.

He was standing by your the porch, hand raised to knock on your door when his eyes flicked to the side window. There, through the curtain, he saw you. Front facing him and staring at the ring.

That ring.

The one he had carried through fire and blood and years of unknowing. The one he couldn't part with even when his memories scattered like ash in the wind. The ring he had told himself it was a symbol of something lost, of someone important.

And in that moment, it wasn't just important. It was you.

He staggered back a step, unsteady.

The noise of bombs, of roaring engines, your voice flooded in. Your hands on his uniform, trembling the day before he left. The taste of your kiss. The promise he made with that ring pressed between your and his palms. The letters. The laughter. The ache of missing you so badly that it bled into his bones.

The crash. The fire. Your name screaming on his throat. Your face, framed in smoke, reaching for him as everything fell apart. He remembered it all.

The weight of your head on his chest after long shifts at the field. The curve of your smile when you handed him that ridiculous mug. The way you looked up at him like he was something worth returning for.

He remembered loving you. And the unbearable grief in your eyes every time you met now soft and guarded. Like you were terrified to reach for what had already died once.

His breath came out broken. You didn’t know he remembered. Not yet. But standing there, staring at the one who had waited for a ghost, who still wore that love like an old scar, Caleb realized something. He did not just fallen in love with you again. He never stopped. And now, he finally remembered why.

♡

You noticed it first in his silence.

Not the awkward kind, it was the silence of someone searching for words. The kind that felt like knowing. Like he was seeing you for the first time. Or maybe remembering how he used to.

The way he looked at you had changed. Less like curiosity. More like memory.

He didn't say anything when you offered him tea in the same chipped mug, the one with the faded letters he'd once picked out himself. He just smiled. A Small, soft and took it with both hands, like it meant something. And it did.

You could feel it shifting from within, the weight of unspoken things settling into the space like dust. You did not ask if he remembered. You didn’t dare. Because what if he didn’t? Or worse, what if he did and chose to forget again? You were terrified of loving him twice only to lose him all over again.

He sat across from you, watching you with the same steady calm that used to unravel you within seconds. Like you were a place he had once called home. And now, was again. And still, you held back. Because time had turned your love into something cautious. Because you had built your life around the absence of him, and now, with his presence sitting in your kitchen again, it felt like you were grieving in reverse.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out the ring box, not dramatic, not rehearsed, just... instinct. He held it between them without opening it. And you stared. Your heart cracked. "Why are you carrying that?" You asked, voice barely above whisper. He did not answer at first. Instead, he looked at you like someone who had finally, finally found what he had spent years trying to remember. Then he quietly said. "Because I remember who it belonged to now."

You breath hitched. You did not cry. You wanted to but there were no tears left. Just silence, fear, and the tender ache of almost believing him. "You don't have to say anything." You finally spoke. "You don't owe me that." You added. "I do." He replied. Quiet and steady. "I left you once." There was a pause. "Not because I wanted to, but because the world forced me to." He looked at you. "I won't leave you again."

And you looked away, blinking rapidly. "But what if you forget again?" Fear. "What if I lose you twice?" You don't know if you would be able to handle that again. He exhaled. A breath full of pain and love and all the words he never got to say the first time. "Then I'll come back again." He said, eyes looking for yours. "And again. And again. Because it’s you. It’s always been you. Even without my memories, I found you." You finally looked at him. And in his eyes, you saw him.

Your Caleb.

Not just the man he used to be. Not just the man war tried to erase but the one who had always, in every version of himself, loved you. And in that moment, you don't need the ring. You don't need the memories. You don't need the promises made in uniforms or letters. You just needed this The quiet truth between them. The forgiveness in your heart. And the love that had never really left.

You did not kiss. Not yet. There was no sweeping declaration. No grand reuniting. Just the ring resting between you two. Two hands meeting across the table. And a slow, steady heartbeat that finally, finally felt like home.

[ⓒdark-night-hero] 2025°

Letter Never Sent

My dearest love,

If this letter reaches you, then I’ve made it back, whole, in one piece, and still yours. And if I haven’t… then let this be something that stayed behind, even when I couldn’t.

There’s something I wanted to ask before I left, but the moment kept slipping away. I was too busy memorizing your smile.

So here it is, written plainly and tucked into these folds of paper like a promise:

Will you marry me?

I don’t ask for forever. Just ust for the chance to return to you. I’ll chase every sky, every mile, every storm, if it means finding my way back.

No matter where the wind takes me… I know where it will leave me.

With you.

Always,

Caleb

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akiqvq · 12 days ago

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Live Laugh Sylus Angst 😭😭😭

Imagine being Sylus' non-mc significant other.

Imagine you knew that loving Sylus meant walking a fine line between devotion and danger. You knew that his world was carved in shadows and half truths wrapped in kisses. A voice that could make you forget your doubts.

Imagine you always told yourself it was just the nature of his work, the late nights, the missed calls, the way he always seemed to have somewhere else to be. You love him. Because while you never had his mornings. You always had his midnights.

Imagine the way he would often disappear for days and return with eyes darker than usual and in some rare nights, he would come home with bruises blooming just beneath his skin but when he looked at you, his eyes soften. Like being with you was enough.

Imagine the world you've built in the cracks he left open slowly and carefully. A world where danger lived just outside your window but with love, his love, was kept in your heart every time he whispered your name like a confession. He let you believe you were his only truth.

Imagine at first, it was just the silence. The kind that didn't feel like peace but absence. The kind of pause before a lie, the dead space where love should live. Sylus had always been a guarded man. The kind who touched you like you were fragile but spoke like his words were bullets.

but Imagine, that was just part of his charm. The mystery and quiet restraint behind his smirks. Not until she started showing up. MC. At first, she was just a ghost in his schedule, an excuse.

"Work" He say, turning away from you in bed, phone lighting up his face. "Can't talk about it." You nod, moving closer to him in. You did not push the topic because that's what trust looked like, right?

Imagine then came the little things. A strand of hair on his coat. Perfume that wasn't yours. A coffee order on his receipt you had never seen him drink. The subtle way his tone changed when he was tired softer, more honest, but only when talking to someone else.

Imagine you did not bring it up. You didn't want to be paranoid. You didn’t want to be that person. The kind who checks phones or asks too many questions. But the truth has a way of bleeding through, no matter how hard you cover it.

Imagine that night, after a few weeks of not seeing each other. You cooked him dinner. You even wore the clothes he liked. You thought maybe, just maybe, he'd finally open up. Instead, he walked in distracted, checking his phone. He did not even look at you.

Imagine the way you asked him who he was texting. One that was meant to sound casual, but your voice cracked halfway through. He paused. Just for a second. That second told you everything. "It's MC."

"Don't." He said, eyes flickering up to yours. "It's not what you think." That was the first time he didn't lie smoothly. The first time he looked like the villain everyone said he was. Not because of the crime, the guns or the secrets. But because he looked at you with guilt.

Imagine you knew why he stayed the night. It was not out of love but because he doesn't know how to leave you gently. So you lay beside him awake until dawn, breathing in a man who loved someone else in front of you. And when the morning come, you did not say goodbye. You just lay there and felt him when he left.

Imagine that's how you learned the painful truth. You weren't his secret weapon. You were just his secret shame. And all the danger in the world doesn't compare to the pain of being loved second.

[ⓒdark-night-hero] 2025°

: the other au doesn't really cound as the main non-mc so. So here's one for him. IM SORRY DON’T COME AFTER ME- BYE

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akiqvq · 16 days ago

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Ouch

❝𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐫.❞

Caleb as your boyfriend x you as non-mc, birthday angst.

The bass thumped through the walls of the club, the air thick with perfume, alcohol, and neon lights. People danced like nothing in the world could touch them. But you sat stiffly in the booth, surrounded by people who belonged to a life you didn’t quite fit in.

Caleb’s birthday.

You’d dressed up. Spent an hour doing your makeup. Wore the dress he once said he liked—back when he still said things like that.

You hadn’t known MC would be there.

She was dazzling tonight, even if her lipstick was a little smudged and her laugh too loud from the alcohol. She was everything you weren't—familiar to Caleb, easy to be around. A shared history written in inside jokes and old stories.

She sat on his left. You, his girlfriend, on the right. But somehow, it felt like you were always outside the picture frame.

"Pipsqueak, I told you not to wear skirts—people are gonna stare at you at this point." Caleb said it teasingly to MC, pulling off his jacket and draping it over her lap like it was second nature. Like her comfort was instinct. Like you weren’t even there.

You stared down at your lap. At your own bare thighs, goosebumps rising from the cold. You wore a dress too. But he hadn’t even glanced your way.

Gideon caught it. Always did. He looked at you like he understood. Like he pitied you. He slipped his jacket off and offered it across the table.

You shook your head quickly. “I’m fine.”

But Gideon just smiled softly and insisted. “If my girlfriend were here, she’d be proud of me.”

You took it. Grateful, but humiliated.

Caleb didn’t even notice.

The night dragged on. You didn’t drink. Didn’t dance. You watched Caleb feed MC water between shots, steady her when she tripped in her heels, laugh when she whispered something in his ear.

You should’ve been used to this by now.

You were always understanding.

You knew they had a past.

But it didn’t stop the slow, aching stretch in your chest every time his eyes crinkled with laughter that wasn’t meant for you.

You followed them out to the car. Gideon had gone home already. MC stumbled toward the passenger seat, giggling about something only Caleb could hear. You reached for the handle—just a second too late.

She beat you to it, crawling in and immediately passing out. You looked at Caleb, hoping—praying—he would tell her to switch. That he'd remember you were here, too.

But instead, he just looked at you like this was normal. Like it was okay. “I hope you don’t mind sitting in the backseat instead.”

You stared at him. The man you loved. The man who hadn’t touched your hand once all night. “…Yeah,” you murmured. “It’s fine.”

You sat behind them the whole ride, like a stranger hitching a ride in her own relationship.

Caleb kept glancing at her—tucking her hair back gently, adjusting her skirt when it rode up, smiling softly at her nonsense muttering.

And you watched.

Watched and understood.

Because you knew that look.

It wasn’t lust. It wasn’t friendship.

It was tenderness. That raw, unguarded kind that you hadn’t seen from him in months. Maybe never.

You bit your lip hard enough to taste metal.

You weren’t even mad. You were just… tired.

Tired of being the afterthought.

Tired of being on the outside looking in on your own relationship.

When you got home, at Caleb's apartment. he carried MC to the guest room and tucked her in. Like a scene from a romance film.

You went to bed alone.

He didn’t even come to check on you.

And that night, you curled up on your side, arms wrapped around your own body, and whispered into the dark: “Just once more. I wouldn’t mind being burned if it means keeping you.”

But deep down, you knew the truth.

𝙃𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙖𝙬 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚.

𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙗𝙪𝙧𝙣𝙚𝙧.

#lads #love and deepspace #lads xavier #lads sylus #lads caleb #lnds caleb #love and deepspace caleb #lads zayne #lads rafayel #caleb x reader #juneleb #caleb x you #caleb x mc #non mc reader #lnds xavier #angst

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akiqvq · 17 days ago

Text

Imperfect Perfection

Synopsis: You'd love to be the emperor's wife. Everyone would. But you've got a secret that makes you very unqualified to be his wife, so you do what anyone with a secret does- you hide and try to keep to yourself. But Jinshi's not used to women keeping to themselves around him. Just how are you going to keep this secret when he starts poking around? Approximate Word Count: 3600 Tags: Angst with a happy ending?

You hadn’t been trying to catch the emperor’s attention. But you were the only one who wasn’t, and that’s what caught his attention.

As the daughter of a high ranking official, you were invited (and then forced by your parents) to attend a garden party at the palace, where the newly crowned emperor would then choose his empress and concubines from among the party guests.

Now, it wasn’t that you didn’t want his attention. In fact, he was the most gorgeous man you’d ever seen, and you were sure that everyone else was thinking the same thing. But you had certain physical limitations that made you an ill-advised choice for either his wife or his concubine so you figured there was no point in getting attached to someone you had no chance with.

With that in mind, you banished yourself to the farthest corner of the garden, with only the bees and the flowers to keep you company. When a server brought you a tray of carefully arranged delicacies, you graciously accepted, popping one into your mouth before beaming bright and stealing another. With a satisfied sigh, you turned to speak to the waiter.

“I’m sorry, I know this is rather imprudent of me, but could I perchance meet your chef? I’d like to thank them for the delicious treats.”

He blinked at you curiously.

“Oh, I apologize. You have permission to speak.”

He gave you a small smile. “Thank you, my lady. As flattering as your request is, it is generally frowned upon for the lower and higher classes to interact. Especially at such a…” He gave a wary glance at all the nobility socializing around you, “Public event.”

“Ah, I see. You’re right, forgive me, we are in a rather public space. I’ll accompany you to the kitchen then.”

His eyes widened. “The k-kitchen?”

You nodded as though it were the only acceptable conclusion.

“You mustn’t! It’s rather…chaotic at this hour, with so many guests to serve. I’m sure your ladyship won’t find the kitchen interesting in the slightest. I will convey your thanks to the chef myself, if it is of such great importance to you.”

“It’s no trouble for me. I’d really like to properly express my gratitude. And I must admit to having an ulterior motive, as I’d also like for your chef to teach my kitchen staff their recipes, so you see, we have much to discuss.” You explained.

The waiter gave another cautious glance around the garden, before finally sighing and nodding. “Alright, as you wish, my lady. I shall take you to him.”

And with that, you quietly slipped off to the kitchen with him. Though it can’t have been as quiet as you would’ve liked, because the moment the emperor laid eyes on you sneaking through the maze with a servant boy, he was instantly intrigued. Did someone dare to have an affair with his own staff right under his nose, at his own engagement party? What kind of woman were you exactly? Excusing himself, he followed carefully behind.

When you arrived at the kitchen and the emperor realized you’d snuck out of his lavish party just to convey your thanks to his chef, he was touched. And he couldn’t help but be drawn to the ways your eyes lit up when you discussed potential new recipes for the chef to try, or the way your brows furrowed as you wondered aloud if certain ingredients would mix together well or not, or the way you emphatically pleaded with the chef to impart his knowledge to your own kitchen staff like you’d melt and die if he didn’t.

He stifled a laugh and then, realizing his own actions, wondered what on earth he was hiding his presence for. This was his palace, after all. He stepped out of the shadows, clearing his throat. “You know, the royal palace doesn’t hire just anybody. Of course my staff is well accomplished.”

Heat rushed to your cheeks when you heard his voice behind you and you turned to him, burying your chin deep into your chest as you bowed lower than you’d ever bowed in your entire life. “Your highness! I apologize; I didn’t see you there. Forgive me.”

The kitchen staff followed, bowing low and humbly.

He gestured for them to rise up. “There’s no need for that. I thank you for taking such great care of my party guest.”

They nodded and made their quick departure, leaving just you and the emperor all alone. Great.

“Well…I suppose I’ll be on my way as well. I’m sure you have more important people to see. Good day, your highness.” You gave him another respectful bow before turning away.

“Not so fast.”

You froze, nerves trembling within your veins. “Y-yes, your h-highness?”

Now he had to laugh aloud. “You speak so comfortably with mere kitchen staff and yet you find it difficult to speak to me?”

“With all due respect, your majesty, it is more difficult to speak to you. You require more care when speaking.” You admitted, though unsure why.

“Why? I’m just another man, same as them.”

You raised a brow at that. Man or not, emperor or not, he was being rather dense. “You are not ‘just a man’. You are this kingdom’s ruler. One does not speak to the emperor the way they would a friend.”

“So I’m not the emperor then. Not today. Today, I’m just a friend. So talk to me.”

This guy was going to give you a heart attack for real. You honestly couldn’t tell if he was baiting you into being improper only to reprimand you, or if he genuinely wanted something as simple as true conversation. But, as you gazed into his eyes, you thought you glimpsed a hint of loneliness behind them. Like maybe he never asked to be emperor. Like maybe he never asked to be so far above his peers that no one dared to hold a conversation with him.

So, completely forgetting your original intention of avoiding him, you decided to humor him. You talked with him. The two of you wandered the palace grounds, talking about anything and everything under the sun. And you talked for so long that they sent out a search party for him.

You stifled a laugh as he pulled you deeper into the maze. “Are we supposed to be hiding from your guards? And at your own party?” You whispered.

He grinned. “It’s my party, I can do what I want. Shh, they’re coming this way.” He slipped his hand over your mouth before yanking you behind a hedge.

Once the guards had passed by, he removed his hand. “You okay?”

“Yeah, you?”

“No, I don’t want this to end.”

You laughed. “Well, we do have to go back eventually. Or they’ll think I kidnapped you.”

“That’s a great idea; you should kidnap me.” He teased, nudging you with his arm.

You snorted. “And be beheaded? No, thank you.”

“Who’s going to behead you? I’m the emperor, after all; what I say goes and under no circumstances is any harm to befall you.” His eyes gleamed, true and sincere.

You smiled at him. You couldn’t help it. Somehow, in the span of a few hours, you’d become dear to him. It was obvious in the way he looked at you, the way he walked with you, the way he talked with you, the way he didn’t want to stop talking to you. You didn’t want to admit that he’d also become dear to you, so you opted instead for a witty rebuttal.

“Oh, is that right? You weren’t saying that when you were convincing me to climb a palace wall with you ‘for the view’ and I almost fell off of said wall. Which made the view less impressive, by the way. It’s hard to get a good look when you’re falling through the air.”

He laughed lightheartedly. “But did you fall? No, because I caught you. So, as I said, I won’t allow any harm to come to you.”

“Oh, my hero.” You pressed your hands to your chest dramatically, to which he gave an exaggerated (yet entertained) scoff. You wanted to laugh at his theatrics as you were sure he wanted to laugh at yours. But you knew it was getting time for the fun to reach its end. “We should really get back. They’ll become suspicious that we’ve disappeared together.”

“And what suspicions could they surmise from our time together?” His voice was light and amused- clear evidence that he was still in the mood for games.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe that you’ve chosen to make me your empress or something.”

“And what if I have?” His teasing tone vanished in an instant.

Your heart stuttered in your chest. “Don’t jest- I’d be a ridiculous choice. Besides, it’s rude to neglect your other party guests and then refuse to even consider them for the position. We can’t have the emperor scorning all of his high ranking guests; it would be chaos at best.”

“So I’ll make an appearance. Apologize for my behavior. Flash a smile here, a wink there. All will be well.”

You rolled your eyes, amusement dancing on your curved lips. “And, once again, you’re beloved by everyone. The end.”

“Beloved by everyone except one.”

“One? Who would dare?” You teased.

“You.”

You almost coughed up your heart, but you refused to let your emotions guide your reaction. “That’s untrue. I’m quite fond of you. Kind of like a pet.” You opted instead for humor, once again, your default armor of choice.

His eyes narrowed. “A…pet? Would a…’pet’ do this?” In an instant, he had you pinned up against the column of the gazebo, lips meeting yours in a sudden burst of heat.

You wanted to drown in his kiss. You’d spent so long resisting his dazzling eyes and his charming smile, but when it came to his intoxicating lips? You didn’t stand a chance. You kissed him back, against your better judgement, and when he felt you give in to him, his smirk curled against your lips.

“So, I’ll see you tonight then? After I’m done playing the role of the responsible king?” He grinned unabashedly and it nearly made your chest cave in.

“Tonight? What’s tonight?” You murmured breathlessly, still drunk on the taste of him.

“Tonight, it’s just us. No bothersome party guests within sight. I’ll come to your room.”

You wanted to tell him no. To tell him that this was all moving too quickly. To tell him that he was wasting his energy on you. To tell him that you couldn’t be his. But all you could stutter out was, “T-tonight…” and he took it as your agreement. He kissed you once more and then disappeared into the maze, returning to his party shortly after.

Upon your delayed return to the party -having waited a few minutes after he had left so as not to arouse suspicion anymore than you already had- you feigned ill and retired to your chambers. You wanted to leave. To go for a walk, far, far away, and have that walk cure you of these unnecessary and unwanted feelings. You wanted to be anywhere but here, where he said he’d meet you. But your traitorous feet only allowed you enough energy to pace your room before finally giving up and collapsing on the bed, waiting for his return, longing for his return.

You stared at the ceiling as you waited.

He couldn’t possibly pick you to be his empress, could he? He must have been joking, right? How were you going to tell him the real reason why you couldn’t be his wife? Why you shouldn’t be his wife. How were you going to let him down easy?

You bit down on your lip until it hurt. But…then again, would it really be so bad to be his concubine? To let him coax you into bed? To pretend you could be something to him every time he held you, to ignore the way you felt when he’d leave in the morning, attend to another concubine’s needs? You shook your head, discouraging the idea and jolting you back to reality.

He would come tonight, looking for your love, and you’d simply say you had none to give him. You’d deny the thundering in your heart and you’d tell him why it could never work between the two of you and then he’d be disappointed but ultimately he’d understand that you were a poor choice to begin with and then you’d return to your home town and act as if you never had such pounding in your chest to begin with. You’d forget him and he’d forget you. Or, more likely, he’d forget you, and you’d spend the rest of your life trying to explain away the aching in every fiber of your being. But that was how it should be. You thought you had already made peace with the fact that you’d never be anyone’s wife; it shouldn’t have pained you so much not to be his in particular. You were getting greedy, getting selfish. You wouldn’t wish your companionship on any man desiring a family, not now that you knew what you knew about yourself. And you certainly wouldn’t wish it on him, someone you’d genuinely begun to care about (and someone you would have to train yourself to forget you ever cared about).

So before he even knocked on the door, having heard his footsteps in the hall (and having been embarrassed that you’d already memorized the sound), you ushered him inside your room, and closed the door before anyone could spot the two of you together. And before his excitement at your supposed eagerness could take hold of him, you made sure to express your denial of his advances as plainly as you could.

“I don’t understand. So you…agreed to let me come to your room, you yank me into your room once I arrive, and now you say you don’t want me?” His brows furrowed, hurt and confusion clear as day across his face.

“I didn’t say I don’t want you. I said we can’t be together.” You attempted to soften the blow but it pained you to even say the words.

Surprisingly, your response worked wonders on him. His tension eased immediately upon hearing your words. “So you do want me.”

Your eyes widened, panic shooting through your veins. “That’s not what I-”

“I know. But it’s what you feel, right? So whatever is making you think we can’t be together, I’ll figure it out.” His voice was confident, reassured. There was no hint of arrogance or exaggeration in sight. He was simply speaking the truth; he would clear a path for you to be by his side, no matter what it took. And that only made you want to be by his side more.

But you couldn’t.

“Jinshi, you don’t underst-”

“Zuigetsu. You can call me by my real name.”

Your words froze in your throat. No one called the emperor by his real name. No one would dare. You half expected your head to be sent flying just at the thought of calling him by his real name.

“There’s no way that I-”

“Please. I’ve never heard anyone say my name.”

Well, crap. You couldn’t deny him when he pleaded. You almost couldn’t deny him anything. And you didn’t want to. You wanted to be the woman he swept off her feet. You wanted to be the woman by his side. “Zui….Zuigetsu.” You murmured weakly.

His complexion brightened immediately, eyes brimming with joy. “It sounds so much more perfect than I thought it would.” His thumb ran across your lips, eliciting a shiver from you. There was no lust in his actions, only pure, unadulterated happiness, and it was the kind of happiness you could get lost in.

So, throwing your better judgement out the window once again, you indulged him. You lost yourself in him, lost hours to his welcome company.

You’d assumed he’d wanted to enter your bedchambers for superficial purposes, for more primal purposes, and you probably would’ve entertained his fantasies until reality took hold of you again. But he simply wanted a more private environment to continue his earlier conversation with you, asking more of your likes and dislikes, begging you to repeat an earlier story he’d found entertaining, telling you stories of his own, until you were laughing so hard he had to slip a hand over your mouth to avoid drawing unwelcome attention, grinning as he did so.

So the night came and went, and you played pretend to your heart’s satisfaction. And then the morning came and you regretted your actions once more.

You couldn’t keep doing this. Not to him. Not to yourself. It would only make leaving even harder. No, today would be the day when you’d tell him the truth. The dreaded truth. The devastating truth.

So you sent a messenger to his room with gifts you’d brought from your hometown and you invited him to join you for conversation, one last time.

“Spoiling me already?” He plopped down beside you, all giddy and glowing.

“I thought you might like the treats. Since you were telling me you’d never tried them before.” What were you doing? You were supposed to just spit out the truth and here you were, small talking him.

“I very much enjoyed them, but I think I’d enjoy them more with you, so I saved some to have with our tea.” He smiled, sincerity practically dripping from his lips, as he offered you the tray you’d previously sent to his room.

“I’m afraid I can’t stay for tea.”

“Oh, I see. You’re doing the thing where you push me away again, claiming that we’re not meant to be. I told you; I’ll take care of everything. Do you not trust me?” For such a serious conversation, his tone was relaxed, like he was already assured of your feelings. You cursed your own carelessness for allowing your feelings to surface so plain for him to see.

“It’s not that-”

“Then what is it?”

He was going to be the death of you. But you may as well dig the grave yourself, if your relationship was already within the Grim Reaper’s grasp. “I can’t have children.” There. You’d said it. Your awful secret had finally come to light.

You could tell he was not expecting that, because his features had frozen in place, his breath trapped within his lungs. Maybe he was expecting you to have a scorned past lover, maybe he was expecting you to merely be insecure about inheriting the title of empress. Whatever he’d been expecting, it can’t have been nearly as bad as the dreadful truth.

The truth that you yourself had not yet made peace with. You’d cried yourself to sleep the day the doctor told you and you cried almost every night since then. You’d always dreamed of marrying for love (as rare as it was during these times) and starting a family with your loved one. And now those dreams were nothing more than a relic of the past. The past belonging to a happier you. To a healthier you. To the ideal version of yourself. To the version of yourself you wish you could present to him right now. But you couldn’t change your reality, much like you couldn’t change your DNA. Your fate had already been signed, sealed, and delivered to you, and all that was left was to accept it.

“Okay.”

Time stuttered to a stop. “W-what did you say?”

“I said, okay. I told you, no matter what it is, I’ll figure it out.”

You sighed, exasperation seeping into your voice, “This isn’t something you can just figure out. I physically cannot have children. Do you understand what that means? It means you won’t be able to carry on the royal line with me. It means you’re better off with someone else.”

“I didn’t say I’d fix it. I said I’d figure it out. And I’ve already figured out that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, who cares if we can’t have kids? Marry me.”

Your stomach tangled in a knot. “I can’t marry you. I’m not right for you. Besides being physically limited, I’m also extremely selfish. I won’t want to share you with another concubine.”

“So don’t share then. Marry me.”

“You don’t understand. You would be giving up the idea of children altogether. That’s a difficult decision to make; I wouldn’t make it so lightly.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand. I don’t make this decision lightly; I make it with all the love I have in my heart because I love and want you, and only you. So marry me.”

In that moment, you burst into tears. You knew you shouldn’t be bawling like this in front of the emperor; your parents would’ve been ashamed. But you couldn’t help yourself any longer. All those nights, attempting to comfort yourself when no one else could. All those days, wishing for your imperfections to simply disappear. And here he was, offering to love you through it all. He didn’t see someone in need of fixing, he simply saw you and wanted you. And he didn't see you as an imperfection, he saw you as perfect for him.

And if you couldn’t give him children, you made up your mind that you’d damn well give him every ounce of love that you had to give, and every day of the rest of your life.

Taglist: @pixelcafe-network @h3art-love @ouiouimochi @minasfwoopyponytail

#apothecary diaries jinshi #jinshi apothecary diaries #jinshi x reader #jinshi #the apothecary diaries #apothecary diaries #apothecary diaries x reader #ka zuigetsu

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akiqvq · 18 days ago

Text

i hope i never see you again.

a final confrontation, and an explanation long overdue.

word count | 4.9k link to work on ao3

sylus x reader mentions | heavy angst, no fluff, reader is not mc

You'd like to think that you've long since come to understand the man standing just an arms-length away from you, what with his silver hair that still somehow glistens even beneath the aged, orange-tinted porch light; the way that even without his arms through the sleeves, his blazer sits immaculately atop a button up, slacks cuffed perfectly at his ankles; the way his face – which was always so inscrutable in the threads of your memory – remains so, even now.

It's strange.

As you gaze up into his unfairly captivating eyes, you swear to yourself that this polaroid image you spent so long so carefully crafting of him – layers upon layers of a man that you toiled so painstakingly hard to even have within your reach – too, remains the same. You can almost wholly delude yourself into believing that to be true. You can feel it; taking one step closer, just past the threshold and onto the porch, just outside of the security of your home, both the physical and the one you built around your bleeding heart, and your fool's paradise would be a fantasy no more.

Your fingers twitch against where you hold the door open, your last line of defense.

The smell. The polaroid – your polaroid – has caught; the image comes into focus, and the edges are smoldering. It's burning.

The fringe of his hair, though seemingly perfectly coiffed at first glance, is just barely mussed; like someone's run their fingers through the silver strands. Just beneath the lapels of his blazer, you notice now that the thin chain that usually bridges the collar of his button up is missing; like someone had forgotten to put it back in its rightful place after having removed it in the first place.

His lips, your eyes inadvertently flit down to, are canted slightly downward, subtly displacing his habitually knowing expression with one you're realizing you can't quite read.

Like someone was here before you, with gentle hands and languid touches that left behind this whisper of disarray, and he was unable to smooth every last morsel over.

It's blistering.

"Don't.”

Your voice is rough, harsh, and his mouth stays parted for a second too long, closes around what you know was going to be your name, but you don't want to hear it. Not now, and not like this.

Your lower lip catches in your teeth, a silent question pressed against it. It seeps through the gaps, and the absence of it writhes into an unspoken accusation anyhow.

Why?

Sylus, ever the epitome of composure, doesn’t speak right away. You know that he knows better than to look anywhere other than at you, yet as you hold each other’s gaze, the air between the two of you becomes so tense, so palpable, you feel it in the back of your throat. It’s still. Thick. Thick with everything, all the confessions and admissions, he’s far too late to say.

His shoulders rise and fall with a low sigh of resignation.

“I never meant for things… for us to end like this. You, of all people, should know that.”

A humored laugh escapes you before you can stop it, and you shake your head in utter disbelief. Something vicious and nasty and unnamed starts festering in your chest, clawing against your ribs, threatening to tear you apart entirely.

“That’s low, Sylus, even- no, especially for you,” you say bitterly.

You watch as his mouth twists, contemplative. He tries again.

“Let me at least just explain myself, please, Y/N,” Sylus says, tone measured. But you can see it in his eyes–he’s wavering. You could despise yourself for recognizing it at all.

“What’s even there to explain?” you scoff, unable to mask the hurt that permeates your voice.

“Everything, Y/N.”

That unnamed something creeps further up your throat just as swift as the polaroid burns. “No. I think I know exactly what I really meant to you, Sylus.”

And how couldn’t you?

You, who was enamoured by his out of place, yet commanding existence in your unostentatious life. You, who tried your hardest to stay hidden, unobserved, in the furthest corner of an art gallery away from the curated noise and polished crowd, yet still kindled a curiosity in the man whose presence alone demanded an audience. You, who noticed his appearance at your side in the warped reflection of a gilded frame, only realizing you’d been studying the brushstrokes of the painting aimlessly when he inquired about your honest thoughts in a low, amused voice. You, who thought, “It’s all performance,” then heard his quiet chuckle, “Surely, you don’t mean just the piece,” and decisively turned to regard your mysterious company– only to find his impossibly carmine eyes already looking at you.

You, who felt like you were truly being seen for the first time in a long time, in a way that invited you in; a vow woven so intricately into one glance, it made something in you localized to your heart believe that this was the beginning. That you were the beginning.

Perhaps that’s what it is. Maybe this unnamed something that sits, waiting, behind your tongue is not grief at what you’ve lost, neither is it the misery adorned across your chest, nor is it the betrayal that’s haunted you in the depths of night, rather it is acceptance you’ve not only turned a blind eye to, but abandoned completely in favor of blissful ignorance. For acknowledging its actuality means accepting that you made your choice. You took the path less traveled and it brought you to this moment now.

But that couldn’t be so. You might have chosen this road, but when the echoes of every single waking second spent with Sylus live behind your eyelids to torment you when you so much as blink, all paths would have converged into this one anyways. And no matter how carnal the desire, you’re no Orpheus. You can’t look back. You can’t bring back the person you were before Sylus.

The you that existed with Sylus, though, was so in love. So alive. And that, in hindsight, is what’s been killing you slowly. Romantic love was something you’d let linger in the recesses of your mind, never to see the light, for it was something that somehow always seemed so foreign, never meant for you. But the way that had Sylus looked at you the night of the gallery truthfully was the beginning. Words and glances exchanged like secrets in his car, your getaway, as the moonlit water of Whitesand Bay glistened just beyond the open window, with the wind catching on your outstretched fingertips, had you feeling a little like falling in love with this stranger who felt like anything but.

So you did. As did he.

If love was a religion, then he was devout, and you were his divine. With notes of sharp spice and hints of bergamot, he wrapped you so carefully in his scent, you were always certain you could spend eternity in this embrace. The charmingly ardent way he always spoke to you felt like he was meant to exist in the confines of a fantasy, and the unabating way in which he treated you with such admiration and adoration felt like he would worship the ground you walked if he could.

And you loved him the only way someone who would have never expected love in return could ever love their first– wholeheartedly, without condition. It wasn’t a love full of glittering spectacles, or grandiose gestures, for such declarations were never you, yet it was intense all the same. Like Sylus was scripture, you faithfully mapped every inch, memorizing him like a prayer to be recited at eventide. Your love let him exist without the need to pretend. A familiar, quiet kind of love where he could return home every night, forgo his defenses, and hang his armour by the door. For months on end, a love most fervent.

So foolish of you. To not have seen your own love had doomed you from the start.

It started with a mistake. One made so silently, entwined in the spaces of your love that, in retrospect, if you weren’t so closely attuned to all that he did, you would never have heard it. But you did; a sharp flick, the scritch of a match, followed by the low hissing of a flame held to your beloved polaroid that even the naïve you of then couldn’t ignore. A name. He’d said it so casually in a conversation so fleeting that you paid it no regard. Until it wasn’t something you could overlook twice.

This name– her name, quickly became commonplace in your relationship. At the second occurrence, you implored Sylus about the matter. Someone he’d become acquainted with in his work dealing with the imports and exports of Linkon City, he’d informed you. A colleague. How wonderful, you’d reasoned, that his profession presented him with chance meetings like this. Thus, it was never mentioned by you again.

But then, for all you had claimed to be so intimately aware of him, you finally began to see.

It lingered a little too long, her name. In the space you weren’t aware was between you two. In the way it would hang in the air a little too long. In the lilt of his voice that was so undeniably soft, you weren’t sure if it was worse that it felt like something not meant for your ears at all or that he didn’t even seem to register he was starting to say it in the same way he said yours.

That steady, holy ground beneath your feet was shifting, he was slipping out of your grasp– and what were you, if not a bystander? His visits to your home in Bloomshire grew more frequent, yet simultaneously somehow, he was never actually there. He would still touch you, embrace you, and kiss you all the same, but the wail of your fragile heart told you something was different. That it had been different for a while, now. With the dampened light of the moon spilling through your blinds and the lull of sleep overhead, you would lie with him in the sanctuary of your bed, just as the two of you always had– your fingers feebly toying with the neckline of his sweater, and his own tenderly brushing over the skin of your eyelids. Only it felt less like you were a girl seeking wonted comfort in the familiar fabric of her lover’s wear, and more like you were secretly sewing into his heart your hope that he would stay. And it felt less like Sylus was a boy stroking the day’s worries out of his lover’s sight, and more like he was quietly willing you to close your eyes, so you wouldn’t have to see he wasn’t.

Then, it ended. Just as it had begun, it ended; quietly.

Rare was it for you to spend an extended amount of time in the center of Linkon, but work summoned Sylus away, and what with your traitorous feelings of guilty relief for the reprieve, you physically couldn’t stay home. A brief train ride later, you were less than surprised that Azure Square was teeming with life. Whether the bustling passerby and euphoric sounds of the city were the solace you needed mattered not, you were hearing and comprehending nothing more than the static of your own mind. The faces among the crowd were akin to figures moving in blurred strokes across an over-crowded canvas, immediately ferrying you back to the night of the art gallery.

Very little mind was being paid to your surroundings as you nursed a cold drink, sat beneath a canopy, and lost in the corridors of thought. The little bell strung on the door of the coffee shop jingled as more faceless strangers filtered in and out, and you could hear the rhythm of footsteps passing even as you were miles away. For the umpteenth time, you caught the faint aroma of coffee as the closing door wafted it in your direction, and with it, came a whisper of spice and citrus.

Sylus.

Like the scent itself took you by the face and coaxed you out of retrospection, your gaze focused on the backs of two strangers no more than a few metres away. Coffee in hand, hair tied in twin ponytails, and clad in white uniforms you know you’d seen somewhere but weren’t familiar with, the joyous atmosphere surrounding these two girls made you feel even more reprehensible, so you turned away, willing the ache and the devil on your shoulder to follow.

And maybe if you had been free of the tendrils of insecurity curled around your neck– maybe if you weren’t being suffocated beneath the weight of your own love of all things, you would’ve soberly finished your drink, rode the train back in solitude, and let yourself choke. But you were already on your feet.

You’d never wished for anything as achingly as you pleaded in that moment to be wrong. Perhaps all of your conflicting emotions had finally coagulated, and they were clouding what would otherwise be sound judgement. Maybe you were making unnecessary bounds and leaps towards a conclusion you weren’t even sure of. You could feel your lips part, the breath that gathered in your chest, and the sound of your hoarse voice as you said but one word. A name. Her name.

There was no mercy. No warning. And when the graceful sweep of her ponytail over her shoulder gave way to wide eyes and a startled expression, you knew she wasn’t just a stranger.

Even now– as you restudy the man that was everything but a stranger to you, the last remaining embers of your polaroid crumble away to little more than ashes at your feet, fluttering into the depths of the chasm stretching the expanse of your porch.

“Enlighten me then, Y/N, on what you’re so certain you meant to me,” Sylus rebuttals.

Your jaw tightens, “N-”

“Don’t you even think of responding with ‘nothing.’ You know that couldn’t be further from the truth, Y/N,” he interrupts, the abruptness betraying how unlike him this all is.

With the hand not pressed to the door, you throw your hand up in exasperation, coughing out a clipped laugh, “But it is what I meant, Sylus! What more could I have meant if you were willing to spend months lying to me–to my face about everything, at that?”

He shakes his head in an infuriatingly calm manner, and you hate how composed he can remain, even moreso now that all of your self-restraint is unraveling. But– with the dam cracked, why stop now?

“Jesus, Sylus, I–I mean you even lied about your job,” you stutter over a thick knot of emotions, “and I didn’t even get the courtesy of hearing the truth from you!”

That discovery was nothing less than a direct slap across the face. You can vividly remember the sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach– not at the fact that he had been keeping anything of this magnitude from you, but that you’d been so gullible to have believed it. Imports and exports for Linkon City. Not even knowing what his home looked like or where he lived, for that matter. And for you to have been so extraordinarily insensible to have let that be okay because you loved him.

Even revisiting that revelation now makes your insides writhe. Your eyes slip shut, and the sound of the deep inhale you take is soft, yet simultaneously stretched thin.

“It’s almost repulsive how pathetically naïve I was,” you murmur.

Sylus doesn’t flinch. He never does. He holds your stare when you finally look back up at him, and quietly says, “I can’t even begin how to tell you that I regret not having been the one to be honest with you. Especially from the start–”

“Then why didn’t you?!” The question bursts out of you before you can even consider stopping it. You press your lips together, well aware that any final morsels of collectedness are slipping from your grasp.

He exhales slowly, and you don’t entirely miss how the breath shudders slightly at the end, “As much as I lament deceiving you, Y/N, I ask that you understand the sheer amount of danger I would have put you in for even considering telling you my identity.”

You blink once, “I do understand. Really– I do, regardless of my current feelings. But what I’m hearing now is you thought it was safer to pretend to be someone you’re not, and never were, instead of just being honest with me? That was your idea of protecting me?”

“Y/N,” Sylus says in a more terse voice, “Don’t twist it like this. You’re too smart to insult both of us by acting like that’s what I was doing.”

Whether it’s a result of your frustration, heartache, or both, you can feel the telltale prick of tears behind your eyes, “If I’m so smart, why couldn’t you respect me enough to tell me the truth?”

Something in his unflappable front flickers, but your gaze has fallen to the silent abyss beneath you, threatening to swallow you whole.

“You denied me the choice of deciding if the truth was something I could live with. If it was someone I could love.”

The silence from before envelops you now. Adrenaline simmers beneath your skin. The unnamed something you came to recognize as acceptance settles heavily in your chest, leaving you with nothing except all of your raw, naked emotions– and questions that you’re not even sure you want to hear answered, but desperately need to so your heart can have permission to end its suffering.

There’s another beat of taut silence between you, and when you finally bring yourself to look back up at him, you can see where his expression is fraying at the edges.

“You’re right,” he says, the vague presence of something akin to quiet remorse in his voice, “I was wrong in assuming that in sparing you from the truth of who I am, I was sparing you from danger.”

There’s a pause that follows that feels deliberate, like he’s silently pleading with you to not merely listen to his words, but to feel the weight of a truth he’s well aware is much too late.

“What I thought was protection was nothing more than thinly veiled control. You didn’t, and will never, deserve that, and I’m sorry for that, Y/N,” he whispers.

Something in you longs to call him a bold-faced liar– wishes that you could scream at him for lying yet again, but there’s a painful throb when something else threads its fingers over and under the arteries of your bleeding heart. That lingering acceptance, once more. You yearn to say he’s being deceitful, but you know all too well that it hurts all the much more because you know he means it.

You don’t answer right away. You can’t. Saying anything that remotely mirrors the words ‘it’s okay’ would make you just like he was; a liar. So you elect to say nothing at all. But as you stand in your doorway with the biting winter air making itself intimately familiar with the skin of your cheeks – staring down the ghost of your wildest dreams and the reality of your ruin – you slowly realize that what you desire more than the truth is to be free.

The void beckons you twofold, so you let your stare fall away again. You shake your head, in not disbelief, but defeat. In the closet, another skeleton waits– born of his lies, and unwilling to wait any longer.

“... And her?”

Two words is all it takes to permeate the air with something far more volatile than before. Sylus, too, doesn’t speak right away, and a part of you grieves that he can’t immediately say you’ve got it all wrong. That it isn’t what it is. And even though you’re sure you look just as disheveled as you feel, you quietly let his eyes trace your features.

His expression shifts as he circles his response around on his tongue before he even opens his mouth to speak. You decide to spare him the effort.

“Was it always her?”

Sylus’ expression falls for a moment so brief you wonder if you imagined it, “She and I were not romantically involved while you and I were together.”

You feel your neck become increasingly warm from anger, and you instantly shake your head at him– bottom lip worried between your teeth.

“Don’t dodge the question, Sylus.”

“Y/N–”

“So– what, you kept the timelines clean? That’s real fucking rich.”

“The relationship that I have with her is complicated, and–”

You almost laugh. “How?! How is it so complicated that you needed to lie to both of us just to keep it tidy? Sylus, I don’t know how the truth will make me feel, but I know damn well another lie is far from fair to me.”

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, his jaw clenches with the slightest jump of a muscle. Anticipation swells in you as you notice, for what is surely the first time, as his lips part to speak only to stop short; he’s hesitating. The ripple of torment that slithers its way down your spine is excruciating.

“There is no way for me to explain it without sounding disingenuous.”

It takes a herculean amount of effort to stifle the itch to immediately scoff, but you keep yourself quiet. There’s nothing you could say in this moment right now that would be worth easing the pressure on him, and frankly, you don’t want to.

Sylus’ chest rises in a low breath, “She was mine in a life that’s long since come to pass, and I’ve a bond with her that even I can’t explain. Her reappearance in my life now carried with it the presence of something that I still can’t unravel. Not when she herself wasn’t fully aware of the significance she bears to me.

“It would be remiss of me to pretend that my proximity to her was a mere coincidence, but it meant close to nothing because she was under the impression I was exactly who she’d been warned about. Then, everything changed.”

With each word that leaves his mouth, the world around you – the light of your porch, the chasm at your feet, you, Sylus – starts distorting at the edges. Like this isn’t a conversation you’re actively participating in, but more like you’re witnessing a scene that’s happening to someone else. It sounds unreal, and if it were anyone else telling you what he’s confessing now, you’d laugh. But this isn’t just anyone else. And for all the lies he’s woven so intricately around you, something in you deep down knows this isn’t one. You bite the inside of your cheek, trying to keep yourself grounded. Only now do you realize that the door stands abandoned behind you– your hands buried in the pockets of your sweater, keeping their anxious trembles out of sight.

Nothing, however, can hide the fear that’s laid itself bare in the look on your face.

“You deserve more than a bare bones explanation after all that you’ve gone through,” he admits solemnly, “and I would be the one to provide that to you if the circumstances surrounded you and I, but–”

Sylus’ voice tapers off before he can finish. Not that it matters when it’s all the same to you. You hear what needn’t be spoken aloud regardless.

But this is about her and I.

It isn’t until you taste salt in the corner of your parted lips that you register the weight of the tears welling in your eyes and rolling down the slope of your cheeks. Their existence is made even more miserable with the frigid air. Then, a numbing realization dawns on you: somewhere, in the margins of this back and forth, he’s taken the liberty of claiming your proverbial knife as his own, turned it inward, and positioned it against your chest. Without force, yet without hesitation.

Waiting.

For one final truth.

“I loved you, once, Y/N,” he breathes steadily, “but I love her now, and evermore.”

Ah.

You feel it. The crescendo. The point of the knife curves gracefully, guided by steady hands as it glides past your skin, through your bones, and plunges with a sigh of finality into your heart.

Unconsciously, you stagger back a step. You’re unable to hold his gaze. Your eyes drop down to his chest, your attention blurring out of focus.

All of it.

The aching.

The evenings spent mourning.

The endless nights wondering when you lost him.

The unrelenting mornings asking when you lost yourself.

It all converges into a singular, overwhelming moment. You press your nails into your palm, desperate to feel anything else.

How foolish of you, to think you had ever understood the man standing so far out of reach. It’s incredible you never saw it sooner: You never truly had him to begin with.

You try valiantly to blink through the tears staining your vision, steeling yourself to face him as you come undone. Even when you’re falling apart at the seams, there will forever be this that remains constant. Because when you finally muster the courage to lift your chin and look him in the eye, it’s devastating– just how beautiful he still is to you.

Memories in snapshots flicker across your mind and briefly, you wonder if this is what people see in the moments before death wraps them in its embrace. You conjure images. Of the valleys your fingers left behind in his frosty hair with the haze of early morning hovering in your bathroom. Of a coffee table; where you had a habit of leaving the chain of his button up after you removed it when he’d arrive. And his expression, in the way the corners of his eyes seemed to soften just for you when he said he loved you.

Then, just as your beloved polaroid of him, this too, snuffs out. The memories stop. Abruptly. As if they themselves know you’re not welcoming them any longer.

A trove of them remains in the archives of your heart, though it feels less like that tenderness that’s been haunting you and more like you’re rotting from the inside out. Your body feels cold, but not because you miss the memories– or because you miss him. You feel cold because you can see.

While you were busy loving him, Sylus was already remembering someone else.

“You’re a cruel man, Sylus,” your voice cracks a little over the syllables of his name.

“... I know.”

In a last ditch effort to exhaust the last of your rage out on him, you rifle through snippets of the one and only interaction you had with her. Searching for even a granule of something that would allow you to absolve yourself of the loathing you’ve been drowning yourself in. That would prove she – just as he did – knew all along. But you can’t. The remorse that was sprawled across her face then– and the sympathetic way in which she whispered ‘I’m sorry’ was a testament for this.

The last sliver of anger in your body relinquishes into a hurt you know all too well. With it, the will to loathe her slips away and it leaves in its wake the quiet ache of knowing that against fate, you never stood a chance. How could you have been able to bring yourself to hate a girl who was just as kept in the dark? You’re too tired, and maybe too kind, for that.

You’re not quite sure what myriad of expressions you must be making, but you sure as hell can’t look at his for a second longer. Another step backwards leaves Sylus bathed in the orange porch light alone. There’s so much you’ve yet to say to him. So much that you still want to say. Nothing, however, feels adequate enough to convey in words the weight of what he’s done to you, so you concede.

“You’re a cruel, cruel man,” you echo resignedly, “and I hope I never have to see you again.”

With practiced ease, you slip further back into the shadowed refuge of your home that once upon a time, housed two. Keeping the door open has allowed for the winter outside to infiltrate its ambiance; the floor beneath your feet a frigid kind of cold. You’ll have to remedy this with wool socks when you’re alone tonight.

Sylus says nothing and the silence is resounding, even when the door creaks as you begin to shut it; slow, and certain. And you’ll implore yourself to acknowledge it as some sort of sadistic self-punishment later, but before you can close this chapter for good, your eyes find Sylus one last time, and when you catch a glimpse of something like guilt softening the edges of his face, you pause.

The sheer loneliness you’ve felt is something you wouldn’t ever wish onto someone else. Hence you’re not sure if you’ll ever find it in you to truly forgive him. Perhaps you never truly will. Maybe you, as well, are a cruel person for that. Time will pass, and you’ll spend it unlearning him, anyhow.

When the time does come to pass, and the dust settles with it, there is one truth that stands untouched.

“But I hope fate is kind to you this time around.”

You, too, loved him once.

#love and deepspace #lnds sylus #sylus #lads sylus #sylus x reader #sylus angst #love and deepspace x reader #lnds angst #angst #sylus love and deepspace #love and deepspace sylus #l&ds sylus

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akiqvq · 18 days ago

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CAN SOMEONE PLS MAKE AN ANGST LADS FIC WITH NON MC INSPIRED BY THE SONG SENSES BY MICO ESPECIALLY THE PART

"Know you fell for the person

That tried to be someone they're not

You long for a feeling you'll never get back

And I'm scared that you'll finally give up

I'm never enough

The one that you wanted

But never the one that you'll love, and I know"

HITS HARD😭😭

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akiqvq · 19 days ago

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Post LADS Main Story: NonMC Reader x Sylus

So I had a thought again: you being reincarnated into the world of LADS, but after the story ends. Ever is no more. Wanderers have been cured and don't exist anymore. The world is relatively peaceful.

MC has found her happy ending with one of the boys, something you find out during a stroll in Linkon City. And it's not Sylus.

I was thinking it would be Xavier for the angst factor. Because, to Sylus, she chose the prince of the people that caused him so much pain over him. She chose the light Xavier represents over his darkness. She chose someone who, in Sylus' mind, was born with everything over him who worked to get everything he has for her sake.

Or maybe she chose Caleb. And that would hurt too because Sylus realizes that while they only had each other in the past, she overlooks that for her present. That their history isn't nearly as valuble as her history with Caleb.

Either way, it causes sad boy hours. The man is devasted. And while he and MC still have a friendship, it's a bit toxic. No longer do they play Kitty Cards or spend time at the claw machine. With the new love in her life, all that's left for Sylus is scraps.

She uses him. Calls him when she needs something or she wants to do something. But if it's him? She blows him off. She treats him like a joke.

Maybe not even truly realizing that she is (but part of me wants to go the bitch route because I've made her so nice in all my other current works and WIPs; I blame @rcvcgers for this (I say this with love, because I honest to god love Rotten Apples), and need to channel that anger).

Then it gets worse: he dies. She remembers her past with him, and gives back the other half of his soul. And then she turns her back on him for good, cutting ties because their morals are just incompatible. He's so devasted that he takes his own life, no longer immortal because his sorceress abandoned him (just like everyone else did).

But anyways, you figure this out, and basically come barging into his life. Not to make him love you. Not to get her to love him. But to give him something to latch onto.

Let's say Sylus was your favorite in the game (as he is for me, clearly), so you act like a total, batshit crazy, fan girl. And there's something about that crackhead energy that makes him drawn to you.

So you bug him. And bug him. And bug him endlessly. Because even annoyance and anger are better than emptiness and coldness he carries right now. Sure, he hides it well behind snark and flirting, but you know him better. You've watched him from behind a scene for quite some time.

I imagine the reason you're kept around is because of the chaotic nature of who you are and the knowledge you have. And because Sylus doesn't have it in him to give a shit. You're not a threat. If anything, it was the twins that convinced him of your use.

So you live at the base, occassionally witnessing the toxic nature of him and MC's dynamic. And you come up with a plan to help him get over her. Not by making him love you, you'd never be worthy of that, but of getting him to realize that his sorceress is dead. That even it's technically the same the person in soul, she's not the same at her (Aether) core.

Doing so makes you fall even further in love. You discover things about him a simple game could never. You see sights and experience parts of this world that could never captured by a screen or some code. And it hurts.

It hurts because he's more than just a character to you. He cares for you, is soft with you. He buys you things, helps braid your hair, takes you to fancy venues, stands up for you, protects you... You almost think that he loves you.

But that's silly. Who would love you? Who would love the real you, and not the one you present to the world? The one that cries at nothing? The one consumed by anxiety and insecurity? The one that hides under layers and layers of walls capped off by an impenetrable mask? The one that hid herself and changed herself for so many years? The one you're not even sure still exists?

You're such a fraud.

(This whole prompt was inspired by the Webtoon My Derelict Favorite, and I couldn't get it out of my head).

#lads x reader #sylus x non mc reader #sylus qin x reader #sylus x non!mc reader #sylus x reader #love and deepspace #sylus x mc #sylus angst #love and deepspace x reader #mc x xavier

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akiqvq · 19 days ago

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The way my jaw dropped the moment I see him😩💕💕

GOOD FUCKING EVENING HELLO. HELLO????

CLUBWEAR SILVER ARE YOU FREE FOR DINNER.

#twisted wonderland #honkai star rail #twst #silver vanrouge #SILVER YOU THE MAN 😩😩😩#WHY IS HE SO BEAUTIFUL #ONE CHANCE PLSSSSSSS #LOOK AT HIS HAIR HIS OUTFIT EVERYTHING!!!!!

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akiqvq · 20 days ago

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I am so screwed

Summary - You’re about to take your driver’s test when your Uber crashes into a truck. You wake up as a baby in a dating sim you used to play. Cue the mental breakdown. You’re stuck in a new life with no control, and worst of all, you’re starting over—puberty’s back, and you’re pretty sure you’re screwed.

Warnings in General - MDNI, Mature themes, blood, gore, violence, drugs, death, human experimentation, etc...

Maybe it was a sign?

You were just a college student, about to take your driver’s test. You did everything you could—roped your friends into helping you memorize road signs, survived all those breakdowns with your older brother yelling at you in his not-so-calm voice every time you messed up.

Couldn’t God just let you catch a break this time?

On test day, you took an Uber. No one in your family could drive you, but they all wished you good luck. You were so pumped, hyping yourself up like you were about to win a gold medal.

You’d nailed the written exam—now it was time to prove to the government that you could actually drive.

But then, for some reason…

Your Uber driver was way worse than you.

He swerved into passing traffic at an intersection and crashed right into a freaking Costco truck.

You didn’t even know what was going on at first. You were too busy texting a friend until you felt the impact. You remember the coil in your seat and how the seatbelt dug into your body as you clung to the grab handle, praying you'd stay alive.

‘Fuck this,’ was your last thought as you closed your eyes, just seconds after hearing the wail of the ambulance sirens.

In those seconds, you hoped your dad was okay. After his stroke a few years ago, he struggled with so much. You just hoped mom wasn’t pushing herself too hard at work—being the only one working since dad had to retire after the accident left his left arm useless.

You remembered your oldest brother texting you about a package being delivered to the front door, telling you to bring it inside before someone swiped it off the porch. Your older sister probably went home after her graveyard shift at the hospital, waiting for your brother-in-law to come back from a flight. And your older brother? He was probably about to call to ask what’s for dinner.

You were the youngest in your family, a solid ten years apart from your older brother, who was the third oldest. Growing up, you didn’t have anyone to play with—your siblings were all angsty teens who didn’t want to play ponies with you anymore.

Now, though? They all wanted to do everything with you. Their baby sister, who was almost done with her angsty phase too.

You always figured they were jealous because you were the favorite. And honestly, who could blame them? You were a total godsend. Dad would’ve laughed if you said that out loud—if you were anything like him, you'd know that statement was far from the truth.

Still, you hoped they wouldn’t have trouble anymore.

At least now, you'd get to see your grandfather and the niece you never got to meet.

Then, your heart beat its last.

"Isn't she pretty?" A man's voice made you stir.

"So cute!" A woman gushed, her voice full of excitement.

You had no idea if they were talking about you, but your eyelids felt heavy, and all you wanted to do was sleep. These voices were way too close for comfort, and you just hoped they weren’t some crazy lunatics cooing over you at your deathbed.

Your vision blurred, and instead of seeing your dead grandparents, you saw a young couple, their faces lit up with big smiles. “Oh, she’s waking up!” The woman said, clearly delighted.

Who the hell were these people?!

You wanted to move, to get up, but your body had no strength. “She’s squirming… Maybe her diaper is full?” Diaper?

Wait, what?

NAUR!!!

This couldn’t be real! In any other situation, you might’ve been stoked to get another shot at life, but these were NOT your parents! You wanted your real mama and papa, not these strangers!

“WAHHHH!” Your cries came out so high-pitched, they could’ve made your music teacher, the one you never missed a chance to tease about his bald spot, flinch.

The woman holding you flinched too, clearly a new parent. “Hon, quick! I need to change her diaper!” she called to her husband, who immediately rushed to grab the duffle bag from one of the chairs.

‘No! Get away!’

Your tiny body was in full meltdown mode. You were so mad—not only were these people your new parents, but you were gonna have to go through the whole school system again! All of it. All that effort, all those grades, just to start over like a baby.

Puberty.

That thought only made you cry harder. It had taken you YEARS to achieve the perfect poreless face. Why did nothing ever go your way?! What kind of karma was this BS? You were a genuinely good person—you’d even stopped yourself from committing arson multiple times! That alone should’ve earned you a life back with your real family!

Apparently, your meltdown over having to go through puberty again was enough to distract you from your diaper being changed. The next thing you knew, a baby bottle was being shoved (gently) into your mouth, warm formula milk filling it.

‘Now this is just degrading...’

Though comforting, you finally understood why babies stop crying when they’re fed. But... you grew up lactose intolerant. Hopefully, you didn’t inherit any of those genes from your previous life.

Your “mother” giggled, her smile lighting up the room. She was so pretty—no, gorgeous. She looked like she’d stepped right out of a magazine.

“We waited so long to meet you…” she whispered, and you realized she had already decided on your name.

They kept your name.

The name your dad gave you at birth.

Maybe, just maybe, you could tolerate this new life after all.

Turns out your “mom” and “dad” were loaded.

Apparently, “dad” was some kind of financial day trader, and “mom” was a fashion designer.

You were pretty sure they had money in the same way most people had Netflix subscriptions—like it was just a given. You were starting to see how this new life might not be so bad… though you still wished it didn’t come with the whole baby thing.

The neighborhood was nice, and the house they pulled up to was even nicer. This was… so different from how you grew up. Your parents weren’t wealthy at all, didn’t come from much money. You and your older sister had to be the breadwinners of the family—go to school, get good grades, and make sure you got paid.

Comfort always felt… unfulfilling to you. It was like you’d never earned it, never had to fight for it. It didn’t have the same satisfaction as the struggle. Maybe that’s why it felt so empty now, even with all the luxury around you.

It was just how you grew up.

You shifted in the little stroller your "mom" had put you in, your tiny body still adjusting to everything. Your "dad" was the one guiding it to the front door. “Welcome home, pumpkin,” he cooed at you.

The pet name made you sick. This man was nothing like your real papa.

You pouted, and he tilted his head, clearly trying to figure you out. “You’ve been pouting since you woke up. Do you want a nap?”

God, you hated that sweet, patronizing tone of his voice. It made your skin crawl.

The nursery was nice—fit for a princess, really. Pastel pink and ivory white were the main colors, everything had fur, and even the little bunny in the crib was now your new roommate.

‘I miss Mr. Puffles II.’

You watched the mobile above you spin slowly, playing a familiar melody. Mr. Puffles had been the first and only Christmas present you ever got from your parents—a pink teddy bear you’d had since you were six.

You knew you were being a Negative Nancy, but this was just how you coped. There were too many things still spinning around in your head. You hated not knowing things.

Ultimately, you decided to sleep on it—partly because you had way too much to process, but mostly because watching the mobile spin was making you really sleepy.

Sleep came easier than you expected, but that didn’t stop the weird sense of disconnection you felt the moment you woke up.

The next morning, or whatever time it was (you had no real concept of time anymore), you were greeted by your “mom” hovering over your crib with a bright, almost blinding smile. “Good morning, sweetheart~” her voice was as soft as the ridiculous amount of plushies surrounding you.

You merely blinked at her.

How were you supposed to respond to that? Cry? Giggle? You refused to do either.

Instead, your stomach betrayed you, letting out a grumble so loud that even you were embarrassed. Your “mom” giggled. “Sounds like someone’s hungry.” No. No, you weren’t.

You were just—okay, maybe you were. But you didn’t want to be.

You still weren’t over the fact that you were back to square one in life, stuck in a body that couldn’t even hold up its own head properly.

You barely had time to protest before you were scooped up into her arms and carried downstairs. The house was even bigger than you realized, all modern and pristine, like something out of a home magazine.

Your “dad” was already at the dining table, dressed in some fancy-looking suit, sipping his morning coffee like he was living in a commercial. “Morning, princess,” he greeted, flashing you a smile.

You wanted to glare at him. Instead, you just stared.

This was your life now, huh?

She passed you along to him, and he held you securely in one arm while holding the bottle with the other. You begrudgingly accepted it—because, well, survival—but that didn’t mean you were happy about it.

“Mom should be here soon,” “dad” said to “mom.”

You assumed he meant her mom—your supposed “grandmother.”

“Mom” visibly relaxed, letting out a relieved sigh. “That’s a relief.” And honestly, it was—considering she had just given birth to you a few days ago. She should be recuperating.

You were at least glad to see they had some family support instead of just handing you off to a nanny. Not that it changed much for you, but hey, better than being raised by a stranger, right?

The doorbell rang.

“Mom” started to get up, but “Dad” was quicker. “I’ve got it, just rest,” he told her, his tone firm but gentle. Before you could even process what was happening, he brought you with him to the door.

“Dad" opened the door to reveal a young woman who looked about the same age as "Mom." She was holding a gift basket in one hand, and with the other, she kept a grip on a little boy who couldn't have been older than two.

The kid had black hair and hazel-green eyes, and despite his baby face, he had the most dead inside look you’d ever seen.

‘What are you looking at, brat?’ you mentally challenged him, locking eyes.

For some reason… he looked weirdly familiar.

“Ah, James. How is Miriam?” the woman asked with a gracious smile.

So those were their names.

“Oh, and here’s a little goody basket for you guys. Congrats.”

James returned her smile, adjusting his hold on you. “She’s resting,” he said, then accepted the basket with his free hand. “Thank you, it’s much appreciated.”

The woman’s eyes brightened when they landed on you.

Heh. Of course they did. No one could resist you—you were the ultimate weakness of women. A baby.

“Is this her?” she asked, already smitten.

James nodded vigorously, beaming with all the pride of a new dad. “Yep, this is our little miracle.” He held you up slightly, practically showing you off like a prized trophy.

Yeah, yeah. You got it, you were cute.

The woman lifted her son, leaning him closer so he could get a good look at you. “Say hi, Zayne,” she encouraged.

Wait—

Zayne?

The little boy stared at you with those same dull, lifeless eyes. His mom smiled warmly. “I hope they become good friends when they’re older,” she said. “They’ll be seeing each other often since we’re neighbors. Miriam and I would love for them to get along.”

Black hair. Green-hazel eyes. Monotone even as a child—

YOU REINCARNATED INTO LOVE AND DEEP SPACE?!

Of all universes, why a dating sim you used to play?!

This had to be some sort of joke, right? This kind of thing only happened in fanfics! You were not built for fighting Wanderers! You could barely survive the mile run in high school, let alone deal with all the chaos in that world!

And worst of all? You did not want to get wrapped up in MC’s messy love life, her harem.

“WAAHHH!” You wailed, absolutely losing it.

James, Zayne, and his mother all flinched at the sudden outburst.

James immediately started bouncing you gently, trying to calm you down. “It’s okay, princess, Daddy’s here,” he cooed, but you were not having it.

You were freaking out, and rightfully so! This was not the life you signed up for!

James shot Zayne’s mother a helpless look, silently pleading for assistance. She, in turn, gave him an understanding nod. “Seems like we disrupted her,” she said. “We’ll leave for now. Tell Miriam to take it easy, okay?”

With that, she turned away, guiding little Zayne back toward their home.

But you? You were still internally screaming.

James closed the door behind him, still bouncing you gently as he walked back into the house. “It’s okay,” he murmured, trying to soothe you.

No! It was not okay!

You were far from okay!

‘I am so screwed!’

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akiqvq · 20 days ago

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Unnatural Affinity Masterlist

Isekai!Reader x Love and Deepspace

Unfinished! I don’t know how long this will be as of now <3

Inspired by @ixloom819 ‘s post on an isekai’d reader where the affinity levels with the love interests carry over!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

current tag list: @animegamerfox @ixloom819 @magennta09 @an-ever-angry-bi @corvid007 @vigtore @ph1lo-s0ph1a @ameili @babyx91 @sadsaidthesadthing @bidisasterforevermore @liz9898 @iconoclastoc @elegantdeerlady @lifumi @auraficial @plzdonutpercieveme @dolledbunnytail @junebuggz @mangooes @anatherone @skulzooka @yuhuahuaaa @nm4565natty @feikyuu @lunia-likes-pomegranet @xfangirl-trashx @glitterykingdomangel @eialovescats @mimiu3usoft @alyssac9 @000rpheus @novaisbebita @coffeedragonhobbyist @udejoenrlddo @lanxianschoenheit @paper--angel @xyzbeloved @rafayelridesfisheatsfish @myheartfollower @nightmarewasteland @feralwolfkat @junni-berry @chiikasevennn @lethalasylum @loudpiratepirate @sweetnightowl @rafaissance @white-wolves-and-golden-sunrises @iunse @asilaydead

tag list continues in comments because i hit the max :(

If you want to be added to the taglist, make sure you have your settings so that you can be mentioned in posts!

art taken from pinterest <3

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akiqvq · 20 days ago

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My daily sip of angst with my tears🥲

Not the chose one

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

∗⋅✧⋅∗ ──── ∗⋅✧⋅∗ ──── ∗⋅✧⋅∗∗⋅✧⋅∗ ──── ∗⋅✧⋅∗ ──── ∗⋅✧⋅∗∗⋅✧⋅∗

LADS x No-Mc

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Before all this, you'd never really thought about fate.

You're not someone who believes in coincidences, or past lives, or anything that's fanciful and bordering on insanity, no, you operate like the world does: with proof. If someone says something, you have to prove it to believe it, see it and feel it to know they mean it, and so far, it's worked out wonderfully for you.

A little too well, and the saying goes, too much of anything is bad.

The first was a doctor, you met him at that first aid course your friend taught as part of his internship at a hospital; he was handsome and intelligent, sensible and down-to-earth. The romance was slow but no less passionate, where every detail spoke a thousand words, and the moments together were so special that their absences didn't feel heavy.

Until it wasn't enough because of a new person.

He said she was a childhood friend, then that she was a regular patient (conveniently forgetting that he was the one who took her on as an immediate patient), and then he didn't even deny his feelings for her.

Leaving him was painful but not difficult, life doesn't end because of a broken heart.

But then your savior arrived (literally), a hunter from the Hunters' Association who take care of wanderers saved you from being devoured by one. Meeting him was like unlocking a new character in your life, you'd bump into him in the most random places! And most of the time, he was dozing or on lookout duty. Getting close was easy; letting himself be known was the real challenge; but that never stopped you, and the reward was worth it, love with him felt out of this world, like traveling to another galaxy and shining among the stars.

Until your star turned into a meteor.

You don't believe in divine coincidences, but when he started showing up late, going on more missions with a new partner, and stopping coming to your house to sleep, your instincts (or unresolved trauma) made you aware of the coincidences until he confessed to having an interest in this new hunter, who wanted to set things right. Did it hurt? Like shit, this time something more than your heart was hurt. Your pride, maybe? Well, it was only twice. They say the third time's the charm, right? Let's see if it's true.

The opportunity presented itself at an art gallery; it's not your strongest area, but you don't mind letting new experiences in, especially now that the days have become more bearable after your breakup, which wasn't really because you weren't formally together, the terrible ones almost something.

You didn't expect to meet the artist of all the works on display that night, nor to have offended him with your limited knowledge of art, canvases, and brushstrokes. Luckily, he didn't take it (so) personally, and the night passed with the artist talking about his works while you listened half-heartedly. The dates were quick, loving him was swift, like fire spreading in a forest, fiery and lively, but there were also times when loving him was like floating in the sea, calm and thoughtful, a warm embrace from the tides that lull you to sleep.

Did you forget to never let your guard down on the open sea? Apparently that includes people too.

Suddenly, the fire between you faded, dates weren't frequent, the sea that rocked you now turned into waves that dragged you to the bottom where its light was lost, and the day you feared most (but hoped for) arrived with a text message.

<<"This isn't going to work out">>

That bastard…he really broke up with you via text message, and the worst part was seeing him walking around with a girl in his arms. When you least expected it (and you really didn't expect it), a criminal leader appeared.

Yeah, you didn't even know him first.

It turns out that when a robotic crow lands in your yard, calling animal services doesn't work; luckily, following instructions was never a problem, and with a few YouTube videos, the not-robot-bird worked like a charm. Did you know that crows remember faces and reward those who helped them? Well, you knew when he kept showing up in your neighborhood, attacking squirrels that steal seeds from (real) birds, bringing you precious stones (where does he get that from?!), and even letting you pet him when you came up for air.

That's when two guys showed up at your house "voluntarily" taking you with their boss to area N109. It turns out their boss isn't just any person, he's a CRIMINAL boss, leader of the Onychinus group, who deal in things that are neither legal nor ethical. Having fixed his crow without asking questions or involving the police (animal welfare was an honest mistake) impressed him and made him interested in you. Whether that was good or bad, time will tell.

And the time you spent together was, against all odds, the calmest time you've had in years.

A total gentleman, protective of your safety, treating you equally while also pampering you, intelligent, a provider, the literary trope of "I hate everyone except you" , you enjoyed it very much. After a disastrous love life, it was a sigh of relief to have a man you could see a future with. Even the twins loved you! They were like your younger brothers (if you'd had any).

There are already too many coincidences; at this point, it must be a pattern.

Do you have to guess? The signs were there! As soon as you identified the first sign, you left, you fled, without the strength to endure another <<"This isn't going to work">> or <<"I have feelings for her">> or your favorite! <<"It was always her"> >

You didn't even say goodbye to the twins or the funny crow who would definitely have gone with you if you hadn't installed an update on his hard drive, an app that made his eyes change color like a disco ball.

Love was off the table, dating, men (Ugh!), anything that has to do with dating someone else is out.

Saying it is always easier.

You met the colonel in a park, yes, a park. It turns out you were passing by just getting some fresh air; he was feeling blue, boom! The next thing you know, you're on an unauthorized tour of his ship and then flying through the sky into space.

That's what it felt like to be with him: adrenaline and speed, but also home and strength, a refuge to turn to when memories became heavy and nightmares felt real. They became each other's rock, sharing their fears, their worries, and their sorrows, creating happy memories that would overshadow the bad times.

Why don't you learn? There's even a Greek myth that talks about it, Icarus, remember? Flying too close to the sun will burn you.

- I'm sorry

- I know

You should be used to it, It shouldn't hurt like the first time, you should have expected it, you convince yourself of all this, and yet, as soon as you arrive at your half-empty apartment (because some of your things are at their house), you burst into tears against the front door.

Why does this keep happening? Why are they leaving? Why do you keep letting your heart fall if you already know how it's going to end? Are these clues? Is life trying to tell you that love isn't for you? Are you the woman in the process? If so, it's not fair.

They shouldn't practice on you; they shouldn't talk to you sweetly and make you blush, they shouldn't play with your hair before bed, they shouldn't know your likes and dislikes, they shouldn't know that you don't like pickles because they give you allergies, they shouldn't kiss you, they shouldn't make you feel like the only one because in the end you won't be, you'll be the one with whom they've perfected all that, they'll be the best version of themselves for someone else, someone you were never going to do.

And now you're in your apartment, with the lights off, the moon peeking out as if interested in your pain, crying because another man chose to love another woman over you, because once again you weren't the chosen one, you were the path to the other woman. Once again, you are not the winner.

That's why you don't believe in destiny, or astral coincidences, or soulmates, because in the end, no one can prove to you that they're real. All you have to do is learn from real life, and real life taught you that you won't be enough, that you don't have a destination at the end of the road, or a soulmate across the street, or anything waiting for you on the other side of the world.

It's you, it's only you, and it will always be only you. It's time to realize that and accept it once and for all.

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#lads x reader #lads #love and deepspace x reader #love and deepspace #reader #reader insert #non mc reader #loveanddeepspace #lads sylus #lads caleb #lads rafayel #lads zayne #lads boys #lads xavier #lads x non!mc reader

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akiqvq · 21 days ago

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Can't rate you at all since you broke the scale😔💕

THIS DIVA??? ♠️

#ATEEEE #twisted wonderland #twst #disney twst #twst art #twisted wonderland fanart #deuce spade #twst deuce #twisted wonderland deuce

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akiqvq · 22 days ago

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Evermore

PAIRING: Zayne x Non-MC!Reader

SUMMARY: You have spent your life inside hospital walls, your world stitched together with IV lines, late-night alarms, and the quiet acceptance that some things cannot be fixed. You've been passed from one doctor to another, another test, another trial — all chasing a miracle that never came. Somewhere along the way, you stopped waiting for tomorrow.

But life, in its quiet cruelty and unexpected grace, gives you something you never thought to ask for — a glimpse of another world. A different kind of heartbeat, steady and sure, weaving its way into your fragile one. Moments you never believed you could have: laughter, longing, dreams too big for a hospital bed.

You don't know how long it will last. You don't even know if you dare hope for more.

But when the night is quiet and the snow falls just right, you let yourself believe — for one stolen breath — that maybe your story isn't meant to end here.

Maybe, somehow, you are just beginning.

WORD COUNT: 9.5k

You're dying.

For as long as you can remember, you've known more of hospitals than your own house. It's gotten to a point where when you think of home, it's not a cozy living room or the scent of your mother's cooking that surfaces — it's the sterile, cold corridors of Akso Hospital. The beeping machines. The too-white sheets. The antiseptic sting in the air. That's home.

You've been passed from hospital to hospital like a worn file folder, a case study waiting for a miracle. Doctors, researchers, specialists — all curious, all clinical. Some of them smiled too brightly when they poked at you; others barely met your eyes as they dictated notes into recorders. No matter their faces, it was always the same: a child with a heart too fragile for the world she lived in. Congenital heart disease, they'd say, like it was a sentence you had to carry. Words like hypoplastic, cardiomyopathy, degeneration slipped off their tongues without a second thought.

Research papers had been written about you. Trials run, theories floated, hands reaching inside your chest like gods trying to rewrite fate. But there was no saving you. Not really. Only delaying the inevitable.

At some point, death stopped being a frightening monster lurking at the end of the hallway. It became a quiet fact. A gentle inevitability. Like winter following fall. Like the last leaf leaving the branch. Sometimes you even think of it fondly — a release from the endless pricks of needles and the sting of failed hope.

You don't cry about it anymore. You stopped doing that years ago.

Just you, and the slow ticking of monitors, and the muted conversations outside your door.

But there are still things that ache. Things that death doesn't erase.

Like the school uniforms you never wore.

The scraped knees you never had from playground games.

The friendships you only knew from books and half-forgotten fairy tales read to you by bored nurses.

You grew up surrounded by adults: brisk nurses with kind smiles, tired doctors with far-off eyes, other patients far older than you. No childhood secrets whispered under blankets at sleepovers. No first crushes shared during recess.

Today is supposed to be your sixteenth birthday. A milestone for most kids — laughter, cake, maybe even a little rebellion. You asked for so little. Just a single scoop of ice cream. Something sweet, something that would make you forget, just for a second, that you're broken inside.

Maybe your body decided it was too much joy. Maybe it was just bad timing. Whatever it was, the chest pain started fast and sharp, a blooming fire that stole your breath and sent the world spinning. They rushed you to the ICU, alarms blaring, voices cutting through the fog of your consciousness.

Doctor Li was there, of course. He's always there. A steady presence when everyone else felt like passing shadows. You caught glimpses of his furrowed brow, the tightness in his voice as he barked orders you were too far gone to understand. He was fighting for you. He always did.

The world blurred. Faded. You remember thinking — distantly — how strange it was to die with the taste of vanilla on your tongue.

You don't die that night. Not yet.

But something inside you, small and bright and hopeful, dims just a little more.

The next few days bleed together in a haze of machines and murmured reassurances. You drift in and out of shallow sleep, tethered to the world by the soft beeping of your heart monitor and the cool, practiced touch of the nurses adjusting your IVs. Doctor Li checks on you more than usual — lingering longer at your bedside, as if afraid that if he looks away, you might simply vanish.

You hear snatches of conversation sometimes. Fragments that weren't meant for your ears.

It’s strange how even in survival, you feel like a guest overstaying her welcome.

"She stabilized, but barely."

"Should we consider moving her back to the general ward?"

"Give her time. Let her rest."

On the third day, you notice a figure lingering near the doorway. Not a nurse — they’re always in motion, efficient and brisk. Not Doctor Li, either — this figure carries a stiffness to his stance, a sharpness that cuts into the sterile quiet.

You glance over, disinterested. A boy, maybe a few years older than you, dressed in street clothes that look out of place in the hospital’s sanitized world. Dark hair that falls messily into his eyes, a scowl permanently etched across his face like it was born there. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, like he doesn't want to be here.

You recognize the look immediately — resentment barely contained behind a mask of detachment.

You turn your head away. You couldn't care less.

Let him glare. Let him hate. You’re used to people looking at you like that — like you’re an inconvenience, a burden. You’ve spent your whole life apologizing for existing, even when your lips stayed silent.

He says nothing to you, and you say nothing to him.

Good. Silence is easier. Cleaner.

Later, you hear the nurses whispering about him.

You don't understand why any of it matters. To you, he’s just another shadow passing through your world. Another person whose life will keep moving forward, even when yours stands still.

"Doctor Li’s son. Came straight from his graduation. Poor kid."

"Must be hard, sharing your father with the hospital."

"He'll understand someday. Sacrifices have to be made."

You close your eyes and let the steady rhythm of the heart monitor lull you back into sleep.

Tomorrow will come. Or it won’t.

It hardly makes a difference.

Tomorrow comes. And then the day after that.

Somehow, despite everything, you keep breathing.

You're moved out of the ICU eventually, back into the quieter, less urgent wing of Akso Hospital that has become more familiar than any childhood bedroom you never had. The walls here are softer shades of green, the windows wide and bright — an illusion of freedom you stopped believing in a long time ago.

Your days fall into a familiar rhythm: early morning blood draws, midday vitals checks, whispered conversations with nurses who treat you like a little sister they can't protect. You read when you can, mostly battered romance novels left behind by old patients, and sometimes you simply lie there, counting the cracks in the ceiling tiles like they hold some secret map to a life you’ll never live.

And Zayne —he starts appearing again.

At first, it’s just glimpses. A flash of dark hair down the corridor, the low murmur of his voice when he trails after Doctor Li during rounds. He doesn’t look at you. Not directly. He keeps his gaze clipped to charts and clipboards, face tight with the kind of focus you recognize all too well: the kind born from trying to control what can’t be fixed.

You wonder — briefly — why he keeps coming back.

Most people your age would run from a place like this. Wouldn't they? Chase the world outside with hungry hands, desperate to live, to feel something more than fluorescent lights and beeping machines.

But Zayne stays.

He stands at his father's side, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his lab coat, frowning at words too complicated for you to care about. He listens when Doctor Li explains your charts, your declining numbers, the latest tests they want to run. Sometimes he asks questions, voice low and rough around the edges.

You don't bother trying to hear the answers.

You’ve long stopped hoping anyone had any real ones to give.

The way his shoulders stiffen when Doctor Li mentions your heart’s deterioration. The quick, darting glances he thinks you don’t catch when you wince from another IV insertion. The rare moments his mouth tightens in something almost like frustration, or helplessness.

Still...

You notice things.

You pretend you don't see.

You pretend it doesn't matter.

And you — you have always been leaving.

Because it doesn't.

You have learned, through years of slow dying, that getting attached only makes the leaving harder.

It happens on an afternoon like any other.

The kind where the sun slices through the window just enough to make you ache for the world outside — a world you’ve only seen in pictures and half-forgotten dreams.

You’re sitting up in bed, a book resting on your lap, though you haven’t turned a page in what feels like hours. Your IV pole hums faintly beside you, the only real reminder that you’re still tethered here.

You glance up without thinking — and there he is.

You hear footsteps before you see him.

Not Doctor Li’s sure, even strides.

Softer. Slower. Hesitant.

Zayne.

Hovering awkwardly just inside your room, clutching a thick textbook to his chest like a shield. He's not wearing his usual scowl today. Instead, his face is carved into something tighter, more uncertain, as if he isn't quite sure whether he should even be standing here.

You raise an eyebrow, silently daring him to speak.

He clears his throat. It sounds painful.

"I—" he starts, then immediately cuts himself off, glancing away. His hand tightens around the book's spine.

You blink at him, unimpressed.

If he’s here to offer hollow pity or awkward small talk, he can save it. You’ve heard it all before — the forced conversations, the clumsy sympathy from visitors who can't even look you in the eye for long.

You drop your gaze back to your book, pretending he isn't there. Silence stretches thick and heavy between you.

For a moment, you think he’s going to retreat, like so many others have.

But he doesn't.

You freeze, your thumb hovering over the corner of the worn page.

Instead, after a beat of hesitation, you hear him mumble — so quiet you almost miss it —

"…That book’s terrible."

Slowly, you glance up again. He’s staring at the battered cover, expression wrinkling in disdain.

"I mean," he says, awkward and stiff, like every word is being dragged out of him by force, "the plot makes no sense. The heroine falls in love with a guy who literally tried to kill her in the first chapter."

You blink once. Twice.

"Yeah," you say, voice hoarse from disuse, "but it's not like I've got a lot of options."

And then, unexpectedly, a small huff of air escapes you — not quite a laugh, but close.

You hadn't realized how long it had been since someone your age spoke to you like that. Not like you were breakable. Not like you were already halfway gone.

He shifts his weight, looking vaguely guilty now. Like he hadn't meant to insult your sad little world.

You watch him for a moment longer, studying the way he fidgets — a boy trying very hard not to look like he cares, even though it’s written in every line of his posture.

Without thinking, you extend the book toward him, offering it out like a peace treaty.

"Got any recommendations, then?"

He stares at you, startled. Like he wasn’t expecting you to talk back. Like he wasn't expecting you to choose to talk to him.

Slowly, almost warily, he steps forward. Takes the book from your hand, fingers brushing yours for the briefest second—warm and real and alive.

Something small shifts in the air between you.

Barely there.

But you feel it all the same.

But right now—for the first time in a long, long while—you don’t feel quite so alone.

Maybe tomorrow he'll disappear again.

Maybe you’ll still die before you ever really know him.

The next day, you don’t expect him to come back.

People make gestures sometimes — quick, impulsive things born of guilt or pity. You’ve learned not to get your hopes up. You've learned not to expect anyone to stay.

But late in the afternoon, as the sun dips low and the room fills with that golden, aching kind of light, you hear familiar footsteps outside your door. Slower, more deliberate this time. No shuffling nurses, no hurried doctors.

You glance up from your spot on the bed just as Zayne leans into the doorway, one hand shoved deep into the pocket of his jacket, the other holding something behind his back like a guilty secret.

He doesn’t say anything at first. Just looks at you, frowning faintly, like he’s annoyed to find you still there. (Or maybe annoyed with himself.)

You raise an eyebrow, a silent question.

He scowls a little deeper — a defense mechanism, you think — and mutters, "You said you didn’t have good options."

Before you can reply, he pulls his hand from behind his back and tosses a book onto your bed.

It lands with a soft thud against the sheets, the cover facing up.

You blink at it, surprised. It’s thick, heavier than the flimsy paperbacks you usually get stuck with, and worn around the edges like it's been read a dozen times. A fantasy novel, from the looks of it — something with sprawling kingdoms and sword fights and impossible magic.

You run your fingers lightly over the embossed title, almost afraid it might disappear.

"I had it lying around," he says quickly, too quickly. "Figured you could use something... less stupid."

You look up at him again, and this time you catch it — the faint pink dusting the tips of his ears, the way he can't quite meet your gaze.

You almost smile. Almost.

Instead, you trace the cover one more time, letting the weight of the book settle into your lap like something precious.

"...Thanks," you say, quiet but sincere.

Zayne shrugs, like it’s no big deal. Like he doesn’t care. But he lingers a moment longer than necessary, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.

Finally, he jerks his head toward the book. "Page ninety-seven is the best part," he says gruffly. "Don't skip to it, though. You have to earn it."

And with that, he turns and stalks off down the hallway, disappearing before you can say anything else.

You watch him go, your chest feeling strangely full, like someone had opened a window inside you after years of stale, closed-off air.

You pick up the book, flipping it open carefully. On the inside cover, in faded ink, there’s a name scribbled messily: Zayne Li.

You smile — small, private, and fleeting.

—

Maybe you were wrong.

Maybe not everyone leaves.

You tell yourself it’s just a book.

And every single one of them — every single page — is littered with traces of him.

One book turns into two. Then three.

Each one arrives without ceremony — sometimes left on your bedside table when you’re asleep, sometimes handed over with an awkward grunt and averted eyes. Always worn. Always loved.

Little notes crammed into the margins. Sharp, neat handwriting in black ink. Observations. Sarcastic comments. Underlined passages with a single word beside them — you. Sometimes a whole phrase: this reminds me of you or you'd probably argue about this part.

It’s like Zayne is sitting beside you as you read, muttering in your ear.

The strange thing is — the words, the quiet thoughts he left scattered across the pages — they make you feel something. Something unfamiliar and terrifying. A buzzing under your skin, a pressure behind your ribs, too wild and heavy to name.

You devour the books hungrily.

You savor every messy annotation like it’s oxygen.

You tell yourself it’s nothing. You're just imagining things.

Until the night it isn’t.

You’re halfway through another novel — a sweeping, painful story about a dying girl and a boy who loved her too much — when it happens.

Your heart flutters.

You freeze, book slipping from your hands onto the bed.

Not in the way it usually does — the panicked, stuttering rhythm that sends alarms shrieking and nurses running.

This flutter is different.

Soft. Gentle. Terrifying.

For a second, you can't breathe — not from weakness, but from something that feels suspiciously like hope, like longing.

Within seconds, your room explodes into motion — nurses flooding in, monitors flashing to life, Doctor Li himself arriving in a whirl of urgency.

You panic.

You hit the pager beside your bed, repeatedly.

They swarm you with equipment, prick your fingers, measure your heart rhythms. Voices rise and fall in a symphony of concern.

In the middle of it all, you sit there, dazed and mortified.

Because you realize — slowly, stupidly—you’re not dying.

When the chaos finally ebbs, when the monitors hum their steady, forgiving rhythm again, Doctor Li kneels beside your bed and presses a gentle hand to your shoulder.

Not yet.

Not from this.

"You’re alright," he says, voice warm and steady. "It was just... an excitement response. A little arrhythmia. Nothing dangerous."

You nod, face burning.

You don't tell him it wasn't excitement about life. It was about his son.

It was the first time in your memory that your heart had jumped not from fear, but from feeling something more.

It was a start.

Time moves strangely after that.

You learn him.

Weeks blend into months.

Zayne visits more now — under the pretense of study sessions with his father, but you both know better. He still brings you books, still pretends it's nothing, but sometimes he stays to see which parts make you smile. You argue with him over characters. He rolls his eyes when you get too emotional. You learn the patterns of his dry humor, the sharp warmth hidden under his guarded exterior.

And, quietly, dangerously, you start to want more.

One afternoon, you find yourselves alone. Doctor Li is caught up in surgery. The nurses are busy elsewhere. The hospital is unusually quiet.

Zayne sits slouched in the chair beside your bed, tapping a pen against his knee. You’re thumbing through the latest book he loaned you — a nonfiction this time, something about stars and deep space, endless distances that make your small, fragile life feel even smaller.

For a while, you exist in comfortable silence.

Then, without looking at you, Zayne says, "You know you’re sick. Really sick."

It's not a question. It's a fact, laid bare between you.

You close the book slowly, pressing your palm flat against the cover to keep your hands from shaking.

"I know," you say, voice barely a whisper.

Zayne leans forward, elbows resting on his knees, his gaze fixed somewhere on the floor.

"I want to fix it," he says roughly. "I’m studying to fix it."

You stare at him, heart twisting.

"You can't," you say, almost gently. "Nobody can."

His jaw tightens. His fingers curl into fists against his thighs.

"I have to," he mutters. "Otherwise... what's the point?"

The words hang there between you — raw, desperate, infuriatingly beautiful.

You swallow hard, feeling the sting of tears behind your eyes.

"You don't have to waste your life on me," you say. "You have your own future. Your own world."

Finally, he lifts his head and looks at you — really looks at you.

And in his dark, tired eyes, you see it.

"I'm not wasting it," he says.

The stubbornness.

The grief.

The terrible, trembling hope.

He says it like an oath. Like a prayer.

And for the first time, you let yourself believe — just a little — that maybe, just maybe, you're not fighting alone anymore.

You glance up from your book, startled to see Zayne standing by your bedside, a mischievous glint in his otherwise serious eyes.

A rustle of cloth. The scrape of a chair being quietly pushed back.

He holds out his hand to you — palm up, steady.

"Come on," he says, voice low and urgent. "Before someone notices."

You stare at him like he’s lost his mind.

"I’m not exactly mobile, in case you forgot," you say dryly, gesturing weakly at your IV stand and the tangle of wires monitoring your heart.

Zayne’s mouth tugs into the smallest, briefest smirk.

"I planned for that," he says.

He lifts a second IV pole from behind him — wheels it forward like a grand conspirator revealing his secret weapon. It’s empty except for a few dummy wires and a hastily knotted hospital gown draped over it like camouflage.

You blink.

He actually planned this.

"You're insane," you whisper.

"Maybe," he says. "But so are you for trusting me."

His fingers curl around yours, warm and sure, and for the first time in a long while, you feel something electric under your skin — something alive.

You don’t trust easily.

You never have.

But tonight — with the sterile hum of the hospital around you, and the fierce, reckless light in Zayne’s eyes — you find yourself reaching for his hand anyway.

Carefully, painstakingly, he helps you out of bed, maneuvering your real IV to look as inconspicuous as possible. You clutch his arm for balance, and he doesn't flinch or pull away. He just stands there, solid and steady, like he was built to hold you up.

Together, you slip out of your room and into the dimly lit hallway.

The hospital at night is a different world — softer, quieter, suspended in time. The usual sharp edges of sterile life blur into something almost magical.

Zayne leads you through the labyrinth of corridors, past empty nurses' stations and closed doors, moving like a ghost through his second home.

Eventually, he pushes open a heavy door, and you find yourself on the hospital’s rooftop.

You don't ask where you're going.

You trust him.

The cool night air hits you like a blessing. Linkon city sprawls out below you, lights blinking like a thousand tiny stars scattered across the dark.

Above you, the real stars stretch in endless constellations, faint but stubborn, refusing to be erased by the city's glow.

You stand there, breathing in the night, the IV pole at your side forgotten for a moment.

Zayne leans against the railing, his arms crossed over his chest, watching you with an unreadable expression.

"This," he says, tilting his chin toward the sky, "is the closest I could get to taking you out of here."

You stare up at the heavens, feeling something bloom painfully in your chest.

"You’re not supposed to do this," you whisper, but there’s no anger in your voice. Only wonder.

Zayne shrugs. "Sue me."

You laugh — a small, broken sound — and he turns his head slightly, like he wants to hear it again but is too proud to ask.

Finally, you glance over at him.

For a long time, you just stand there.

Two kids on a rooftop.

One dying, one refusing to let her go quietly.

"Thank you," you say simply.

His mouth twitches — the barest ghost of a smile.

"You’re welcome," he mutters.

Then, after a beat:

"You’re not allowed to die yet, by the way."

You blink at him, startled.

"That’s an order," he adds, looking away as if embarrassed. "Doctor’s orders."

Not if there’s still more of him.

You bite back the emotion swelling in your throat, smiling instead.

Because you realize, deep down, you don’t want to die yet.

Not if there’s still more of this.

After that first night, the rooftop becomes your place.

Whenever the nights are quiet and the staff is distracted, he appears in your doorway with a raised eyebrow and a silent question.

You and Zayne never talk about it.

You never plan it.

It just happens — an unspoken ritual.

You always nod.

And then you're off again — sneaking past monitors, wheels squeaking faintly, IV pole rattling slightly as you creep through the halls like co-conspirators against fate.

The rooftop feels almost sacred now.

Up there, the air smells less like bleach and more like possibility.

Up there, you aren’t just a patient strapped to machines — you’re alive.

You learn more about him — the way he hates instant coffee but drinks it anyway. His ridiculous sweet tooth. The way he grips the railing a little too tightly sometimes, like he’s afraid of losing control. How his smiles are rare but real, and he saves most of them for you.

Sometimes you talk.

Sometimes you sit in silence.

He listens. Really listens.

And he learns about you — the real you, the one buried under layers of hospital gowns and medical files.

He learns you love thunderstorms. That you used to dream of becoming an astronaut before you got too sick to dream at all. That you’re terrified, not of dying, but of being forgotten.

And something inside you, long frozen, starts to thaw.

You start pushing yourself during physical therapy. You sit up longer. You fight to stay awake through bad days just so you can catch a glimpse of him passing by.

You get stronger.

Not in the way that matters medically — your charts still fluctuate, your heart still falters sometimes — but your spirit grows stubborn. Fierce. Hungry.

And even if you don’t say it out loud, you know he wants it too.

You want more time.

You want more nights under the stars.

You want more him.

But the clock is always ticking.

Some nights, the pain comes back — sharp and sudden, clenching around your ribs like an iron hand. Some nights, the monitors scream and the nurses race in, and Zayne isn't allowed to visit until you're stabilized again.

On those nights, you stare at the ceiling and try not to think about how fleeting all of this is.

And then one night, when you’re both on the rooftop again, he blurts it out.

You wonder if he knows.

If he feels it too — the way the future presses down on you both like a heavy, inevitable sky.

"You’re getting worse," he says, voice low and tight.

You don't argue. You don't pretend.

Instead, you lean against the railing, the cold metal digging into your palms, and whisper, "I know."

You expect him to retreat. To shut down the way most people do when confronted with the ugly truth of you.

But Zayne just steps closer.

"You’re still fighting," he says roughly. "Even when it’s pointless. Even when you’re scared."

You laugh — bitter, broken.

"There's no winning this," you say. "No miracle cure. You know that, don't you?"

Then, very quietly:

He says nothing for a long time.

Just stands there, breathing hard, like he’s holding back something too big for words.

"I’m still going to try."

You turn your head, meeting his gaze fully for the first time in what feels like forever.

There’s no pity there. No empty promises.

And for the first time, you allow yourself to lean just a little closer, resting your forehead against his shoulder.

Only determination.

Only him.

He stiffens — startled — but then, slowly, carefully, he shifts so you fit against him better.

The IV line tugs against your arm. Your heart monitor blips faintly in the background.

But here, in this small, stolen moment, you aren't a diagnosis. You aren't a prognosis.

You're just a girl.

And he's just a boy trying to save you.

The night it happens, you’re both too tired to pretend you're fine anymore.

The rooftop air is thick and heavy, the heat of the day still clinging stubbornly to the concrete. You sit cross-legged on a worn blanket Zayne smuggled from the staff lounge, your IV pole parked dutifully beside you, your heart monitor muted to a low, steady pulse.

Zayne lounges beside you, long legs stretched out, arms folded behind his head as he stares up at the stars.

Neither of you say much.

The sky stretches overhead in an endless velvet sweep, pinpricked with faint light. Somewhere far below, Linkon city hums and breathes without you.

Words feel too heavy tonight.

Besides, you don’t need them.

You turn your head slightly, watching him.

His face looks softer in the dark — the stern lines of his mouth eased, the tension usually buried in his shoulders melted away. You can see the faint smudges of exhaustion under his eyes, the little crease between his brows he probably doesn't even realize he has.

You realize — with a strange, aching clarity — that you want to remember this. You want to burn this version of him into your memory so you can carry it with you, no matter what happens.

Your eyelids grow heavier with each passing minute.

The monitors hum quietly beside you, a gentle lullaby.

Somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, your body leans sideways — just a little, just enough — and without thinking, without planning, you drift closer until your head finds his shoulder.

Zayne goes rigid at first — like someone just pulled a fire alarm inside his chest — but after a long, tense second, he shifts carefully, allowing you to settle against him.

You half-expect him to tease you. To make some snide remark.

But he doesn't.

Instead, he stays perfectly still, perfectly steady, like he’s afraid even breathing too loudly might wake you.

You don't remember falling asleep.

But you remember the feeling —safe, warm, suspended in something fragile and golden —as you sink into dreams for the first time in months without fear clawing at your throat.

You wake up hours later to the faintest touch — Zayne carefully adjusting your IV line, his fingers clumsy with sleep, his eyes still heavy-lidded.

He blinks down at you, caught between guilt and something deeper, something raw.

"Sorry," he mutters, voice rough. "Didn't mean to—"

You cut him off by curling a little closer, burying your face in the crook of his arm.

Later, when you’re both back inside, tangled in warmth and silence, the question slips out before you can stop it.

And for once, he doesn't argue.

He just lets you stay.

You’re still curled under your hospital blankets, the faint beep of your monitor filling the room like a heartbeat. Zayne sits in the chair beside your bed, scribbling distractedly in his med school notebook, but you know he’s only half-focused at best.

"Zayne," you say quietly.

He hums in response, not looking up.

"If you could have anything," you whisper, "anything at all… what would you wish for?"

He freezes, pen hovering midair.

The silence stretches so long you wonder if he’s going to answer at all.

Looks at you.

Then, slowly, he sets the pen down.

Leans forward, elbows braced on his knees.

His eyes are tired and beautiful, reflecting every terrible truth you both carry.

You open your mouth — to ask with who, to demand more clarity — but he beats you to it.

"I’d wish," he says slowly, like dragging the words out of his chest hurts,

"for more time."

"With you," he says, voice breaking just slightly on the last word.

Your heart stumbles painfully in your chest — not from illness, not from fear, but from the sheer weight of him, of this.

You can’t breathe.

You don’t even realize you’re crying until he’s there, wiping a thumb under your eye, the touch so painfully gentle it almost undoes you completely.

He just stays.

He doesn’t ask for anything more.

He doesn’t try to kiss you, or make promises he can’t keep.

Because he knows. You both know.

This love—whatever it is, whatever it’s becoming—isn’t about grand declarations or fairy-tale endings.

It’s about now.

It’s about this fragile, fleeting moment where you are still here, still breathing, still together.

And for tonight, that’s enough.

The days that follow feel… different.

It’s subtle at first — a lighter step in your walk, a softer smile tucked at the corners of your mouth — but it’s there.

Hope.

Tiny, fragile, impossible hope.

And it’s all because of him.

You don’t dare speak it aloud — not when your body is still betraying you at every turn, not when your doctors still whisper in careful, practiced voices outside your room — but it grows inside you anyway.

A stubborn little flame.

Because of the way Zayne looks at you now — not like a patient he’s sworn to protect, not like a lost cause — but like a person.

A girl with dreams worth fighting for.

One night, when the hospital halls are unusually quiet and the rooftop is bathed in a silver wash of moonlight, you find yourself blurting it out.

Your secret list.

The things you thought you had buried.

"I want to see snow," you whisper, breath misting faintly in the cold. "I want to dance without an IV pole dragging beside me." A soft, broken laugh slips from your mouth. "I want to eat an entire cake without someone telling me it’s too much sugar."

You glance at him, embarrassed, cheeks hot. "And I want someone to kiss me like it’s the end of the world."

But Zayne just listens — really listens — every word sinking into him like gospel.

You expect him to laugh.

Or worse, to pity you.

And when you fall silent, when you turn your face away to hide the burning in your chest, he steps closer.

You blink up at him, stunned.

"So we’ll do it," he says simply, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

"We’ll do all of it."

"Zayne—"

"I mean it," he cuts in, voice fierce and steady. "Whatever time we have — we use it. Every second. No regrets."

You want to believe him.

God, you want it so badly your heart physically aches with it.

Still—still—

But you’ve been burned by hope before.

You know how cruel the world can be to people like you.

The way he looks at you now, fierce and soft all at once —the way he says we —you think maybe, just maybe, it’s worth believing again.

"Okay," you whisper, a little breathless, a little terrified.

He smiles then — not the small, careful smirks you’re used to, but a real, breathtaking smile that lights up his whole face.

"Good," he says, offering his hand to you like it’s a promise.

You slip your fingers into his, and the night folds around you, carrying your fragile hopes into the stars.

Later, back in your bed, curled up under warm blankets and still clutching the memory of his hand in yours, you allow yourself to dream.

Tiny dreams.

Stupid, beautiful dreams.

You fall asleep smiling.

You imagine catching snowflakes on your tongue with him.

You imagine dancing barefoot in a field, laughing until your lungs ache for the right reasons.

You imagine frosting on your nose, stolen kisses, clumsy hands trying to twirl you around.

You imagine living — even if it’s just for a little while — like you were never sick at all.

The night it happens, it’s unbearably hot — heavy, clinging summer air that sticks to your skin and makes the hospital walls feel even more suffocating.

You’re dozing restlessly in your bed when he appears at your door.

Zayne.

"Come with me," he says, without preamble.

His hair is a little messy, his white coat half-buttoned and wrinkled like he’s been moving fast — a little frantic, a little reckless.

He’s breathing hard, cheeks flushed from the sprint through the halls.

You blink blearily at him, confused.

Before you can protest, he’s wheeling you out of the room, fast and determined.

He doesn’t explain. He just strides forward, unhooks your IV pole from the wall, checks the portable monitor strapped to your wrist, and mutters,

"You’re stable. Good enough."

You always have.

Your heart kicks wildly in your chest — a mix of fear and excitement and confusion — but you don’t ask questions.

You trust him.

—

He leads you to the rooftop.

It’s empty, quiet — the city sprawled out below you like a glittering sea.

The sky overhead is a deep, endless blue-black, scattered with stars.

And then —

Zayne closes his eyes.

Takes a slow, steady breath.

And the world shifts.

It starts slowly — a faint chill curling into the warm summer air, the barest shimmer of cold gathering around him.

Then, with a soft, almost imperceptible hum, it begins to fall.

Snow.

Tiny crystalline flakes drift from the sky, swirling in delicate, shimmering patterns.

You gasp — a real, sharp, alive sound — and reach out instinctively.

A flake lands on your fingertip, melting instantly against your warm skin.

"You said you wanted to see snow," Zayne murmurs, voice low and a little shy. "Real snow’s impossible right now, but…"

He trails off, lifting a hand helplessly, as if embarrassed.

As if this miracle he’s created isn’t enough.

Tears prick at the corners of your eyes.

You can't speak. You can't even think.

You just stand there, under the impossible snowfall, heart thundering in your chest like it might break free entirely.

He watches you — watches the wonder bloom across your face — and his own expression softens, the usual tension bleeding out of his shoulders.

And then—

As if the night wasn’t already enough—

He pulls something out from behind a nearby bench.

A small, messy cake.

"I made it," he says gruffly, ears turning pink. "Don’t laugh."

Lopsided.

Clearly homemade.

Icing smeared unevenly across the top.

You laugh anyway — a bright, broken sound — and it feels good, like sunlight bursting through storm clouds.

He steps closer, offering you a plastic fork.

You scoop a big, absurdly sugary bite and shove it into your mouth without hesitation, icing smearing at the corner of your lips.

Zayne chuckles under his breath — a rare, breathtaking sound — and reaches out with a thumb to wipe the frosting away.

The touch lingers longer than necessary.

The world slows down.

Your heart is pounding so hard now it’s probably setting off alarms somewhere inside the hospital.

And you realize — you don't want this moment to end.

You don’t want to forget any of it.

But you don't care.

Because then—he sets the cake aside.

Takes your hand in his.

The snow still falls around you, shimmering under the rooftop lights.

He doesn’t say a word.

He just pulls you into a slow, clumsy dance — his hand on your waist, your IV line dragging along but forgotten, your feet stumbling awkwardly in hospital socks — and you laugh again, breathless and giddy and so impossibly alive.

You sway together, turning in small circles, the city spinning lazily beyond the rooftop’s edge.

You think maybe your heart is breaking and mending all at once.

You think maybe you’re falling in love.

And when the song of the night winds down to a hush, when you’re standing chest-to-chest and he’s looking down at you with that unbearably soft expression —

You rise up on your toes.

Just a little.

Just enough.

And you kiss him.

Soft.

Gentle.

Trembling with all the things you’re too scared to say.

It isn’t perfect — your noses bump, you’re both a little off balance — but it doesn’t matter.

Because it’s real.

Because it’s yours.

Because it’s every wish you never dared to make coming true at once.

You pull back a fraction, resting your forehead against his, breathing in the cold he summoned just for you.

Neither of you speaks.

You don't have to.

Everything you feel is written in the way his thumb strokes over your wrist, in the way your fingers curl desperately into the fabric of his shirt.

You are here.

You are together.

For however long you have left.

And for now, for tonight, that's enough.

The plan takes a week to set in motion.

Doctor Li is cautious, of course — his worry etched in the lines around his tired eyes — but in the end, he agrees.

Maybe because he sees the way you light up now, the way your charts have stabilized just a little, like your heart has found something worth fighting for.

Or maybe because he remembers — painfully — what life is supposed to feel like outside sterile hospital walls.

Clearance is granted. Nurses fuss and fret, loading your bag with medications and emergency supplies, setting strict curfews and contingencies.

But you don’t care about any of that.

Because when Zayne wheels you out the front doors into the bright, wild world, it feels like stepping into another life entirely.

The city is buzzing, golden sunlight pouring like honey over everything.

And the park — oh god, the park! It's huge and sprawling and alive, filled with the scent of blooming flowers and the sound of children laughing.

Zayne’s hand never leaves yours as he leads you through winding paths, under archways draped in climbing roses, past glittering fountains that catch the light like tiny rainbows.

At one point he finds an empty patch of grass, drops a threadbare blanket he must have stolen from the hospital laundry, and you sit side by side under a tree, dappled sunlight dancing across your skin.

You’re breathless with wonder.

Breathless and alive.

For a long time, you just exist.

Breathing.

Laughing.

Watching the clouds drift by like lazy ships.

And then — quietly, almost shyly — Zayne starts talking about the future.

"Our own place," he says, tracing patterns in the air. "A tiny apartment, the kind where you can hear the neighbors arguing through the walls. We'd have to get a cat. Or a dog. Or both."

You laugh, heart aching sweetly.

He grins, warmed by your smile, and keeps going, voice steady and dreaming.

"I'd cook. You'd probably hate it. You’d tease me until I ordered takeout."

You close your eyes, letting his words wash over you like a blessing.

"And someday…" His voice falters, softens. "If you wanted — we could travel. Anywhere. Everywhere. Mountains, oceans. I’d show you real snow."

You open your eyes, finding him already watching you.

There’s a look in his gaze that’s almost unbearable in its tenderness.

"You’ll see everything," he murmurs, like a vow. "I’ll make sure of it."

You smile.

You don't say what you’re thinking — that you’d be happy seeing anything at all, so long as he’s standing beside you.

You just tuck the dream away, precious and impossible, into the quiet spaces of your heart.

You spend the afternoon like that.

Eating terrible ice cream from a street vendor.

Dancing barefoot in the grass even when your knees wobble and Zayne has to catch you, laughing into your hair.

Taking blurry, ridiculous photos with his phone — him pulling faces, you struggling to keep a straight one.

You are tired beyond words when you return to the hospital — every muscle aching, your chest tight with strain — but you are happy.

So unbearably, blissfully happy.

For the first time in your life, you feel like you belonged to the world.

Like maybe you could carve a little piece of it for yourself after all.

But happiness, you learn, is a fragile thing.

Easily shattered.

Easily lost.

It starts slowly.

Nothing you haven’t dealt with before.

A missed heartbeat here.

A dizzy spell there.

Nothing serious.

At least, that's what you tell yourself.

But soon it’s undeniable.

You don’t want to worry Zayne.

You don’t want to darken the light he’s given you.

You can’t catch your breath after simple movements.

Your fingers tremble when you try to hold a fork.

Your chest burns with a constant, gnawing ache that no amount of oxygen seems to soothe.

Zayne notices, of course.

He’s not stupid.

And he’s terrified.

The night you collapse in your room — monitors screaming, nurses rushing in a panic — Zayne shoves through the crowd like a force of nature, wild-eyed and desperate.

He’s the one who grabs your hand as they work frantically around you. He’s the one who keeps whispering your name, again and again, like he can anchor you here just by speaking it.

"Don’t," he chokes out, voice cracking for the first time since you’ve known him. "Don’t you dare give up. Not now."

You’re so tired.

God, you’re so tired.

Your vision flickers, the world tilting dangerously, but you find his face — blurry, beautiful — and focus on him with everything you have left.

"I’m so close," he says, begging now. "I’m almost there. Just a little longer — I swear — I’ll find a way —"

You smile.

Small. Broken.

You feel your heart weaken again — a tangible, physical slip inside your ribcage — but you hold his gaze.

You don’t have the strength for promises you can’t keep.

But you can give him this:

"I’ll try," you whisper.

It’s the truth.

It’s everything you can offer.

And it’s enough to make his fingers tighten around yours like he can hold you here by sheer force of will.

Like maybe love alone could be enough to save you.

It’s snowing again.

But not like before.

Not like rooftop snow under hospital lights, summoned from Evol and desperation.

This snow is real — thick, heavy flakes falling from a grey sky, the kind you can lose yourself in.

You’re standing in the middle of a wide, open field. Everything around you is blanketed in pure white.

And he’s there.

Zayne.

Not in a lab coat. Not with tired eyes and trembling hands. But whole.

Bright.

Smiling that rare, breathtaking smile he saves only for you.

"You made it," he says, voice warm as he reaches for you.

You laugh — really laugh — the sound echoing across the empty field like a song.

Your body moves easily, no wires tethering you, no weight dragging at your limbs.

You run to him.

You run.

He catches you effortlessly, arms wrapping around your waist, lifting you off your feet in a dizzying, laughing spin.

"You kept your promise," you murmur against his shoulder.

"I told you," he says simply, "I'd show you everything."

You don’t want to let go.

You don’t ever want to let go.

And so you don’t.

You stay like that — pressed against him, his heartbeat steady and sure under your palm — as the snow falls heavier, swirling around you like a blessing.

You close your eyes.

You dream bigger.

You see it all — the tiny apartment, the noisy neighbors, the stupid cat knocking over potted plants.

Burnt pancakes in the morning.

Train tickets to everywhere.

Laughing on crowded streets in cities you can't even pronounce.

Wedding rings slipped onto shaking fingers.

A life.

A real, messy, miraculous life.

With him.

Always, with him.

And for one shining, impossible moment—you believe.

You believe you’ll live long enough to see it.

You believe you already have.

The world is harsh when it drags you back.

Cold.

Bright.

Noisy.

You blink against the glare of fluorescent lights, the steady beeping of machines surrounding you.

The familiar, sterile scent of antiseptic stings your nose.

ICU.

Again.

You shift slightly — everything aches — and feel the tug of new wires and IVs threaded into your skin.

And then —

Warmth.

A hand.

Wrapped around yours.

You turn your head with effort.

And find him there.

Zayne.

Slumped in a chair too small for him, still in his hospital scrubs, dark circles bruising his eyes.

Sleeping.

But even in sleep, he doesn’t let go of you.

His hand is firm, steady, fingers laced with yours like a lifeline.

You watch him — your heart aching with something too big, too fierce to name.

You don’t move.

You don’t dare wake him.

And that’s enough.

Because for now — for this fragile, precious moment — you are still here.

He is still here.

—

You don’t know how long you just lie there, feeling his hand wrapped tightly around yours, listening to the steady blip of your own heartbeat on the monitors.

Eventually, he stirs.

You’re so tired.

But you're also… at peace.

A soft, broken noise leaves him — like even sleep can’t protect him from whatever war he’s fighting inside.

And when his eyes blink open, dazed and bloodshot, they land on you immediately.

As if he's terrified you'll vanish if he blinks again.

For a moment, he just stares.

As if he doesn't quite believe you’re real.

"Hey," you rasp, your voice barely more than a whisper.

His face crumples.

He surges forward, pressing his forehead against your joined hands, squeezing so hard it almost hurts.

You manage a smile — small, but real.

"You're awake," he breathes, voice wrecked with relief and exhaustion.

"God — you're awake."

"I wasn’t gonna miss your dramatic collapse," you joke, because you have to. Because the alternative — the raw fear in his eyes — is too much to bear.

It works, a little.

A huff of helpless laughter shudders out of him.

"You scared the hell out of me," he mutters against your knuckles, his breath shaking.

"You scare me all the time," you tease, lighter now, though your chest aches with every word. "But I’m still here."

He lifts his head, looking at you like you're something sacred.

"You have to stay," he says fiercely. "You have to — just a little longer —please —I'm so close —I swear—"

Your heart twists.

You wish you could bottle it up and drink it, let it heal you from the inside out.

He’s been saying that for so long.

So many promises.

So much hope.

You reach up, fingers brushing his jaw, feeling the stubble that wasn't there yesterday.

"I know," you whisper. "I know you're trying. I’m trying, too."

Your hand falls back to the bed, too heavy to hold up.

His hand follows immediately, cradling it again like he can shield you from the whole world.

"I can’t lose you," he says, so quietly you almost don’t hear it.

His thumb strokes over your knuckles, desperate and tender all at once.

"You won't," you whisper.

It’s a lie, and you both know it.

But it’s a kind lie.

The kind you tell someone when love outweighs truth.

His eyes glisten, wet and angry and afraid.

"You’re going to live," he says, like it’s a fact.

Like he can will it into existence.

You smile again — soft and sad and full of all the things you don't have the strength to say.

"I'll make sure of it," he vows, fierce and breaking.

"I’ll tear the world apart if I have to."

Even now, when your body feels like it’s slipping further away from you with every beat.

You believe him.

You always believe him.

Even now, when you know some promises are too big for this world.

You squeeze his hand weakly.

"I love you," you whisper before you can stop yourself.

It’s the first time you’ve said it out loud.

The first and — you know — maybe the last.

He lets out a broken, shuddering sound, and leans forward until his forehead rests against yours.

"I love you more," he whispers back, trembling.

"I love you enough to move heaven and earth if that's what it takes."

You close your eyes.

You let yourself believe it.

Just for a little while longer.

Just until the morning comes.

The days bleed together in a haze of too-bright mornings and too-quiet nights.

Sometimes you’re strong enough to sit up, to laugh a little when he brings you sweets hidden in his bag, the ones the nurses pretend not to see.

Sometimes you can’t even lift your head.

But he never leaves.

Zayne is there through all of it — a constant, stubborn presence.

He drags a battered medical textbook everywhere he goes, flipping through it with growing desperation between moments spent at your side.

You catch him muttering to himself sometimes — notes, formulas, theories — a language only he and the universe seem to understand.

His eyes never lose that fierce, determined light. Not even when the others — the nurses, the doctors, even his father — start looking at you with that pitying softness usually reserved for lost causes.

Zayne refuses.

Refuses to believe you are anything less than a miracle still waiting to happen.

And for a while, you let him.

You let yourself believe it too.

You dream together — quietly, in snatches of exhausted conversation.

Little things.

You fall asleep with his hand in yours, and for a moment, you almost think you’ll wake up to that future.

Trips you’ll take.

Places you’ll see.

A life waiting just beyond the next sunrise.

Almost.

It happens in the middle of the night.

At first, it's nothing.

A shiver.

A slight breathlessness.

You're used to it. You think you’ll ride it out like all the others.

But then the pain hits.

A blinding, seizing agony in your chest that knocks the air from your lungs.

You’re distantly aware of Zayne shouting — your name over and over—his voice cracking in a way you’ve never heard before.

Monitors shriek.

Nurses rush in.

The world explodes into chaos.

You try to find him — try to reach out — but your limbs are so heavy, your vision swimming.

You catch one glimpse — just one — of him being dragged back by hospital staff, his face twisted in a raw, desperate kind of terror that tears something deep inside you.

But you can’t speak.

You want to tell him it’s okay.

You want to tell him you’re not afraid.

You can’t even breathe.

And as the darkness rushes up to meet you —you think, faintly —

I’m sorry.

He’s still holding your hand.

Hours later, long after the machines have fallen silent.

Long after the nurses have cried quietly behind the curtains.

Long after his father stood at the door, silent and broken, and then walked away because he couldn't bear to watch his son shatter.

Zayne is still there.

Head bowed, shoulders shaking.

Your hand cradled in both of his like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.

"Come on," he whispers, voice hoarse and raw. "Come on — you promised. You said you’d try —"

He presses your hand to his mouth, breathing you in like maybe he can still find some piece of you, some lingering spark that he can fan back to life.

"You can't leave yet," he says, broken. "I’m not ready — I’m not—"

The words dissolve into a rough, gasping sob.

It’s not fair.

You were supposed to have more time.

You were supposed to see the world, to laugh and dance and live.

You were supposed to have a lifetime — not just borrowed days.

Zayne buries his face against your cold fingers.

He doesn’t care who sees.

Doesn’t care if it’s undignified or messy or hopeless.

You loved him.

And he loved you.

Enough to move mountains.

Enough to break himself into pieces trying to save you.

Enough to hold onto you, even now — even when the world is cruel enough to have taken you away.

"I’m sorry," he chokes out against your skin. "I’m so sorry — I wasn’t enough —"

It isn't true. You would have told him that if you could. You would have told him he was always enough.

But all that's left is silence.

Zayne stays there, long after the world outside your hospital room forgets.

Long after the snow he once summoned for you has melted away.

Long after the rest of the universe moves on.

Just like you.

He stays.

Because love doesn’t vanish with the heart that carried it. It lingers—stubborn and beautiful and devastating —like the first snowfall on a summer night.

The rooftop hasn’t changed much.

Zayne stands there now, a tall figure in a dark coat, hands tucked into his pockets against the cold.

The same cracked tiles underfoot.

The same rusted railings.

The same battered bench, where once — a lifetime ago — two dreamers sat and imagined a future they could almost touch.

It’s snowing.

Soft, heavy flakes drifting down from a sky the color of mourning doves.

The night he watched you dance in the middle of summer, your laughter lighting up the world more than any stars ever could.

Exactly the way it did that night.

The night he made it snow for you.

His throat tightens.

He tilts his head back, lets the snow kiss his skin.

Lets the memories wash over him — sharp and tender all at once.

The wind whistles softly around him, as if in agreement.

"You'd hate this," he murmurs to the empty air, a wry smile ghosting across his face.

"You always said snow was pretty, but cold was overrated."

He closes his eyes.

He can almost see you — spinning in the falling snow, hands outstretched, that shy, luminous smile you only ever showed him.

Almost.

Zayne shifts, pulling something from his coat pocket — a small, delicate bouquet.

Not flowers.

Paper cranes.

Hand-folded, each one painstakingly creased.

A thousand wishes, a thousand promises.

He sets them carefully on the bench.

A silent offering to the girl who once taught him what it meant to dream — even if dreams don’t always come true.

"I did it," he says quietly, voice rough.

"I kept my promise."

He swallows hard, staring out into the snowy city lights.

"I couldn’t save you," he admits, the old grief still a raw, tender thing inside him. "But I saved others."

Hundreds of them.

Patients who would have died, now living because of the research, the surgeries, the relentless fire you lit inside him.

Because of you.

Always because of you.

Zayne breathes in deep, the cold burning his lungs, grounding him.

"I hope... wherever you are," he says, soft and sure, "you're proud."

The snow falls heavier now, blurring the edges of the world.

Zayne stands there a little longer, letting the silence wrap around him like a memory, like a prayer.

Finally, he turns to leave.

But before he goes, he glances back one last time —and for just a heartbeat —he thinks he sees you.

He doesn't blink.

Standing there in the snow, smiling.

Weightless. Free.

He just smiles back, tears blurring the world into stars.

"Happy anniversary, angel," he says.

And then he walks away, carrying you with him — in every beat of his heart.

Always.

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