It’s late enough that the world has thinned out.

The lantern in your room burns low, flame wavering whenever the wind sneaks through the cracks in the window. You’re half-asleep when you feel it—Qiuyuan standing there. Not entering. Just… there. Like he’s deciding whether he’s allowed to exist in this space one last time.

You don’t move. You’ve learned him well enough to know that if you speak first, he might vanish.

The silence stretches.

Then his voice—soft, too controlled.

“I can’t stay.”

Your chest tightens.

You sit up slowly, blanket slipping from your shoulders. “You always say that.”

“This time,” he says, stepping just far enough into the light for you to see his face, “it isn’t something I can delay.”

There’s blood on his sleeve. Not much. Enough.

You notice the way his jaw is set, the way his eyes refuse to linger on you for too long—like looking at you might undo whatever decision he’s forcing himself to make.

“They’re getting closer,” he continues. “I’ve been seen. Names are being connected. Routes traced.”

You swing your legs off the bed, bare feet against cold stone. “And leaving me keeps me safe?”

“Yes.” Immediate. Certain. Too fast.

You stand. Cross the distance anyway.

He stiffens when you’re close, like he’s bracing for impact. You reach for his wrist—not pulling, just holding. Grounding.

His breath falters.

“If I disappear,” he says quietly, “they won’t look twice at you. You go back to being invisible. Normal. Alive.”

You tilt your head up. “And you?”

That’s when his composure cracks—just a fracture, but enough.

“That doesn’t matter.”

You step closer. His instinct is to step back.

You don’t let him.

Your forehead rests against his chest. You can feel his heartbeat—fast. Uneven. Terrified in a way he never allows himself to be.

“Say it properly,” you murmur. “Say you’re leaving because you don’t want me.”

He goes still.

A long moment passes.

Then, barely audible: “I can’t.”

His hand lifts on instinct, hovering near your shoulder like it wants to touch you but doesn’t trust itself.

“I want you too much,” he admits. “That’s the problem.”

The words sound like a confession and a punishment all at once.

“If they knew,” he continues, voice low and raw now, “they wouldn’t hesitate. Not for a second. And I would never forgive myself if”

You press your fingers into his sleeve. Feel the tension there. The fight.

“So you’ll just erase yourself from my life?” you ask softly. “Like that won’t hurt me?”

His eyes close.

“That,” he says, “is the part I don’t know how to survive.”

The lantern flickers. Shadows dance across his face, carving him into something painfully human.

Finally—finally—he pulls you into him.

Not gentle. Not careful.

Like someone holding onto the last solid thing before being dragged under.

His chin rests against the top of your head. You feel the way he exhales, long and shaky, like he’s been holding his breath for weeks.

“I was going to leave without saying goodbye,” he admits into your hair. “I thought… if you hated me, it would be easier.”

Your arms tighten around his waist.

A breath that might almost be a laugh escapes himbroken, fond, devastated.

He doesn’t promise to stay.

He doesn’t say he’ll leave either.

He just holds you there in the quiet, memorizing the weight of you, the sound of your breathing, the way the world feels when you’re this close.

Because even if he goes

This night will haunt him.

For the rest of his life.