It had been one year.
One long, bruised year since Bai Qi fell in love with Qing Yue.
And Shu Yao had been smiling ever since.
He sat by the classroom window that afternoon, head tilted slightly against his hand, as though the weight of silence needed propping up. The golden sunlight spilled across his long brown hair — strands falling like soft ribbons against his cheekbones. He looked like someone who belonged in a painting: half-forgotten, half-remembered, but never truly seen.
Outside, in the courtyard where late cherry blossoms still clung to their branches, Bai Qi laughed again. That laugh — deep, rough around the edges, familiar like a favorite song left on repeat. His black, tousled hair curled slightly at the ends, cut like a wolf who didn't care to be tamed. He wore his uniform sloppily as always, collar open, sleeves slightly rolled. Every girl still turned to look. Every heart still beat a little faster when he passed.
But his gaze, every time — every damn time — found only her.
Qing Yue.
She was standing with one hand on her hip, her school skirt catching in the breeze, her short raven hair framing a pale, perfect face. There was something lunar about her — distant, beautiful, unbothered by gravity. She didn't need to try. People fell into her orbit without permission.
And Bai Qi had never even tried to escape it.
Shu Yao's fingers curled tighter around his pen, pressing against the page of his notebook. He was supposed to be taking notes, but the words blurred. His pen moved anyway — not in class strokes, but gentle loops. A name. A heartbeat. A memory.
> You once looked at me like I was enough.
I still wonder if you meant it.
He had never told anyone. Not even Qing Yue. Especially not her.
She would've laughed, or worse — pitied him.
He told no one how he used to wait by the school gates in first year, just to see Bai Qi arrive.
How his heart stuttered the first time Bai Qi called his name, just a simple, lazy "Shu Yao—" with that warm grin.
How that same voice now called his sister "baobei", and made her laugh in a way Shu Yao never could.
Love wasn't the fire people claimed it to be.
Sometimes it was just ash, soft and clinging, choking you quietly day after day.
The classroom emptied slowly after the bell, but Shu Yao didn't move. The light shifted, brushing shadows against the floor. Outside, Bai Qi and Qing Yue walked ahead together — side by side like they were made to match. Their hands brushed. She blushed. He smirked. They didn't look back.
They never did.
And Shu Yao stayed behind like he always did, watching, waiting, writing things he'd never say.
That night, the journal came open again under his lamp's quiet glow. Shu Yao's handwriting curved softly across the page, like whispered confessions spoken only to ink.
"It's getting harder to pretend I don't care."
"She wears the smile you gave her. I wear the silence you left behind."
"I think I'm disappearing."
His pen paused.
Then, gently, he signed it like he always did — not with his name, but a small crescent moon in the corner.
A secret.
A scar.
A promise to keep going.
Even if no one ever knew.
That night, Shu Yao sat hunched over his desk, the pen between his fingers unmoving.
The page stared back — blank, cold, merciless.
He had tried. Again.
To write. To speak. To pour out the ache clawing inside his chest.
But tonight, the words would not come.
Not even a line.
Not even a lie.
His knuckles whitened as he pressed harder, but still, the ink refused to move. Like his body had finally grown tired of pretending, even for paper.
And then, it cracked.
Not loudly. Not with fury.
But with the sound of breath hitching in the back of his throat.
His shoulders trembled first. Then his lips quivered.
And just like that, the smile collapsed.
He pressed both hands over his face and cried.
Silently.
Violently.
Like the air itself couldn't bear witness.
> "Why not me…?"
"Why does it have to be her?"
"Why do I always come second…?"
His sobs were muffled in the sleeves of his uniform. His long hair clung to the wetness on his cheeks. The lamp flickered once, but he didn't notice. The room felt too full, and too empty, all at once.
He cried for everything he had never been given.
For the way Bai Qi looked at her with eyes that once—just once—had looked at him.
For the way Qing Yue could take up space without apologizing, while he shrank himself smaller each day.
For the way he tried so hard to be good, kind, patient, loving — and still remained invisible.
She had everything he should have had.
The spotlight.
The love.
The voice.
And maybe that wasn't fair to her. Maybe it wasn't her fault.
But fairness didn't stop pain from blooming.
He cried until his throat burned.
Until his pillow was soaked.
Until the edges of his thoughts blurred, drifting into a fog of sleep and sorrow.
No one heard him.
No one knocked.
There were no stars that night.
Only a moonless sky, and a boy who loved too much in silence.
And by morning, the page was still blank.
Only a faint fingerprint of a teardrop remained in the corner.
The crescent moon he always drew in ink —
this time, he didn't.
That night, sleep did not come gently.
It dragged Shu Yao into a place that was quiet — too quiet.
A field of white, endless and glowing like moonlit mist. No sound. No wind. Only the soft hush of something waiting.
In the distance, a figure stood beneath a flowering tree.
He wore white.
A groom.
Handsome, tall, black hair styled perfectly with that familiar careless edge — it was Bai Qi.
Smiling.
Waiting.
Shu Yao felt his feet move, though he wasn't walking. The dream carried him forward like silk water. His hands trembled, but something in him bloomed — a fragile hope, reckless and foolish.
Bai Qi was looking at him.
Straight at him.
No one else was there. No Qing Yue. No crowd. Just the two of them in a world made of light.
Shu Yao's lips parted, his heart thundering quietly like it always had.
He took a step closer — just one.
And then—
She appeared.
Like fog peeling away from the earth, she stepped forward in a gown of silver and stars.
Qing Yue.
Her hair was pinned with pearls, her smile soft as moonlight, her beauty dream-forged and cruel. She glowed like something not meant to be touched — something Shu Yao could never become.
Bai Qi's gaze left him.
Shifted.
Lit up.
> He had never been looking at me.
She was behind me. She was always behind me.
Shu Yao didn't move.
He couldn't.
He watched, frozen, as Bai Qi held out his hands — and Qing Yue walked into them like she belonged there.
They kissed.
Right there, in front of the flowering tree, beneath skies that had no stars.
Two silhouettes merging into one.
And Shu Yao… stood alone.
Eyes wide. Lips trembling.
His tears in the dream were real.
Too real.
They slid slowly down his face, salt in a place that had no sea.
He smiled — a broken thing, stretched too far.
Even in his dreams,
he smiled.
"Congratulations," he whispered.
"You finally got your forever."
And then the dream fell apart like paper in rain —
and Shu Yao woke to a cold pillow, and silence thick as mourning.