Yan xiu's pov
Married.
The word settled somewhere in my chest, heavy but strangely hollow — like a room I was told belonged to me, yet I couldn't remember entering.
I studied her face carefully.
She didn't look like someone making a claim.
She looked like someone carrying something fragile… and trying not to drop it.
Her hand rested lightly over mine. Warm. Careful. As if she was asking permission without speaking.
If she was lying… why did her fingers tremble?
If she was telling the truth… why did my heart remain quiet?
I searched my mind for even a fragment — a memory, a voice, a feeling attached to her name.
Nothing.
Only a faint, unexplainable awareness… like recognizing a melody without remembering the song
She said we lived together
I glanced at her again. There was no expectation in her eyes. No demand to be remembered. No grief forced upon me.
Just presence.
That unsettled me more than tears would have.
"…Do you always speak this softly?" I asked before I could stop myself.
Her expression flickered — surprise, then something gentler.
I didn't know why I asked.
I didn't know why it mattered.
But for reasons I couldn't explain, silence felt wrong when she stood beside me.
My gaze dropped to where her hand covered mine.
It didn't feel unfamiliar.
It felt… unanswered.
And for the first time since waking up, I wondered not what I had forgotten—
—but what I was supposed to feel.