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diamonddaze01 · 4 months ago

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golden promises

pairing: xu minghao x reader | wc: 5.6k genre: angst angst angst! failed soulmates au | warnings: none a/n: this one goes out to my 8stars @ylangelegy & @haologram // thank you to @gotta-winwin and @haologram for the beta i adore you both! // my second attempt at trying to make my writing more poetic lol recommended listening 🎧: raanjhan - parampara tandon | bin tere - vishal-shekar | samjho na - aditya rikhari | khairiyat - arijit singh | ek tarfa - darshan rawal | judaiyaan - darshan rawal & shreya ghoshal | dill tutda - jassie gill | jhol - maanu & annural khalid | humnava mere - jubin nautiyal the angst olympics are live! check out all the amazing authors <3 join my taglist here

summary: And so it began. Minghao, who believed in fate, and you, who didn’t.

The first time Xu Minghao saw you, his timer hit zero.

There are moments in life that split time into before and after. Moments that settle deep in your bones, rewriting everything you thought you knew. Moments where the air thickens, where the world rearranges itself, where your heart stops—not in fear, but in recognition.

He’d heard stories about this. How the second you meet your soulmate, the universe exhales, and suddenly, everything makes sense. How the colors brighten, how your name must already be written somewhere inside him, waiting for his mouth to speak it into existence.

And for him, it did.

The summer air was heavy with the scent of ripe mangoes and jasmine, the marketplace humming with the kind of easy chaos that made everything feel alive. He wasn’t looking for anything—just wandering, just passing through, just existing—until he saw you.

You were standing in front of a small stall, the kind draped in delicate trinkets and woven bracelets, spinning one between your fingers. Sunlight poured over you like melted gold, catching in your hair, glinting off the curve of your smile.

Something cracked open inside him.

Dhadkan tak tainu rasta diya, sajna

His heart had shown him the way to you.

Minghao looked down at his wrist.

Zero.

The numbers, the ones he had watched his whole life, had disappeared. The silent countdown, the seconds that had ticked through his childhood and whispered promises into his dreams, were gone.

No fireworks. No divine chorus. Just this—his heart a steady, unshaken certainty.

It’s you.

His feet moved before he could think, drawn forward by something older than reason, stronger than doubt. He was going to say something—what, he didn’t know. Maybe your name, as if he had known it all along. Maybe something simple, something mundane, just to hear the sound of your voice.

But then, his gaze flickered to your wrist.

And there it was.

Numbers. Still ticking.

His breath left him all at once.

It was as if the earth had shifted beneath him, tilting the universe off its axis. The relief, the elation, the quiet wonder—shattered. His fate was sealed, but yours was still unraveling.

The wind tangled in your hair as you laughed at something your friend said, a sound so light it felt like it could lift off the ground and drift toward the sky. You didn’t notice him. You didn’t feel what he felt.

Minghao had spent his whole life waiting for this moment. But now that it had arrived, it didn’t belong to him the way he thought it would.

He could have called out to you. Could have walked forward, told you his name, told you that he knew. That he knew.

But fate had played its hand, and it was not kind.

So he stayed where he was, watching as you tied the bracelet around your wrist, as you moved through the market, as you disappeared into the crowd.

His heart, once so certain, now a quiet war between longing and restraint.

He had found you.

But you hadn’t found him.

The second time Xu Minghao saw you, you were at an art gallery.

It was a quiet evening, the kind where the world outside felt muffled, softened by the hush of a setting sun. The gallery was nearly empty, save for a few patrons lost in the language of brushstrokes and shadowed frames. The air smelled of old paper and fresh paint, of something delicate and fleeting, like a memory slipping through fingertips.

And there you were.

Standing in front of a canvas, your head tilted ever so slightly, eyes tracing each careful stroke. It was an abstract piece—colors bleeding into each other, shapes unraveling into something intangible. The kind of painting that felt like a secret, like it was whispering something just out of reach.

Minghao should have walked away. Should have kept his distance, let you exist in that moment without the weight of his knowing.

But he had spent days—weeks—thinking about you.

So he found himself saying, “Do you think the artist believed in soulmates?”

You turned at the sound of his voice, eyes catching his. Startled at first, but then—recognition flickered, not of him, but of something in his words, something worth answering.

“I doubt it,” you said, lips curving into a thoughtful smile. “Do you?”

Minghao hesitated. He could have lied, could have said something lighthearted, something easy. But standing here, in the quiet weight of oil and canvas, in the space between past and present, the truth pressed against his ribs like a caged bird.

“I think… sometimes you don’t get a choice.”

You laughed, soft and warm, like a silk ribbon unraveling in the wind. The kind of laugh that made things feel lighter, even when they weren’t.

“That’s tragic,” you murmured. “I’d rather choose.”

Minghao swallowed.

Tu taan saare dil 'te hi kabza karke beh gaya

You had already taken over his heart, even if you didn’t know it.

He studied you then—the way your fingers hovered just slightly in front of you, as if reaching for the meaning behind the painting. The way your eyes held galaxies, waiting to be charted. He wanted to memorize this moment, carve it into his bones before time stole it away.

He thought about telling you. About turning his wrist to show you the truth written on his skin. About how his world had stopped the moment he saw you, how the universe had already chosen for him.

But then your wrist shifted, the timer still ticking down. Still leading you to someone else.

The universe may have chosen for him, but for you, fate was still unwritten.

So he didn’t say anything.

Instead, he turned back to the painting, letting silence stretch between you like an unfinished story. And maybe that’s all he would ever be to you—a passing presence, a stranger in an art gallery, someone whose name you might never think to ask.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said finally, voice quiet. “Maybe choice is better.”

You smiled again, the kind that lingered even after you turned away, moving to the next painting.

Minghao stayed behind, staring at the colors on the canvas.

Wondering if love, when unreturned, still counted as love at all.

It should have ended there. A fleeting moment, a brush of time that barely left a mark.

He told himself it would. That he would walk away, that he would let fate take its course, even if it didn’t bend in his favor.

But you didn’t let him.

You let him in.

It started small. A conversation stretched across an evening, then another. Then a name exchanged at a café a week later when he ran into you by accident—except it didn’t feel like an accident at all.

"Xu Minghao," he said.

You repeated it, testing the syllables on your tongue, making them something softer. Something dangerous.

After that, you existed in his life like a watercolor painting—gradual, spreading into all the empty spaces, impossible to contain.

It was raining the first time you talked about soulmates again.

You were both in a café, your fingers wrapped around a warm cup, the city humming outside in blurred headlights and water-streaked pavement. Minghao watched you, the way you always seemed lost in your own world before pulling him into it.

“The thing about soulmates,” you mused, tracing a finger along the rim of your cup, “is that they take the romance out of it.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You think so?”

You nodded, thoughtful. “It’s too easy. Too neat. Love should be a choice, don’t you think?”

Minghao hesitated. His wrist had already made its choice. But you hadn’t.

“So you don’t believe in soulmates,” he murmured.

You exhaled a quiet laugh. “No. I think it’s just another story we tell ourselves. Something to make the world feel a little less lonely.”

He wanted to tell you, then. Wanted to turn his wrist over on the table, let you see the blank space where the numbers had disappeared, let you understand what had already been decided for him.

But you had a timer still ticking down, still leading you somewhere else.

So he just smiled, soft and unreadable. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Like—what if it’s all just biology? A trick of the mind? The idea that we’re all predestined for one person seems… sad.” The way you said it made Minghao’s heart clench in his chest.

Minghao had watched you carefully, fingers tightening around his cup. “Sad?”

“Well, yeah.” You glanced out the window, watching the rain smear the city into soft, indistinct colors. “It means you could love someone with everything you have, and if they aren’t ‘the one,’ it doesn’t count.”

But it does count, he had wanted to say. It counts for the one who loves, even if it’s not returned.

“I don’t know,” he had murmured instead, watching the way the light framed your face. “Some people don’t get a choice.”

You had hummed, considering. “I’d still rather choose.”

And Minghao—Minghao, whose timer had hit zero the moment he saw you—wanted, for the first time, to believe in choice too.

It didn’t stop at coffee.

You became a presence in his life, slipping in like a poem written in margins, like a song hummed under breath.

It was the bookstore, where you ran your fingers along spines like they held secrets meant only for you. Minghao had asked what you were looking for, and you had grinned, mischievous.

“Something tragic,” you had said. “Something that’ll ruin my week.”

Minghao had laughed, shaking his head. “Why do you want to be ruined?”

You had met his gaze, something unreadable in your eyes. “Because at least then I’d know it meant something.”

It was the late-night walks, where the world shrank to just the two of you, city lights flickering like fireflies in the distance. You had spoken about dreams, about places you wanted to see, about how the concept of forever never sat right with you.

“Nothing lasts,” you had said, kicking a stray pebble down the sidewalk.

Minghao had tilted his head toward the sky. “Maybe not everything is supposed to.”

You had smiled at that, a small, quiet thing. “See? Now that’s tragic.”

It was the mornings where you sat across from each other, the clink of ceramic cups filling the space between easy silences. It was the stolen moments where he caught you laughing at nothing, where you tilted your head against his shoulder when you were tired, where you let him trace shapes into your palm absentmindedly as you talked about anything and everything.

The next time, it was late at night, both of you lying on a rooftop under a sky thick with stars. The city pulsed below, neon lights flickering like distant fireflies. You had dragged him up here, claiming it was the best place to think.

And Minghao would follow you anywhere.

You turned your head to look at him. “You ever think about what you’d do if your timer hit zero at the wrong moment?”

Minghao stared up at the sky, at the endless black, at the constellations that had burned for thousands of years and still hadn’t figured out how to stay together.

“It’s not supposed to be wrong,” he said eventually.

You laughed, but it was a quiet, almost sad sound. “But what if it is?”

He turned to look at you, to the slight crease between your brows, to the weight behind your question.

He thought about telling you. About the way his timer had gone silent the moment he saw you, how his world had stilled in a way he hadn’t even realized was possible.

But then you rolled onto your side, elbow propped up, fingers tracing absent patterns against the rooftop.

“Love should be terrifying,” you murmured. “It should be something you have to fight for, something that could break you.” You glanced at him then, eyes gleaming in the dark. “Wouldn’t that be better than some numbers on a wrist?”

Minghao swallowed. “Maybe.”

You smiled, satisfied, and turned back to the sky.

Minghao turned back too.

And said nothing.

It was like this for months.

Conversations that drifted too close to the truth. Fingers brushing and lingering before pulling away. The quiet intimacy of something unspoken, something fragile, something too good to last.

Minghao knew he was losing you before you were even his to lose.

Because your timer kept ticking.

Because fate had not chosen him for you, even though it had chosen you for him.

Because love, when unreturned, still felt like love—but it also felt like drowning.

And someday soon, the clock would run out.

You said you didn’t believe in soulmates.

You said it with certainty, with fire in your eyes, with conviction carved into every syllable.

“That timer is just a cruel game the universe plays,” you told him once, voice steady, fingers curled around your own wrist like you wanted to crush the numbers beneath your grip. "Love isn’t about some stupid numbers on your skin. It’s about choosing someone."

And then you had looked at him—really looked at him—like he was something inevitable. Something certain.

"I choose you, Minghao."

Ab na Heer kade dil da yaqeen kar paayegi

How could he not believe in you when you said it like that?

Minghao had spent his whole life believing in fate.

Believing in the weight of the numbers, in the invisible thread that wove two people together across time and space. His timer had been a promise. A quiet, patient thing ticking down with purpose, with certainty.

Fate had called your name, but it had not whispered his.

And yet, here you were—standing in front of him, eyes searching, hands trembling slightly at your sides, offering him everything despite the ticking clock on your wrist. Despite the fact that your soulmate was still out there, waiting.

Minghao should have walked away. Should have been noble. Should have let you go before you could regret this, before you could realize that love, without fate behind it, could still crumble.

But he had spent months loving you in silence. He had spent months letting you fill the spaces between his ribs, settling into his bones like a song he could never forget.

So he stepped closer.

“You can’t take it back,” he murmured, barely above a whisper.

You frowned. “What?”

“If you choose me, you can’t take it back. Not when your timer runs out, not when—” his voice broke, but he forced himself to continue—“not when you meet them.”

Something in your expression shifted. The way the light flickered across your face, the way your breath hitched like you suddenly realized what you were doing.

But then your fingers reached for his, slow, deliberate.

“I don’t care,” you said, voice shaking but firm. “I don’t care about a timer, or some stranger I haven’t met. I care about you, Minghao. And I choose you.”

It was everything he had ever wanted.

It was everything he had feared.

Because love was never just a choice. Love was cruel. Love was fate and timing and inevitability. Love was a thief, and it stole from him the moment your words settled between them like a vow.

Because one day your timer would run out.

And when it did—when you met the person you were supposed to belong to—Minghao knew you would leave.

Not because you wanted to. But because some things were stronger than words. Because fate always won in the end.

So he exhaled shakily, pressed his forehead against yours, and closed his eyes.

“Okay,” he whispered.

If this was all he would ever have of you, then he would take it.

Even if it destroyed him.

For a year, Xu Minghao believed he had conned fate.

He convinced himself that love could exist outside of destiny. That the universe had miscalculated, that your hand in his was proof that numbers meant nothing.

And for a year, you were his.

Judi hai rahein saari tujhse meri

Every road, every path, every turn—somehow, they all led back to you.

It was in the mornings when he woke up to find you tangled in the sheets, your breathing slow, the weight of your arm draped over his chest like a quiet claim. Minghao never moved right away. He just lay there, memorizing the shape of you against him, the way the early light painted soft gold across your skin.

It was in the afternoons, where laughter spilled between you like an unspoken promise. The two of you existed in a world of inside jokes, of coffee shop debates over which pastry was superior, of whispered conversations in libraries where you barely managed to keep your voices down. You stole fries off his plate, he stole sips of your drink, and every moment felt like something infinite.

It was in the nights, when time folded in on itself, and there was only you. Only your voice, a quiet murmur against his shoulder. Only your hands, threading through his, pulling him deeper into a love he shouldn’t have had.

A love that shouldn’t have lasted.

Because your timer was still ticking.

Some nights, when the world was too quiet, he would trace patterns over your wrist with featherlight fingers, his touch lingering just long enough to make you ache. You would see it then—that fleeting sadness, the way his eyes darkened as if trying to memorize the numbers before they could betray him. Before they could betray both of you.

And so you would do the only thing you knew how to. You would curl yourself around him, press your lips to the hinge of his jaw, to the soft curve beneath his ear. You would kiss him until he forgot about it, until he forgot about everything but the way your body molded against his, the way your hands tangled in his hair, the way you whispered his name like he was the only future you could ever want, like he was something worth staying for.

So he loved you recklessly, desperately, like a man who had borrowed time and dared to believe it was his own.

For a while, it worked.

For a while, he let himself believe that your love was louder than fate.

And then—

Then your timer hit zero.

The day your timer hit zero, Minghao was at your apartment, waiting. The scent of your favorite takeout filled the space, boxes neatly stacked on the counter. He had set the table the way you liked—your favorite glass, extra sauce on the side, a pair of chopsticks resting beside his own. A quiet offering of comfort, a piece of him saying I know today was hard, but I am here.

When he heard the sound of your keys turning in the lock, he turned toward the door, ready to greet you with warmth, with open arms.

But the moment you stepped inside, something was different.

Your smile faltered, just barely. Your breath caught, almost imperceptibly. Your fingers hovered at your wrist, pressing into the skin as if trying to hold something in place, as if trying to stop time from moving forward.

Minghao had always been good at reading between the lines. He didn’t need to ask.

“It happened, didn’t it?”

His voice was too calm. Too steady. A whisper against the quiet, like speaking too loudly would make the walls collapse around you both.

You swallowed, your throat tight. “At the café,” you admitted, barely above a whisper. “I wasn’t expecting it.”

The words cut through the air, sharp and irreversible. Minghao exhaled slowly, his gaze drifting to the untouched meal he had laid out for you, as if the smallest details of your shared life could somehow keep you tethered to him. As if love could be measured in cups of jasmine tea and takeout containers.

“Do you love them?”

The question came quietly, but it landed like a blow. You flinched, your fingers curling into fists. “Minghao, I love you.”

He smiled, soft and broken. A tragedy dressed as tenderness. “But you met them.”

Silence.

You didn’t answer. You didn’t have to. The truth sat between you, thick and heavy, an inevitable thing. Minghao felt his world shift, splintering like glass beneath too much weight.

He had always known this was coming.

He had spent a year looking at your wrist in the dead of night, feeling the pulse beneath his fingertips like a countdown to an ending he could not stop. He had spent a year memorizing you, loving you, hoping—God, hoping—that maybe you would never reach zero. That maybe love could defy mathematics.

That maybe, just maybe, you would choose him.

But here you were. And here he was. And fate had finally caught up.

You took a step toward him, hesitant. “Minghao, please—”

“Don’t,” he said, so gently it hurt.

Because he had promised himself he wouldn’t make this harder for you. Because he had sworn he would let you go with grace, no matter how much it tore him apart.

He forced a breath, blinking up at the ceiling, willing his voice to stay steady. “Did it feel like the universe sighing in relief?”

You let out a shaky breath. “Minghao—”

“It’s okay.” His hands clenched at his sides before slowly, deliberately, he let them go. “It’s okay,” he repeated, even though nothing about this was okay.

Because he had always known he was just borrowing time.

And then—

Your hand reached for his.

Not out of hesitation, not out of guilt, but with purpose. With conviction. And when he finally looked at you, your eyes were burning. Steady. Unwavering.

“No,” you said, and your voice was stronger than it had ever been. “It didn’t feel like relief. It felt like the end of the world.”

Minghao’s breath hitched.

“I met them,” you continued, stepping closer, pressing your palm against his chest, where his heart was unraveling. “And I felt it, that shift, that pull. But it wasn’t you.” Your voice wavered, but you held on, gripping his hands like a lifeline. “It wasn’t the person who knows how I take my coffee. It wasn’t the person who stays up with me on my worst nights, who makes me laugh when I think I’ve forgotten how.”

His fingers curled around yours, tentative, as if he was afraid to believe it.

You swallowed hard. “I know what fate says. I know what the universe wants. But I—” You exhaled shakily, eyes searching his, pleading for him to understand. To believe you. “I chose you, Minghao.” Your voice broke, but you kept going. “I choose you.”

You brought his hand to your lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles, to the hands that had held you through every storm. “And I will keep choosing you.”

Minghao didn’t realize he was crying until you reached up, brushing the tears from his cheeks with your thumbs. His chest ached, torn between disbelief and the quiet, unbearable hope blooming in its place.

For a year, he had believed he was running on borrowed time.

He so desperately wanted to believe that time had never mattered at all.

Tu bhi kya yaad rakhega

Minghao wished he could forget. Wished he could peel every memory of you from his skin, let them slip through his fingers like grains of sand, like something never meant to be held onto in the first place.

But he knew he wouldn’t.

He would remember.

He would remember the way your laughter curled into the spaces between his ribs, how your touch had been an anchor, how every late-night conversation had felt like stitching his soul to yours.

You had carved yourself into him, written your name into the marrow of his bones, and there was no undoing it. No rewinding, no erasing. Only this—only the ruin you left behind.

You were crying. He wished he could hate you for it, wished he could feel something other than this unbearable ache, but all he wanted was to hold you, to wipe your tears away, to tell you that it was okay even when it wasn’t.

You tried to explain. You needed him to understand.

“It doesn’t change anything,” you whispered, voice trembling, breaking over the weight of the moment. “Meeting them—it doesn’t make my love for you any less real. It’s just… it’s different. It’s not stronger. It’s not—” Your breath hitched. “It’s not fair.”

It wasn’t. It never had been.

Tears streaked down your cheeks, and you gripped his hands like you were afraid he would slip away, like you could hold him here, with you, if you just held on tight enough. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Minghao exhaled, slow, steady. He looked at you—really looked at you. The person he had loved in a way that defied reason, the person who had turned his life into something softer, something worth waking up to.

And yet, fate had taken that love and cracked it in half.

Judi hain raahein saari tujhse meri

"My paths are tied to yours."

You said it like it was a promise. But it felt like a wound.

Minghao pulled his hands from yours, gently, like he was untying a knot that had held for too long. Like if he did it softly enough, it wouldn’t hurt as much.

“You say that,” he murmured, voice barely above a whisper, “but your wrist says otherwise.”

Your face crumpled, and something inside him shattered.

Because love wasn’t supposed to be a war against destiny. Because love wasn’t supposed to be a choice between what you wanted and what the universe had written for you.

But here you were. And here he was. And the universe was still waiting.

You left anyway.

Not right away. At first, you fought it. You fought it because you loved him, because you chose him—or at least that’s what you kept telling yourself. You tried to pretend, tried to act as though nothing had shifted beneath the surface.

But Minghao was always watching, always noticing, even in the moments you thought you’d hidden the truth. He saw the quiet distance between your fingertips when you reached for him. He saw the way your eyes would glaze over, distant and lost, as though you were somewhere else, with someone else. He saw how your voice cracked when you mentioned them—their name—like it was nothing.

It was a betrayal he didn’t know how to describe, but he felt it all the same. The way the rhythm of your heart had started to slip out of sync with his, like the song that once belonged to both of you was now missing its key notes.

Your laughter, which once felt like home, was no longer his.

You didn’t want to hurt him, not really, but you couldn’t ignore what had happened.

“Minghao,” you said one night, your voice trembling as it fell from your lips. "I don’t want to hurt you."

He didn't answer right away, but the silence between you was as loud as a thousand storms crashing together.

Sona tha tera ve jhootha

Your gold-dipped promises had been false, empty, but it didn’t matter because he still loved you.

"Go," he said, his voice steady, almost cold in the dim light of the room. His heart was a hurricane, but his words were a calm before the storm. "You’re already halfway out the door."

The words were a punch to his own chest. They weren’t born out of anger, but out of this quiet, painful truth. He could feel the space between the two of you growing wider with every passing second, and he couldn’t force you to stay when your heart wasn’t there anymore.

He didn’t want to let go. He couldn’t let go. But he already felt your absence creeping into the corners of his mind, into the small, delicate spaces where you had once existed as his everything.

You froze at the door, the silence between you thick with the weight of what had come to pass. You knew it, too. The finality in his voice, the way he saw through every excuse you tried to tell yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, choking on the words that burned in your throat, words that had no place in this story, not anymore. "I never meant for this to happen."

Minghao didn’t move. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t beg you to stay. He couldn’t be the one to break and shatter everything when you had already made your choice.

“Go,” he repeated, quieter this time, but somehow that made it even worse. The absence of anger, the quiet surrender to what was inevitable.

The door clicked shut behind you, and Minghao stood there for a long time, staring at the space you once occupied.

But in the hollow silence, he heard your heartbeat, still tangled with his, still beating somewhere, even if it was no longer in sync with his own.

Lakh samjhaun main taan, dil samajh nahi paata

He told himself it was for the best. That this was the only way. He couldn't hold onto someone who was meant for someone else, someone who had already found their place, their soulmate. He kept repeating it in his head, like a mantra, like it was a truth he could believe in. But even the strongest words felt weak against the tide of his emotions.

But his heart, that damn heart of his—it didn’t listen. It never listened.

He couldn’t make it stop. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how many times he told himself that this was what was right, what was logical, the truth always bled through—the truth of how much he still loved you. How much he always would.

And so he sat in the silence of his empty apartment, a place that used to feel like home, but now felt like a stranger’s house. The emptiness gnawed at him, not because of the space you’d left, but because of the parts of him that had vanished with you.

Rang do dinon mein chhoota

The color of your love faded faster than he could comprehend. The once-vibrant moments of tenderness between you two were now dull, drained, leaving behind only the cold ache of what could have been. What should have been. He could almost hear your laughter echoing in the silence, but it was distant, like a song on the wind that he could never quite reach.

How quickly it all fell apart. How quickly the thing he had fought for, the thing he had clung to with every part of himself, was slipping from his grasp, like sand through his fingers. His chest ached with it, a sharp, gnawing pain that refused to leave.

You were the one. He had known it. Fate had made that clear, even if fate had played some cruel game with him. How could something so perfect feel so incomplete now?

He didn’t hate you. He could never hate you. Not when you were the one his soul had always craved, the one he had always sought in his dreams, in his waking moments, in every fleeting thought.

But the bitterness lingered.

It lingered at the edges of his heart like a stain that wouldn’t wash away. He hated the universe for showing him something so beautiful only to rip it apart. He hated the fact that he had loved you so completely, only to be forced to let you go. He hated the feeling of emptiness that came with that love—empty but full of everything he would never get to have.

He sat there, in the dark, the silence louder than any words could ever be. He didn’t know when it would stop hurting. Maybe it never would.

Maybe he would just learn to live with the ache.

Years later, he saw you again.

It was at a bookstore, the kind where the scent of old paper clings to the air like nostalgia. Rain dripped from the edges of his umbrella, the soft patter against the pavement a soundtrack to his every step. He wasn’t expecting it. He wasn’t looking for you. Yet, there you were.

You were standing by the window, flipping through a novel, your face bathed in the soft glow of the lights above. You didn’t notice him at first, lost in the pages, your brow furrowed in concentration. But when you looked up and your eyes met his, everything inside him stopped.

His heart twisted.

“Minghao,” you said, your voice barely a whisper, as if speaking too loudly would break the moment.

“Hi,” he replied. His smile was practiced, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It was the kind of smile that lived in the places where pain and love collided, only to become something unrecognizable.

There was so much left unsaid between you two. So much more than the weight of those two syllables could carry. But you only said, “I still don’t believe in soulmates.”

He laughed. It was hollow, like an empty echo in a quiet room. “You don’t have to. The universe does.”

Har koi yaar nahi hunda, ve bulleya.

Not everyone gets to be a lover.

The words felt heavier in the space between you two, like a truth neither of you had ever really wanted to face.

He turned and walked away, the rhythm of his footsteps mixing with the rain's quiet murmur. He left you standing there, by the window, where light met shadow and memories lingered in the air.

The world felt smaller now, smaller than the spaces between your heartbeats.

Jaa, Raanjhan, Raanjhan, Raanjhan Go, Raanjhan. Go, the one I loved. Tu bhi kya yaad rakhega? What will you even remember? Jaa, Heer ne tainu chhod diya Go, for Heer has let you go.

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