Morning came not like a promise kept,
but like an excuse whispered at the edge of guilt.
Soft light slithered in through the still-open curtains,
diffused by gauze-thin clouds and indifference.
It was the kind of morning that did not banish night,
only disguised it—
draped in gold and blue, as if to fool the weary into believing time was linear,
and that something new had begun.
But for Shu Yao, the night hadn't ended.
It had simply… changed clothes.
His eyes opened with the violence of stillness.
Bloodshot. Raw.
Lashes clumped with tears that had dried mid-prayer.
Sleep had been a battlefield—again—and this time,
he wasn't sure if he had survived or simply been allowed to crawl out of it.
The body rose,
but the soul stayed curled in a corner of the bed,
refusing to follow.
He moved slowly—
not for lack of urgency,
but because grief makes everything feel as if it's underwater.
Each limb dragged itself into motion like it had questions.
Each joint creaked like it remembered something it shouldn't.
He walked barefoot to the bathroom,
the tiles cold enough to make him flinch.
But pain was familiar.
Pain was true—and unlike dreams, it didn't lie.
Fingers—thin, tremulous—peeled off the pajamas like wet paper from skin.
They slid to the floor in silence,
piling like discarded versions of himself.
The shower knobs turned.
The pipes groaned like old ghosts waking.
Then—
a cold rain, steel-sharp and holy,
crashed down on him.
The water bit at his skin—
and he welcomed it.
Because at least the cold made him feel.
Bruises flared into full color beneath the spray.
Lavenders, golds, and shadowed greens—
like dying galaxies pressed into pale flesh.
Proof.
Artifacts.
Unholy stardust written across a body still too beautiful for what it endured.
He didn't cry.
Not now.
The water was too loud to compete with.
By the time he stepped out,
he was trembling—
but clean in the way only ritual can make you feel clean.
His body slick with droplets,
his breath fogging the mirror that refused to reflect him.
A towel clung to his hips,
barely a suggestion of modesty.
His ribs showed like roots beneath snow.
His collarbones: sharp, elegant knives of grief.
He moved to the wardrobe,
steps slow, deliberate—
like a dancer returning to the stage after the music had stopped.
The armoire yawned open.
Rows of order. Colorless order.
He reached for a suit—always a suit.
Armor masquerading as fashion.
First, the trousers—tailored, slate grey—slid up his legs with mechanical grace.
Then, the shirt.
Always white.
Always white.
Because Shu Yao did not wear color.
Color was emotion, declaration, life.
And he had long learned that silence wore best in ivory.
Button by button,
he closed himself in.
Then the vest—
soft grey, like twilight with no stars.
It hugged him like something that understood silence.
Understood restraint.
Last came the coat.
Dark blue—midnight without the moon.
Elegant. Severe.
It fit him like memory—perfect, inescapable, quietly devastating.
He stood there, dressed and done,
but still unfinished.
A portrait that painted itself in restraint.
A boy in the uniform of a man.
A heart beating behind glass.
Outside, the world had begun its noise—
cars murmuring down streets,
birds trying out songs that didn't belong to sorrow.
But in Shu Yao's room,
the only sound was the soft ticking of a clock
and the whisper of fabric against skin as he adjusted his cuffs,
his throat tight with a scream he no longer bothered naming.
He was ready.
Not for the day.
Not for people.
Not for healing.
But for the motion of it all.
For pretending.
For surviving.
Because the world did not wait for boys with broken nights.
And Shu Yao, wrapped in suit and silence,
was becoming very good at pretending he had survived.
Shu Yao stood before the tall mirror framed in brass and memory, brushing through the soft waterfall of his autumn-colored hair — strands long enough to kiss the small of his back. Each stroke through the silken copper felt like combing through time itself, as if every knot was a year of silence, every smooth length a story untold. He gathered it with pale fingers and tied it back with a ribbon the shade of dusk. Everything was in place — at least on the surface.
Descending the staircase, he moved like a ghost stitched into the morning, his footsteps barely echoing against the marbled steps. Below, the scent of jasmine tea and warm bread lingered in the air like nostalgia. From the dining table, he heard Qing Yue's bright voice, warm and carefree — the sound of someone untouched by ruin.
She sat like a porcelain doll framed by sunlight, laughter coiling around her like garlands. His mother moved gently around her, pouring tea and serving breakfast, the glint of a delicate ring on Qing yue slender finger is catching the morning light. It was beautiful, unbearably so, a cruel reminder of something Shu Yao no longer believed he could have. The ring sparkled like a promise he was never offered, and in his eyes, beauty often came with a price — in this case, the price of aching.
The little cat is nestled at Qing Yue's ankles, blinking sleepily. Shu Yao turned toward the door, wanting nothing more than to escape, to leave before anyone could stop him. The emptiness in his stomach didn't compare to the hollowness gnawing at his chest.
But her voice came, soft and sudden.
"Gege, where are you going?"
He froze mid-step, his fingers tightening around the threshold of the door. Slowly, as if bracing himself against a storm, he turned. Qing Yue was already approaching, concern pooling in her eyes like dew.
"I'll be late," Shu Yao murmured, not meeting her gaze. "I'll eat something outside."
Before the silence could settle again, his mother's voice rose — sharp, clipped, tired of repetition. She was already walking toward him, her eyes narrowed beneath a furrowed brow.
"What is it this time, Shu Yao? This isn't kindergarten. It's a professional world, and people are serious about it. Skipping meals, ignoring people like this won't gonna fix things like this — is this a game to you?"
He wanted to tell her that food tasted like ash when your heart was broken. That every time he thought of Bai Qi's laughter meant for someone else, the taste left his mouth. That some days, even swallowing felt like surrender. But he didn't say any of that. Words like those only ever stayed lodged in his throat.
Instead, he simply said, "I'll eat there."
His mother sighed — the kind of sigh that carried years of unsaid things — and turned away. She couldn't argue with shadows. Not today.
And Shu Yao, quiet and ribboned in restraint, stepped out into a world that would never know how deeply he hurt.
The front door closed behind Shu Yao with a softness that felt like farewell. Morning sunlight stretched across the quiet pavement like golden silk, but for him, each ray was a blade—bright, biting, merciless. His shoes tapped the stone like echoes of hesitation, his long autumn-hued hair stirring faintly in the breeze as if the wind itself knew he was not alright.
With the weight of sleep deprivation bruising his under-eyes and memories clawing at his ribs like hungry ghosts, Shu Yao descended the stone steps one slow motion at a time. His body moved as if underwater, fluid yet reluctant, every step dragging behind the one before—as though his very soul protested the new day.
Fingers trembling slightly, he pulled out his phone, the screen ghost-blue against his pale palm. He opened the cab app not with urgency, but resignation. A digital lifeline in an analog misery.
"Take me to the medical store first," he murmured when the cab finally arrived, his voice barely more than a sigh pressed into words.
The driver gave a quiet nod.
Shu Yao slipped into the backseat like a pressed flower being folded into an old book—delicate, unwilling. The door closed with a low thud, sealing him in a mobile cocoon of silence.
The engine murmured to life, like a beast stirring from slumber, and the city began to scroll past the window—faster than his thoughts, slower than his pain.
And still, in the quiet hum of movement, Shu Yao sat—back arched faintly, hands loose in his lap, head turned toward the passing scenery as though trying to find pieces of himself reflected in shop windows and morning fog.
The cab rolled forward, unaware that it carried a boy whose heart had been running on empty far longer than the fuel tank.
The city outside blurred into a watercolor of motion—streets painted in sunlight and early bustle, yet Shu Yao saw none of it. His gaze was fixed on a window, but his mind had vanished into another frame of time—one shaded with a softer, crueler hue.
It came to him not with a jolt but a drift, like a feather caught in the updraft of memory.
How long had it been? He could still remember it—feel it—as if the moment lived just beneath his skin.
The first time he saw Bai Qi.
Tall. Unapologetically beautiful. A silhouette of stormlight and confidence. He walked like the world owed him something, and perhaps it did. Shu Yao had thought him untouchable then—a marble statue carved by divine resentment and reckless charm.
But Bai Qi hadn't looked at him. Not then. Not even once.
His eyes—those dark, tumultuous orbs—had found Qing Yue instead.
It was always Qing Yue.
Even when Shu Yao had been the one tending to his scraped elbow during that cursed basketball tournament, dabbing the blood with trembling fingers and silent worry. Even when he held Bai Qi's arm like it was something precious—his own hands soft, reverent, betraying a tenderness he never voiced.
Bai Qi had winced at the sting of antiseptic, but not once looked at him.
No. His gaze was anchored elsewhere—on Qing Yue, laughing just a few meters away. The sunlight caught Qing Yue's hair, and Bai Qi smiled. Not at Shu Yao. Never at Shu Yao.
Not from the beginning.
Not even when it should have been.
The ache welled in Shu Yao's chest like a bruise retouched by time—dull, but never healed.
Then the car stuttered gently to a halt.
"We're here," the driver said, voice soft and practical, unknowing that he had severed a ribbon of memory.
Shu Yao blinked, dazed—still halfway in yesterday. "Ah… sorry."
He opened the door with slow fingers, as if each motion required negotiation with his heart. One foot touched the earth, then the other. His coat flared slightly behind him in the morning breeze like a tired wing.
And just like that, the memory faded—leaving only the ghost of a name whispered inside his ribs.
The bell above the pharmacy door chimed like a distant clocktower tolling for a forgotten hour. Shu Yao stepped out into the light,
From the outside, he could have been mistaken for someone seeking remedy—a concerned brother, a friend, a man in pursuit of something gentle. But beneath the fragile illusion, there was a quiet, poisoned truth curling like smoke around his spine.
He wasn't searching for comfort.
He was hunting silence.
The kind that came in glass bottles, labeled in cursive with words like "relief" and "rest," though both were lies. The kind of silence that didn't ask questions. The kind that pressed down on your mind like velvet hands and lulled you into dark, slow drowning.
Not the mercy of sleep—but its counterfeit twin.
The one stitched from chemicals and desperation.
Three bottles. That's what he'd asked for.
"Three," he'd told the man behind the counter, his voice almost apologetic, like someone ordering rope with a smile.
The pharmacist didn't ask questions.
They never did when your eyes looked this tired.
Now, as Shu Yao stood under the pale morning sun, the corner of his mouth pulled into something bitter—too weary to be a smile, too broken to be a frown. A crescent of resignation carved into his face.
He knew what this was.
Not an escape.
Just a postponement.
A small pause between the nightmare's teeth. A forced surrender, because sometimes even your dreams become battlegrounds, and your waking hours offer no sanctuary.
The bag rustled in his hand again as a breeze passed through. Shu Yao didn't flinch. He only looked down at it—this quiet little suicide in slow motion—and began walking back to the car like nothing had happened.
Because in a way, nothing had.
Not yet.