She's not picking up. Maybe she's busy…
Beichuan bites his lip and sets the phone face down on the table.
Stop overthinking Focus.
He turns back to the decorations. It had taken him two hours to get the office to look like this — subtle enough that she wouldn't immediately bolt, personal enough that she'd understand what he meant. He knew her. Grand gestures would only make her uncomfortable.
He glances at the small box sitting on the corner of the table. The ring inside catches the light faintly.
Today He'd told himself that every day for six months. But tonight he actually meant it.
He dials her number again.
It rings. And rings.
Then voicemail.
The sinking feeling in his chest grows heavier. He sets the phone down and exhales slowly.
She's probably still at the restaurant. It's loud. She didn't hear it.
He keeps decorating.
An hour passes.
Beichuan picks up the ring, turning it slowly between his fingers, anticipation fluttering in his chest.
What if she says no
What if she laughs.
What if she—
His phone rings.
His heart leaps— Ran—
He grabs it.
Luo Xiao.
The anticipation deflates quietly. He answers anyway.
"Hey… Chuan." A pause. Something in Luo Xiao's voice is wrong. "Um… something happened. Team Lead… she was in an accident—"
The rest of the words blur.
The ring slips from his fingers and hits the floor.
He's already moving.
The hospital corridors are too white. Too quiet for what they contain.
Beichuan stands outside the room, fists clenched at his sides, jaw tight. He doesn't know how long he's been standing there. His mind keeps snagging on the same thought, over and over —
She'll be fine. She has to be fine
A nurse approaches. Her expression is gentle in the way that people are gentle when they're about to break something.
"I'm sorry… we did everything we could. But her injuries were too severe"
The words land wrong. Like they're in a language he almost understands.
"No" His voice comes out quiet. "No, that's— she was just— I just called her, she—"
His legs give way.
He leans against the wall. Sliding down to the floor, thoughts of finally being together slipping away.
The ring is still back at the office.
He never picked it up off the floor.
After a moment, he struggles to his feet, unsteady, and moves toward her lifeless form.
With trembling hands, he pulls the white sheet from her face and cups her cheeks in his palms, brushing them softly as if waiting for her to stir and tell him she's okay. Tears flow freely, uncontrollably, as the weight of her death crushes him.
She looks like she's sleeping. That's what people always say and he always thought it was a stupid thing to say but standing here now he understands it — because the alternative is incomprehensible.
He kneels beside her bed, gripping her cold hand."Please… wake up… don't leave me… I can't live without you…"
"…You were supposed to argue with me" he says quietly. "That was the plan. I'd finally say it properly and you'd make that face— you know the one— and tell me the timing was terrible" His voice breaks slightly on the last word. "That was supposed to be how it went"
She doesn't answer.
He stays until they ask him to leave.
Days pass.
Then weeks.
He moves through the world like a shadow, a shell of the man he once was. Meals go untouched, sleep eludes him, and the laughter of colleagues, the buzz of daily life— it all feels like noise from another world.
He walks through their favorite streets, touches the places they used to share a smile, and every memory cuts him deeper. Her absence is a constant ache, a hollow space inside him that nothing can fill.
Friends and coworkers reach out. Luo Xiao, worried, calls again and again, but Bei Chuan barely answers. Words fail him; the world feels meaningless without her.
He still has her contact saved. He doesn't delete it. Some nights he opens it just to look at her name.
Nights are the worst. He stares at the ceiling, clutching her old scarf, the ring still lying untouched on the table. He whispers into the darkness,"I can't… I can't live without you… not like this…"
If I can't be with her here…
The thought comes quietly at first. Then louder. Then it's the only thought he has.
One night, hollow and numb, Bei Chuan makes his final decision. He writes a note, simple, honest, desperate:"I can't stay in a world without you. Wait for me— please somewhere, somehow."
I can't stay in a world without you. Wait for me — somewhere, somehow.
He folds it carefully.
Sets it on the table next to the ring.
And then the grief, the longing, the unbearable weight of a future he'll never have—
It all goes quiet.