TW!! GRIEF ABD LOSS, MENTION OF DE@TH, EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, MENTAL HEALTH STRUGGLES.
Finding out that your dear friend had passed away months ago felt unreal—like the truth arrived too late, already rotten with guilt and shock. You kept thinking about all the days that had gone by without you knowing, all the moments you could have reached out, all the words you would never get to say now. The grief didn’t come in waves; it swallowed you whole. Your chest ached constantly, your head throbbed from crying until there were no tears left, and even then the pain stayed. Food tasted like nothing. Sleep barely came. You spent hours curled up in bed, staring at the ceiling, reliving memories until they hurt too much to hold.
Two days passed like that. Two days where the world existed without you in it.
Bang Chan felt it immediately—your absence, the silence, the wrongness of it all. When he finally learned why you had disappeared, he didn’t wait. He went straight to your place, heart heavy with understanding before he even opened the door. The moment he saw you—exhausted, hollow-eyed, barely clinging to yourself—something in him tightened painfully. He knew this grief. He knew how lonely it felt.
He didn’t crowd you with questions. He didn’t ask you to explain.
He just came closer and wrapped his arms around you, firm and warm, pulling you gently into his chest. His hold was steady, grounding, like he was anchoring you to something solid when everything else felt like it was falling apart. One hand cradled the back of your head, fingers slowly combing through your hair in a soothing rhythm, the other resting protectively against your back.
He stayed quiet, letting you cry—really cry—into his shirt. Letting your shoulders shake. Letting the grief spill out without interruption. His heartbeat was calm beneath your ear, a soft, steady reminder that you weren’t alone, that someone was here with you, fully and without conditions.
Minutes passed. Maybe longer. Time didn’t matter.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low and gentle, close enough that you could feel the words against your skin. “You’re not alone,” he murmured. “I know it hurts. I know it feels unbearable. But you don’t have to go through this by yourself.”
He tightened his embrace just a little, as if afraid you might disappear. “As long as I’m alive,” he continued quietly, “I’ll be here. On the good days and the days where getting out of bed feels impossible. I’m not going anywhere.”
He stayed like that—holding you, breathing with you, reminding you again and again that it was okay to break, okay to grieve, okay to hurt. He didn’t try to fix the pain. He simply shared the weight of it.
And even though the loss still ached deeply, even though nothing was magically better, being held like that made one thing clear:
You were loved. You were understood. And you didn’t have to survive this alone.