The door clicked shut, a soft, almost imperceptible sound that echoed like a thunderclap in the vast, silent VIP hospital room.
Li Hao sat rigidly on the edge of the plush sofa, the rich leather suddenly feeling cold and unyielding beneath him. The space, designed for comfort and luxury, now felt like a gilded cage, trapping him with his own suffocating thoughts.
He stared at the empty bed, the crisp white sheets still bearing the faint indentations where Yu Han had lain just hours ago. Yu Han, whose face had been etched with such pain.
Yu Han, who had left with Yang Zi, a protective arm around him, not even sparing Li Hao a glance. The image burned behind Li Hao's eyelids, a constant, searing reminder of his colossal failure.
Last night. The memory was a jagged shard of glass in his heart. The words he'd spat, the senseless cruelty. He had wanted to control, dominate, possess, and in doing so, he had shattered everything. He had seen the fear, the hurt, the absolute desolation in Yu Han's eyes, and had done nothing but inflict more.
A hollow ache settled deep in his chest. He liked Yu Han. No, that was an understatement. He loved Yu Han.
A fierce, possessive, desperate love that he hadn't known how to express without causing damage. He had seen Yu Han's vulnerability, his quiet strength, his unwavering loyalty, and had been drawn to it like a moth to a flame, only to burn them both.
"He hates me," Li Hao murmured to the empty room, his voice hoarse, barely a whisper.
"He has every right to." The thought was a crushing weight, heavier than any business loss, any familial disapproval. He had pushed Yu Han away, irrevocably.
The image of Yu Han leaning into Yang Zi's comfort was a dagger twist. He knew, with a chilling certainty, that he had lost him forever.
A soft knock came from the door, startling Li Hao out of his stupor. Gang Zi, his ever-present assistant, entered hesitantly, his usual confident demeanor subdued.
He took in Li Hao's slumped posture, the haunted look in his eyes, and the lingering scent of antiseptic and despair.
"Mr. Li," Gang Zi began, his voice gentle, almost apologetic. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but… your father wants to meet you."
Li Hao's jaw tightened. His father. The last person he wanted to see, to face. Especially now, when his own actions felt so unforgivable, so utterly shameful.
His father, who had always preached control, dominance, strategy. Li Hao had spectacularly failed on every single count when it came to Yu Han.
"Where?" Li Hao managed to choke out, his voice devoid of emotion. He didn't want to respond, didn't want to move, but the ingrained obedience kicked in.
He rose slowly, his limbs feeling heavy, disconnected. He didn't wait for Gang Zi's answer, just walked past him, a phantom pain in his chest, heading towards the waiting car. He settled into the backseat, staring blankly out the window as the cityscape blurred past.
The drive to his father's sprawling estate felt interminable. Each passing minute was a drag, a reminder of the chasm that had opened between him and Yu Han.
He imagined Yu Han now, safe with Yang Zi, perhaps finally finding some peace, away from the chaos Li Hao brought. The thought brought another sharp pang.
When they arrived, the house loomed, grand and imposing, just like its owner. Li Hao walked into his father's study, a room steeped in the scent of old money, leather, and unspoken expectations.
His father, Mr. Li, sat behind a colossal mahogany desk, his expression a familiar mask of stern authority.
"You're here," Mr. Li stated, his voice flat, emotionless. He pushed a thick stack of documents across the polished surface. "These are for the meeting tomorrow. You need to sign them."
Li Hao picked up the documents, his fingers brushing against the crisp paper.
He flipped through the pages, his eyes scanning the legalese. Then, a specific paragraph caught his attention, stark and undeniable.
"...transferring all shares and proprietary rights of the Beijing branch of Li Corporation to CEO Shi Wang..."
Li Hao's eyes shot open, a jolt of raw shock piercing through the fog of his grief. The Beijing branch. Their flagship operation.
To Shi Wang? The audaciousness, the sheer power play. He looked up, a question brewing, but held his tongue. He had no right to question anything right now. He had just proven himself utterly incapable of managing anything, let alone a valuable asset.
His father observed his reaction, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes.
"Effective immediately," he continued, his voice cold. "Get ready to manage the Thailand branch. Your departure is by the end of the month."
Thailand. Halfway across the world. A demotion, a banishment. A clear message.
But unexpectedly, a strange sense of detachment washed over Li Hao. "What did it matter? What did any of it matter without Yu Han?" The anger and indignation that might have flared up earlier were dead, extinguished by the crushing weight of his own guilt.
He didn't say anything. He simply nodded, laid the documents back on the desk, and turned to leave. His father watched him go, a silent, disapproving observer to his son's broken state.
Hours later, Li Hao found himself back in the sterile luxury of his own house. The city lights twinkled outside, indifferent to his turmoil. He loosened his tie, the silk suddenly feeling constricting around his throat, and sank onto the vast, empty sofa. He leaned back, the soft cushions offering no real comfort, and closed his eyes.
The silence of the apartment was deafening, amplifying the cacophony of his thoughts. Yu Han. Always Yu Han.
"He hates me." The words echoed again, an unbearable truth. "I can't hurt him anymore."
That was the central, agonizing point. Every time he tried to reach out, to express, to connect, he seemed to only cause more pain, more suffering. He was a poison in Yu Han's life, a destructive force he couldn't control.
"I can't able to meet Yu Han again," he whispered into the quiet room, the admission tearing at his heart.
The thought of a future without Yu Han, without even the possibility of seeing him, was a stark, bleak landscape.
He pictured Yu Han's gentle smile, the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed, the small, almost imperceptible signs of affection he'd unknowingly craved. Now, those images were just phantoms, haunting him.
He wished he could undo it all. Wish he could rewind to the moment he first saw Yu Han, and handle everything differently. But there was no going back.
"It's good for Yu Han if he stays away from me." The thought was both selfless and self-inflicted torture. He loved Yu Han so intensely, so desperately, that the idea of letting him go, of giving him up, felt like tearing a part of his soul out.
But what was his love worth if it only brought Yu Han misery? What kind of love was that?
A single tear escaped, tracing a hot path down his temple. He didn't bother to wipe it away. He had to be strong, not for himself, but for Yu Han. He had to make the ultimate sacrifice. He had to remove himself from Yu Han's orbit entirely.
And in that moment, slumped on his sofa, bathed in the cold glow of the city, Li Hao made a decision. A decision born of remorse, guilt, and a love so profound it hurt. "I would leave China. I would get away from Yu Han."
This is the only way. He repeated it like a mantra, a penance. This is the only way I can't hurt Yu Han anymore.
The words tasted like ash, but he knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that it was true. He would abandon everything, his position, his family's expectations, his own desires, all for the one person he truly loved.
He would disappear, so Yu Han could finally be free. The cost to himself was immense, a gaping wound where his heart used to be, but for Yu Han, it was a price he was willing to pay.
____________________
Days bled into nights with a quiet, oppressive sameness for Li Hao. He hadn't seen Yu Han since their last tense encounter, and a part of him dreaded the thought.
Each glimpse, each breath shared in the same room, felt like an open wound that refused to scab over.
To see Yu Han, to be so close yet so impossibly far, would only twist the knife deeper. He knew, with a certainty that gnawed at his gut, that he couldn't leave Yu Han entirely, not while his heart still clung to the phantom warmth of their brief intimacy, yet he also knew he had to. The contradiction was a constant, suffocating weight.
One evening, the night before Li Hao's scheduled departure to Thailand,
Shi Wang found himself outside Yang Zi's apartment. He pressed the doorbell with an easy familiarity, having made it a habit to check in on Yu Han, and by extension, Yang Zi, ever since Yu Han's accident.
He knew Yang Zi wouldn't leave Yu Han alone, and he also knew Yang Zi rarely cooked more than was strictly necessary.
The door creaked open, and Yang Zi's eyes, already narrowed, rolled skyward. "You again?" he grumbled, his voice laced with practiced annoyance.
Shi Wang simply held up a couple of takeaway bags, their contents still radiating heat. "I'm hungry. Let's eat." He offered no further explanation, just a wide, disarming grin.
Yang Zi sighed, a sound of resignation, but stepped aside to allow him entry. "Shoes outside," he commanded, pointing a stern finger at Shi Wang's feet, already halfway over the threshold.
Shi Wang complied, kicking off his expensive shoes with a theatrical flourish before padding in in his socks.
Yu Han sat on the living room sofa, his fractured leg propped up on a cushion, a book in his lap that he wasn't really reading.
He looked a little paler than usual, a quiet solemnity about him that spoke of enforced idleness and lingering discomfort.
Shi Wang settled onto the armrest near Yu Han, a casual proximity that Yang Zi usually tolerated. "Hey, Yu Han. How's the leg doing?"
Yu Han managed a faint smile. "Much better, thanks, Shi Wang." His voice was soft, a little distant.
Yang Zi, meanwhile, was already arranging plates on the small coffee table, the clatter of ceramic a counterpoint to the quiet hum of the apartment. They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, the warmth of the food a small comfort.
Then, Shi Wang, seemingly without thinking, casually dropped the bomb. "Oh, by the way," he began, spearing a piece of chicken. "Li Hao's going to Thailand tomorrow."
The words hung in the air, suddenly heavier than the steam from their dinner.
Yang Zi nearly choked on his rice. He shot Shi Wang a glare so fierce it could have melted steel. "Don't take his name in front of me!" he hissed, pinching Shi Wang's arm hard enough to make him yelp. "I hate him! I hate him very much!"
But Yu Han, who had been lifting a spoonful of soup to his lips, froze. His hand stopped midway, the spoon trembling slightly.
The sudden, vehement outburst from Yang Zi barely registered. All he heard was Li Hao's name, and the word 'Thailand'.
"Is he… is he really going to Thailand?" Yu Han's voice was barely a whisper, a strange, choked sound he didn't recognize. His eyes, usually sharp, were wide with an unexpected alarm. "When will he come back?"
Shi Wang, oblivious to the ripple he'd caused, merely shrugged, still rubbing his pinched arm. "Uhh, maybe never." He said it so casually, as if talking about the weather.
The words "maybe never" landed with the force of a physical blow.
Yu Han's heart, which he hadn't realized was holding its breath, seemed to skip a beat, then drop into a hollow, aching space in his chest.
His face, already a touch pale, blanched further, draining of all color. It wasn't anger he felt, or even the resentment he'd carefully cultivated. It was a cold dread, a sudden, desolate void opening up where he hadn't known anything existed before.
He didn't know what this feeling was, this sudden, profound sense of loss that washed over him. The thought of Li Hao simply vanishing, of that presence, however complicated and painful, being entirely gone, left him feeling disoriented, as though the ground beneath him had shifted.
He didn't speak another word during the rest of the meal, picking at his food, the taste suddenly bland and unappealing.
He was distantly aware of Yang Zi's continued grumbling and Shi Wang's attempts to lighten the mood, but their words felt muffled, distant. His mind was elsewhere, grappling with the disquieting echo of "maybe never."
Hours later, Yu Han lay in his bed, the darkness of his room a vast, suffocating space. Sleep was a distant, unreachable shore. His mind churned, replaying not just Shi Wang's casual pronouncement, but every interaction, every word, every charged glance he'd shared with Li Hao.
"He wants to sleep with me." That had been the dominant thought, the easiest explanation for all of Li Hao's intrusive kindness, his unsolicited care.
The paid hospital bills, the attentive presence, the quiet strength that had somehow made the chaos of his accident more bearable—he'd dismissed it all through the lens of suspicion, convinced it was just a means to an end.
"I overreacted", he thought now, a fresh wave of self-doubt washing over him. "Had I truly? Had I been so quick to judge, to push away, that I'd misunderstood?"
The contradictory feelings were overwhelming. He had told himself Li Hao's care was manipulative, a predatory move.
Yet, in the face of his imminent, permanent departure, those accusations felt flimsy, inadequate.
He remembered Li Hao's gentle eyes, the way his voice softened when he asked about his pain, the unexpected comfort of his large hand on his arm.
"Was that only to get into his bed?" Or was there something else, something deeper and more genuine that Yu Han, in his hurt and confusion, had wilfully ignored?
The sudden fear that he might never get to truly understand, that the opportunity for clarity would simply vanish, left a bitter taste in his mouth. He realized, with a startling clarity that sent a shiver down his spine, that he didn't want Li Hao to leave, at least not like this, not with so many unspoken questions hanging between them.
The clock on his bedside table glowed faintly, marking the relentless march of time.
1:00 AM. 2:00 AM. 3:00 AM.
Each tick a reminder that Li Hao was slipping further away. He tossed and turned, his leg aching, but it was nothing compared to the ache in his chest.
Finally, at around 3:30 in the morning, exhausted by the relentless storm in his mind, Yu Han drifted into a fitful sleep.
It couldn't have been more than an hour later when a gentle, almost imperceptible touch startled him awake.
He felt a large hand, surprisingly soft, brushing through his hair, a feather-light caress that sent a jolt of alarm and… something else, something deeply familiar, through him.
His eyes snapped open, wide and disoriented in the pitch-black room. He couldn't see, but the touch, the warmth, was undeniably…
He immediately pushed himself up, heart pounding against his ribs, a surge of adrenaline cutting through the lingering haze of sleep.
"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice a hoarse whisper, laced with a mix of fear and an undeniable recognition.
As he scrabbled for the switch on his bedside table lamp, his fingers fumbling in the dark, a sudden burst of light illuminated the corner of his room.
And there, standing next to his bed, his eyes dark and shadowed, was Li Hao.
The shock was visceral, a gasp caught in Yu Han's throat as he stared, speechless, at the man who was supposed to be leaving for Thailand in mere hours.