The sun was rising, slow and reluctant, like an apology pulled from a quiet sky.
Its golden fingers crept through the slats of the curtains, brushing against the pale walls of Shu Yao's room, painting everything in shades too warm for how cold he felt inside.
He woke—not gently, not peacefully—but like someone surfacing from water too long held beneath.
His breath came first: shallow, ragged. Not the breath of someone rested, but the kind taken after drowning. He didn't gasp. He didn't cry out. He simply opened his eyes, and they were already rimmed in red.
Because sleep had not welcomed him.
It had dragged him back to the same place.
Again.
The same nightmare.
The same ruin, played on repeat behind his lids like a punishment he hadn't earned.
He lay still, staring at the ceiling, his chest rising with the kind of effort that made breath feel like glass. His bedsheets clung to him, twisted around his body like the hands from that dream, as if they, too, refused to let him go.
And in his mind—still there, still vivid—was him.
The pale-eyed one.
The one with smoke on his breath and cruelty in his bones. The one whose tousled black hair fell like shadow across his brow. The one who didn't need to raise his voice to break something sacred. Who didn't flinch when Shu Yao begged. Who didn't hesitate when his hands tore fabric as if it were paper and pride alike.
The dream blurred with memory. It always did.
The shirt—his shirt—snapped open, one button at a time, each sound like a tiny scream.
His body, on display.
His heart, helpless beneath strange hands.
And always—always—that gaze. Those pale eyes watching not with desire, not even with hate… but with that awful, detached curiosity. Like a child plucking wings from a moth to see if it would still flutter.
He curled tighter beneath the sheets now, the cotton no longer feeling like safety but like a whisper of that night. His fingers gripped the edge of the blanket, knuckles white, wrists trembling.
Sleep, for Shu Yao, wasn't rest.
It was a quiet form of drowning.
Each time each minute dragged him back to that alley, to the circle of engines and smoke and male laughter sharpened into blades. Each night he was made to remember, in unbearable detail, the way he broke.
And this morning—this false, golden morning—felt no different.
The sun touched his cheek as if to say wake up, but it felt cruel.
Because he never got to sleep.
He sat up slowly, each motion careful, like he feared the floor might open and swallow him whole. His pajama shirt clung damply to his chest, and he realized—too late—that he'd been sweating again. Dreams do that when they're soaked in violence.
His eyes went to the mirror across the room.
He didn't approach it.
Not yet.
Because he knew what it would show.
Beneath his favorite pajamas—soft as they seemed, innocent in their drape—was a battlefield disguised as skin.
Shu Yao moved with care, not out of grace, but out of knowledge. The kind of knowledge that comes after pain teaches the body where not to stretch, where not to press. His steps were slow, deliberate, as if each limb remembered too much.
Because underneath, hidden from the world's polite gaze, were the marks.
Bruises bloomed in quiet places—beneath his ribs, along his hips, scattered like ink stains on parchment. Each one told a story he wished had never been written. Some were violet, others a sickly yellow-green, the fading stages of something that had once been violence, now turning into memory beneath his skin.
Across his throat—just above the collarbone—was the ghost of pressure. A faint purple line, curved and unmistakable. A warning.
His chest bore more: bite marks, where teeth had pressed not in passion but in punishment. Small crescent moons branded into softness, where fingers had gripped too tightly, where shame had sunk its claws. The most damning ones were near the shoulder, just beneath the neckline of his shirt, where bruises bloomed like wilted flowers.
They ached.
Not loudly, not enough to scream—but in that steady, low hum that pain makes when it refuses to leave.
Even the inside of his arms were marred—prints where hands had pinned him down, held him in place, left behind proof of possession. They peeked from beneath his sleeves like sins trying to confess themselves.
The fabric touched them gently.
Too gently.
Like the pajamas understood. As if they, too, were trying not to disturb the hurt.
And yet, Shu Yao wore them anyway. Because clothes were the only armor he had left—the only thing standing between the world and the quiet map of ruin traced onto his body.
He moved past the mirror again, catching a glimpse—but looked away.
Because he knew what was underneath.
And some reflections cut deeper than blades.
But himself—the boy who had been undone. The one who still carried silence like a scar across his soul.
And for a moment, the air felt too tight again.
Like sleeping.
Like choking.
He slid from the bed barefoot, feet landing softly against the wooden floor. The room was hushed, still shrouded in the mourning breath of dawn, and Shu Yao moved like a ghost through it.
There were no words. No sounds. Only the creak of wood and the low ache of a heart that hadn't yet learned how to heal.
He paused at the window. The city beyond was just beginning to breathe.
Birdsong. Distant cars. Light kissing rooftops.
It all seemed too gentle for what he felt inside.
And then, from somewhere deeper than thought—from that hollow place beneath his ribs where fear had taken root—came a quiet whisper, voiceless and real:
He'll come back.
The pale-eyed one. The dream. The memory.
It was never over. Just postponed.
And Shu Yao knew it.
He pressed his palm to the windowpane.
It was cold.
Real.
And maybe that was enough, for now.
To remind him that he was still here.
Even if part of him never left that night.
Even if part of him still stands—shirt torn, heart exposed—in the shadow of something he never asked for.
The sun rose higher.
But it didn't warm him.
It only watched. Then the light's of The bathroom, greeted him with a hush, tiled silence and pale morning light slipping through the curtains like secrets not meant to be spoken aloud.
Shu Yao stepped inside quietly, his bare feet making no sound against the cold floor. The door clicked shut behind him—not like a closing, but like the sealing of something sacred. Or something broken.
His fingers moved to the hem of his pajama shirt, slow and uncertain. He peeled it away not like fabric, but like confession. As if removing it might make the bruises disappear, as if gentleness could rewrite history.
But the marks remained.
Dark and blooming beneath the skin—along his ribs, his hips, the fragile stretch of his chest, and the tender slope of his throat. Each one a sentence he hadn't written. A punishment for a crime he didn't commit.
Last night he had scrubbed them until his skin burned, chasing purity through soap and steam. But bruises are loyal. They stay. Even when the shame doesn't belong to you.
He folded the pajamas quietly and placed them aside—as if tucking guilt into a drawer.
Then he turned on the shower.
This time, he chose cold.
Not out of courage.
But out of consequence.
The water struck him in jolts, slicing down his back, tracing the spine that had held him upright even through humiliation. He stood beneath the stream, unmoving, his long brown hair darkening, sticking in ropes to his pale chest and back. The cold didn't cleanse—it punished. It reminded. It kept him awake.
His breath hitched. His jaw tightened. The chill sank deep into his bones, where memories slept like wolves with open eyes.
And when it was done, he stepped out—dripping, trembling, quieter than silence itself.
He reached for the white towel and wrapped it low around his waist. It clung to him sharply now—too sharp—because his body had grown thin. Because exhaustion had carved hollows beneath his skin. Because he'd thought too much, cried too much, slept too little.
His eyes were red-rimmed, heavy. The skin beneath them tinted violet with the bruising of sleepless nights. He looked not like a boy freshly bathed, but like something washed ashore.
Still—he moved.
To the wardrobe.
He opened it and stared at the neat row of suits, as if expecting them to whisper which one might hold him together today. His hand drifted to a deep wine vest, and a black suit with soft lapels. The kind he wore when he wanted to look composed—untouchable.
Piece by piece, he dressed.
Slowly. Silently. Ritual more than routine.
The shirt slid over his shoulders like forgiveness too late to change anything. The fabric brushed his bruises and he flinched—but didn't pause.
Then the vest.
Then the suit jacket.
He moved to the vanity. Switched on the dryer. The noise broke the silence like thunder might disturb a prayer.
He brushed his long hair with practiced strokes, each tug a soft exhale, as if combing through memory itself. Then, with reverent hands, he gathered the strands, tied them back with a new ribbon—light ivory, like quiet resolve. It was his armor now. His last illusion of control.
Next came the shoes.
Polished until they shone, until they could reflect everything he refused to say. He wiped the surface once more with a cloth, brushing away dust no one else could see.
And finally—he returned to the mirror.
He looked perfect.
Crisp. Sharp. Untouched.
Not a strand out of place. Not a wrinkle on the vest. No trace of what had happened.
But underneath—beneath the suit and the silk and the silence—was the truth.
Bruised hips beneath wool. Bite marks hidden by cotton. A throat wrapped tightly in a buttoned collar, not because of propriety, but because he was terrified someone might see.
He fastened the top button slowly.
Not for fashion.
But to keep the world from reading what had been written on him in hands he never asked for.
He stared at himself. Not in vanity. Not in grief.
But in defiance.
As if daring the mirror to tell the truth.
It didn't.
And so he turned away.
Ready.
Not healed.
But composed.
The morning was pale, like a photograph left too long in the sun.
Shu Yao descended the stairs quietly, one hand skimming the polished banister as though touching something from another life. Each step was slow, deliberate—not out of laziness, but as if the weight of memory had found a home in his bones.
In the kitchen, the light spilled in through lace curtains, gentle and golden, like the sky had forgotten how cruel the night had been.
His mother stood near the stove.
Her flaxen hair was tied into a neat bun, strands of it catching the morning like threads of spun silk. Her latte-brown eyes looked tired—tired not from work, but from a life of holding too many things together with too few hands.
She did not look at him.
She merely placed a plate before the empty chair at the table—an unspoken offering. Toast, cut diagonally. A soft-boiled egg. Slices of fruit arranged like a mosaic someone forgot to admire.
Shu Yao sat down, folding himself gently into the chair, his movements quiet and neat, like an apology he didn't remember making.
He picked up the fork but held it like a stranger.
The food before him blurred.
Not because it was unfamiliar—his mother made this every day—but because memory was sharper than hunger, and his throat tightened the moment he thought of the night again. That sound. The rip. The leather glove against his chest. The laughter that wasn't laughter.
He took one small bite.
It tasted like cardboard.
A sip of tea followed, and even that scalded more than soothed. When he swallowed, his bruised lip stung, and he nearly choked—his body remembering what his mind tried to repress.
Across the room, his mother moved like a ghost of routine—wiping down counters that didn't need cleaning, rinsing cups that hadn't been used. Her eyes never rose to him.
Not once.
Not because she didn't care, but because she didn't see. Not truly. Not in the way that Shu Yao needed to be seen.
Not like she saw Qing Yue.
Shu Yao placed his fork down with a soft clink. The bite he took sat unfinished on porcelain. The rest of the meal lay untouched.
His mother didn't notice the way he winced as he shifted in his seat.
Didn't notice the bluish bruise just visible beneath his lower lip, faint but blooming.
She was too busy chasing time with rags and warm water.
Too busy to wonder why her son looked thinner this morning, or why his eyes were red-rimmed from a night that didn't offer rest.
And so, Shu Yao stood.
He didn't say anything at first—just pushed in the chair with care, as if afraid of making noise.
Then, as he stepped toward the door, he placed one hand on the threshold, pausing as light poured across his knuckles.
His other hand adjusted the collar of his shirt.
Too tight. Too high. But necessary.
It covered what needed hiding.
"I'm off to work," he said quietly.
A pause.
His mother nodded faintly from across the room but said nothing back.
Shu Yao opened the door.
The wind greeted him like a secret. The street was just beginning to stretch its limbs in the soft arms of the morning, unaware of the ache beneath his shirt or the heaviness sitting in his lungs.
He stepped outside, back straight, shoes shined.
A perfect portrait of discipline.
But beneath the pressed vest and neat ribbon in his hair—was a boy still breaking.
And the bruise on his lip still stung with every breath.