Morning was born with a discreet white over the rooftops. Yesterday's snow still rested on eaves and on the street wires, as if winter had taken a deep breath and forgotten to let it out. In Yuyan's house, the silence smelled of freshly brewed tea.
She woke before the alarm, the memory of the touch still on her forehead—so light it felt more like a memory than a gesture. She sat up slowly, her heart keeping time like someone listening to a song only she could hear. On the chair, the blue dress lay folded, and hanging on the back, her grandmother's old shawl. Simple objects, but in that moment they held something rare: the feeling of having been seen.
In the kitchen, Lin Meilan was already stirring the porridge. Steam rose in fine threads, and the morning's cold light made everything sharper.
— Did you sleep well? — her mother asked, without raising her voice much.
— I did. — Yuyan drank her glass of warm water like honoring a ritual. — The cold made the night… prettier.
Meilan lifted her eyes over the steam, a discreet smile touching the corners of her mouth.
— The first snow has that vanity. — She stirred a bit more, then served two bowls. — So… how's the scarf?
Yuyan set down her spoon, surprised by the direct question. Her mother rarely pressed.
— Warm — she answered, but her eyes could not hide it.
— Hm. — Meilan held her own bowl, blowing on it. — The warmth that's worth it almost always comes from careful hands.
A soft silence followed. Yuyan wanted to say more, but chose to keep it. Sometimes, a memory needs a whole day to learn how to fit.
At the hospital, Tuesday arrived with hurried corridors and breaths hidden behind masks. Outside, the snow was melting slowly; inside, time returned to its usual rhythm.
At shift change, Xiaoqing appeared with her hair in a rushed bun and eyes shining with more coffee than sleep.
— Good morning, Lady First Snow. — She leaned over the counter, conspiratorial. — So?
— So… thank you for yesterday. — Yuyan tried to dodge, pulling charts. — Whenever you want, I'll cover your Sunday.
— Don't run. — Xiaoqing propped an elbow on the counter, chin in hand. — Was it beautiful?
Yuyan was quiet for a few seconds, as if choosing words with tweezers.
— It was… simple. And unforgettable. — She smiled, softly. — He took me to dinner. And… — her eyes searched for any point on the wall clock — …he said good night… on my forehead.
Xiaoqing pressed a hand to her chest, theatrical.
— Oh no. That's much worse than I thought.
— Worse?
— Worse in the sense of better. A kiss on the forehead is an ancient decree. It means "I respect you more than I can say." — She made a face that melts and laughed. — I'm officially defeated.
Yuyan bit her lip, trying to hold back the blush. Before her friend could dig deeper, the ward's discreet buzzer drew their attention.
Mrs. Qian sat in her usual armchair, a thick coat over her knees. She had come only to see a result. Yuyan approached with the clipboard.
— Mrs. Qian… good morning. — The same sweet tone as always. — How was the night?
— Cold. — The older woman clasped her hands, then relaxed at the sight of the nurse's face. — But… pretty. The children at the orphanage will like the snow that's left in the yard. — She winked. — You're different, too. Eyes get like that when someone looks at you properly.
Yuyan blushed again. Mrs. Qian needed no lab for certain diagnoses.
— Shall we look at your tests? — she diverted gently.
While reading, the phone in her pocket buzzed once—that short, uninsistent alert. She didn't look then; she finished explaining, marked a dose on the chart, adjusted the cushion under the old woman's arm, and only then leaned discreetly against the corridor wall to check the screen.
"Boarding at 2 p.m. Thank you for yesterday. The snow is still with me. — W."
Her heart, so trained to hold the shift together, forgot for a second where to store things.
Her fingers typed calmly:
"Have a good trip. May the sky be clear and the plane tea bearable. The snow… stayed with me too."
She erased the tea part. Rewrote:
"Have a good trip. If it's cold, wear the scarf. The snow… stayed with me too."
She sent it. Put the phone away. Breathed.
— Well? — Xiaoqing appeared as someone who knows the exact moment to show up. — News from the North?
— Not from the North. — Yuyan held back a smile. — Just… travel.
— Two weeks go fast when we're busy. — Her friend touched her shoulder. — If they don't, we invent work. I'm good at that.
Across the city, the campus still held glints of ice along the lake's edge. Wen walked early to the lab, closed two folders, breathed the familiar smell of reagents, and calmly turned off the lights. Li Cheng waited for him at the door, coat open and gloves in hand.
— I've prepared all my trivial advice, professor. — Li smiled, handing him a small package. — Decent jasmine tea. To avoid tragedies in hotels that believe in soulless tea bags.
— Thank you. — Wen tucked it carefully into his backpack. — I promise not to attend bad lectures without your consent.
— I feel much safer. — Li leaned in, half serious. — And… take care of your heart. — He paused. — It's been running higher than your head. Not that I'm complaining.
Wen lowered his eyes, a corner-smile saved.
— I won't run.
— Run? — Li laughed — You? Your problem is the opposite. — He squeezed his friend's shoulder. — Go. Before I decide to come along just to document the next chapters.
In the taxi, Wen rested his head on the backrest and let the city pass, winter-pale, like a silent film. The black scarf warmed his neck with a temperature hard to name. It was wool. It was gesture. It was memory. It was everything at once.
At the gate, he sat by the window. The glass still held a film of cold; outside, wet asphalt drew shadows. His phone vibrated.
"Have a good trip. If it's cold, wear the scarf. The snow… stayed with me too."
He read it again. His hand found the fabric and squeezed, imperceptibly.
He typed, erased, typed again.
"I will. Thank you for yesterday. For coming. — W."
He stopped. "Thank you" felt small. "For coming" was almost everything.
He sent it.
Two seats ahead, a child counted flakes stuck to the edge of the window as if they were stars. Wen smiled inwardly. Not everything that falls is loss. Sometimes, it's a beginning.
Hours at the hospital had the magical ability to stretch and contract without warning. Midafternoon, Yuyan crossed the geriatric ward with the clipboard against her chest. In the corridor, a young man in a dark scarf hurried past; for a second, her heart quickened its step—then understood. It wasn't him. And it was okay that it wasn't.
On her break, she went down to the cafeteria. The kettle sent up steam like a small mountain; she chose chrysanthemum, more for memory than thirst. She sat near the window and noticed the snow lingering in patches on the lawn, like blank paragraphs.
Xiaoqing arrived with a wobbly tray of pastries.
— Last thing before I explode. — She set a pastry on Yuyan's saucer. — You said… dinner. You said… kiss on the forehead. You said… snow. I need one noun for the look on his face when he looked at you.
Yuyan laughed, defeated.
— Relief.
— Relief? — Her friend's eyes lit up. — Then he was also waiting for the world to finally say yes.
— I think so. — Yuyan looked at her tea, hand around the porcelain. — That's how I felt. As if, for a moment, everything clicked into place.
— Good. — Xiaoqing bit into the pastry, satisfied. — Now, two weeks of waiting isn't a punishment. It's a forge. — She raised her brows. — Look at me being philosophical.
— Sometimes you get it right. — Yuyan smiled, resting her chin on her hand. — Only sometimes.
Night fell early, as winter nights do. On the veranda at home, Yuyan brought a blanket for her legs and set her phone on the small table. The street, quiet, had the same light as when she was a girl waiting for her grandmother to switch on the backyard lamp. The sky, clear, let the moon appear with a glow that didn't sting.
She opened the app where she wrote, that old house of faceless texts. The blank page looked back at her, patient. Her fingers went, like someone learning to walk:
"Nothing should be said about the first snow. One keeps it.
There are gestures that warm more than hearths. A touch on the forehead. An 'I arrived safely.' An 'I'll be back.'
Winter is not absence. It's the way time teaches us to wait.
— Silent Flower"
She reread. Changed nothing. Posted.
She put the phone away. Spent a few minutes just looking at the sky, as if listening to the city breathe. Then went in, heated water, let chrysanthemum petals open in the cup, and returned to the veranda, where the steam drew small ghosts in the air.
The phone vibrated again, a brief buzz that didn't demand.
"Li." — flashed on the screen. The message was a photo: a blurred angle of a hotel window, cold light, and on the table a mug with a torn tea bag and, beside it, a small crumpled packet of jasmine. Below, the caption: "Emergency interventions."
Yuyan laughed to herself. She replied with a tea leaf emoji and a snowflake.
Almost immediately, another notification. Not from Li.
"'Nothing should be said about the first snow. One keeps it.' — Thank you. — W."
That was all. And it was a lot.
She didn't reply. Not out of calculation, but respect. Some words ask for silence around them to last longer.
In the hotel room, Wen took off his coat and hung it on the back of the chair. The room had the impersonality of an old photograph: pale desk, heavy curtains, a sentry-straight armchair, a bed made too perfectly. He put the tea packet Li had given him into a cup, turned on the travel kettle, and opened his laptop to review the next day's schedule.
Before surrendering to spreadsheets, he clicked his favorite bookmark. The new text was there. He read slowly, like someone pressing their forehead to a cold window.
"There are gestures that warm more than hearths."
His fingers, disciplined not to send unnecessary messages, couldn't resist a heart. It wasn't much. It was exact.
He thought of saying more. Set his hands on the keyboard and typed: "I felt as if the city had stopped. For the first time in many years, a birthday stopped being one day less and became a day that begins."
He deleted it. Closed the laptop, drank the jasmine tea unhurriedly, then leaned his head on the armchair and let his body learn the shape of a strange bed. Before turning off the light, he quietly pulled the scarf over the chair, as if making sure something on the far side still held this side.
The following days ran along different lines. For Yuyan, hours were full of small cares: adjusting pillows, translating difficult terms for overwhelmed families, recognizing discreet fevers in the depths of a gaze. Sometimes, on breaks, she looked at the snow turning to water along the garden edges and thought it was a kind of longing: it evaporates, but returns under another sky.
For Wen, time was made of auditoriums and similar voices, questions he also asked inwardly, corridors with memoryless carpet. Between panels, he received a photo from Li: Xiaoqing and him in the cafeteria, each holding a makeshift paper sign — "Work" on Li's; "But think of her" on Xiaoqing's. He laughed to himself, the laugh that doesn't reach the lips, only lights the eyes.
Between a roundtable and another, he sent a short message:
"Back on the 28th. Bringing real tea."
The reply came as he crossed the street back to the hotel:
"We'll be here. The tea… I'll brew."
He read the word "we'll" more than once. Inside it, there was an entire home.
On the eve of his return, the sky over Wen's city was clear, and the cold thinned the sound of the air. He walked to a small bridge—the kind that connects nothing to nowhere—and stood there a few minutes, hands in his pockets, breath sketching little shapes. He tried to name what he felt. It wasn't euphoria. It wasn't fear. It was something rare: anxious peace.
Back in the room, he packed with his usual precision, checked his ticket, and turned off the lights without looking back. There were new learnings he would leave on the papers; there was an old memory he would carry at his neck.
That night, in Suzhou, Yuyan finished her shift late. The city glittered with tiny lights over the water, and the moon seemed closer. She walked home slowly, feeling the sharp air nip the skin with gentleness. At the gate, her mother opened before she could call.
— Coming in late… but lighter. — Meilan looked at her daughter's hands. — Want tea?
— Yes. Jasmine. — Yuyan smiled, and her mother, who didn't know the details, recognized the shape of the smile.
After her bath, Yuyan went to the bedroom window. On the hanger, the blue dress awaited the next courage. On the nightstand, her phone vibrated once — a flight confirmed, a distance collapsing into hours.
She rested her forehead against the cold glass and, unhurried, spoke softly to the night:
— I'll wait.
On the other side, in a hotel room that was already beginning to stop being one, Wen closed his eyes for a second and answered the dark:
— I'll come back.
Between one sky and another, the same moon. Between snow and waiting, the same silence — not the one that hushes, the one that keeps. And that is how some stories cross the weeks: not asking for noise, but learning to breathe together. Even far apart. Even quiet. Even now.