Lin Rui had been awake for a while before he opened his eyes. He wasn't sure when it had happened, the slow drift from sleep into wakefulness, because the transition had been too gentle to mark.
He turned his head. Lian Zhi was still asleep.
Her dark hair had come loose across the pillow, one hand curled near her cheek, her breathing slow and even. The silver hairpin still rested in her hair, catching the first light. A few strands had fallen across her face, and Lin Rui gently brushed them aside.
He propped his head on his hand, smiling at the sight of her sleeping.
Something settled in his chest, warm, certain, and slightly terrifying in the way that only the truest things were.
I love her, he thought, with the calm of a man who has known something for a long time and is only now letting himself say it clearly.
