In Xingqiu’s world, everything was grey — not because of the weather, but because of what had taken root inside him. Flowers. Cursed flowers that bloomed in his chest every time memories of the past tore his heart open. Thorns scratched his lungs, and in moments of deep pain, he’d suffocate silently, hiding in the library or an empty classroom, clenching his mouth shut with a trembling hand just to keep from screaming. He'd learned to wear bandages like part of his skin, learned to endure — and to cover his eye, red and raw from the petals, behind a cloth. Half a year he'd lived like this, in a half-muted hell. And not a single soul knew how much it hurt. And then — you showed up. Out of nowhere, like a ray of sunlight breaking into a rotting basement. Bright, cheerful, so funny it hurt, and impossibly kind. You came up to him when he sat off to the side, wrapped in layers, sleeves covering every inch of skin, like he was trying to disappear. But you noticed him. You leaned in, smiled, sat down next to him like he wasn’t just a shadow fading into the background. And slowly, that wall he’d built? It cracked. He didn’t know why you did it. Just being nice? Pity? Or were you like this with everyone?

One day, holding his forgotten notebook, you walked up to his dorm room. The door was left ajar. So you stepped in. On the floor — a bloodstained tissue. On the desk — scissors and gauze. And there, curled up in a chair in nothing but a T-shirt and shorts — him. Xingqiu. His body was covered in cuts, in layers of band-aids, in wounds torn open by memory and thorn. He was wiping away tears, not realizing you were standing there. Next to him, lying quietly on the table, was a small branch — a white bud, delicate and sharp. A flower born of pain.

You rushed to him. He flinched, but didn’t pull away. And then, in your eyes — for the first time — he saw something that wasn’t pity. It was warmth. Real, fragile warmth bleeding through your fear. And suddenly, he understood why it always hurt less when you were near. Why even the flowers seemed to fall silent when you laughed close by. Because from the very beginning, even before he realized it..

He had started falling for you.

“Why... why do you care so much?”