Zayn's POV
I always paused outside her room.
It wasn't that I didn't want to see her, it was just that I always needed a second to breathe before I entered. These days being near her was like standing uncomfortably close to a painting that you've loved your whole life, but can't hold anymore, can't even touch. You long to hold it, admire it, tell everyone how it changed you, and all you can do is look... and ache.
I lifted a hand to knock softly, that same knock she had learned to hear.
No words. Just the knock.
I opened the door gently so I wouldn't surprise her. The faint light from the window draped her, muted her hair light and the pale tint of her cheeks. She sat by the window again, her eyes looking off into the distance, seemingly following something outside.
"You're awake," I said gently.
She didn't turn. Just nodded, her voice soft, distant, "I always am, even when I don't want to be."
That stung. More than she'd ever know. But I didn't say anything. What could I say to that? There were no right words, and no comforting thoughts that did not sound like lies. I remained silent as I always did, carrying all the things I wished I could say and then burying those things behind my silence. Maybe it was to protect her. Maybe it was to protect me.
When she finally turned... for a moment everything else faded away. When she looked at me, I knew she could see it—the worry, the pain, helplessness that I couldn't hide. I tried, I really tried to soften that look, make my lips smile like it was all normal, but my lips barely obtained it. I hated when she could see through me.
I took a step closer and lifted the paper bag. "Brought you that tea you like. The herbal one. I thought it might help you sleep better."
She offered a small smile. Tired. Worn. "Thank you. That's sweet."
I nodded, pretending it was easy, pretending my throat wasn't tight and my chest didn't feel heavy. I wanted to say more. I always did. But there were walls between us now, walls I didn't know how to breach without crashing down everything she was holding together.
So, I said nothing. Again.
I sat beside her, making sure I didn't sit too close. I didn't want her to feel crowded, like I was taking up space she didn't want to give. But I needed to be close to her. I needed to feel that she was still there, still breathing, still her.
We sat in silence. Not an empty silence, but a full silence. The kind you learn to live with when words become too sharp to speak. Outside the wind rattled the leaves and a monitor behind her beeped softly—a cruel reminder that time was passing, even in silence.
I looked at her. Really looked. I saw how her fingers wrapped around her cup - barely even Touched mine when I handed it to her. And I looked at her shoulders - which were slumped down in exhaustion but still strong-looking shoulders. And I looked at her eyes - the eyes that had sparkled with laughter were now dulled by something much heavier.
She thought I pitied her.
I didn't I have no place to pity her. Not because she was sick. Not because she was dying. I pitied the world for not being kind enough to her, not enough to see her smile so brightly. For giving her pain instead of peace. For taking away the time we should've had.
And yes, I loved her. God, I loved her. I always loved her, i love her, I will always love her.
But how could I tell her that now, when she already looked like she was preparing for goodbyes? Already to leave everything behind. How should I tell her that I am a mere human to waiting for her always.
She sipped her tea slowly and looked away, back to the window. Another leaf fell.
And I couldn't help but wonder too—how many more would she get to see?
"Hey, did you know the Autumn Festival is coming up?" I said softly, casually, as if it didn't matter too much. As if I wasn't desperately looking for something to make her heart flicker again; that flicker returning with something other than pain.
"In the capital. The lantern show in Beijing — they say the whole sky glows, with lanterns brought down from above to light up the place."
She glanced at me; a fleeting moment. I couldn't bring myself to look back. I looked close into my cup, fiddling with the rim of my cup as if it somehow mattered. I knew I was playing pretend. I think she knew too. I needed that burst of illusion, even if it were for but a moment.
"I've always wanted to go again," she said gently. I stopped fiddling. My fingers continued to linger over the rim, but they stopped moving. She wasn't simply answering my question - she was fully remembering the moment.
"Not just for the festival," she continued, "but for everything about it - when people walk with lanterns, and there is soft music in the air, and the smell of roasted chestnuts - you can
really feel the season alive there."
My god, her voice...
It had this perspective about it. I felt like she was way away, so full of weight that I couldn't lift. I really wanna hug her, love her like I always wanted too, but there is always a but. When I am near her no matter what my brain can't shut it's always fun with her thoughts only her. Technically owner of my mind.
"I always said that if I went again, I would wear a long red scarf and get lost in the crowd. Just...disappear into it. Not be Y/N. Just...a face among faces. Warm hands, cold air. A moment."
She smiled, but not the kind that reaches the eyes. It hurt. It always hurt. I finally looked at her, registered the thinness of her cheeks, dished of her lips, cracked slightly from being dry...and she was still, somehow, beautiful.
"I think you still should," I said quietly. "See it. Before the leaves are gone."
"I don't know if I can," she whispered. "With everything going on... the machines, the tests, the doctors continually eyeing me as if I'm made of glass."
I moved one step closer, my chest tightening.
"You're not made of glass," I replied too quickly. I paused for a moment, then said gently, "You're made of fire and autumn and all the little things that most people never notice."
She turned her head away.
I hated myself for having said too much too soon.
I knew she didn't want kindness. Not of the sort that was laced with grief.
But it was all I had.
We stood like that in silence for a while, I didn't move. I watched her while she watched the outside world—a world she used to run through, not stare out at, from behind glass.
She sipped her tea. Her fingers trembled just a bit and she tried to hide it.
"I went out there once," she said. The air was light, like she was plucking a memory from thin air.
I didn't say anything.
"The lanterns were far more bright than I had imagined. We walked along the river and many people were there, still it felt like we were the only ones."
I could picture it.
Her at the center of a celebrating, glowing crowd, her laugh sitting somewhere under the sound of distance music. The red scarf she mentioned. The way her nose felt probably looked from the cold.
Then she changed the way she talked.
Something was lost from it - something that used to be hope.
"It was Sylus," she said.
There it was.
The name. Like a shadow sliping in the under the door. That name is haunt me forever bit because I am scared because I am more than angry, the way he did with her, they way he never treated her right.
She looked didn't sound bitter. Not even wistful. Just tired.
She didn't even look at me when she said that.
She didn't have.
I stood still letting the ache rise in me first, without letting it breath.
I did hate him. Not like I was told I should have. I hated however that he was first. That he was the one she laughed with underneath the paper lanterns. That she once looked at him, like he had the map to her dreams. And how he broke her in every possible pieces that I might get cut from picking her up but can't put those pieces back. I hate him to destroy my y/n how she looks, how she misses, how she is waiting.
Waiting for someone that doesn't suits her. Time can wait for her every possible second but I swear if someone make her wait I pity their existence how they never able to see her on time. I wish I was time for her i can stop the whole world just to wait for her. I will leave my self incompletely Beautiful for her every second.
"I thought that night meant something," she said as a whisper. "Maybe it did. Or maybe I just wanted it to."
I lowered my gaze.
I wanted to reach over. To touch her hand. To say, You are not alone. But I didn't.
Because she wasn't ready. Because she wasn't mine.
Not now. Maybe not even ever.
And I... I would have sat in this quiet, in her shadow if that's what it took for her not to carry it alone.
So I stood, beside her.
And watched another leaf fall.
I sat there in silence, sunk back in the soft chair beside her bed, but inside me, something wasn't settled. Something twisted. Tight. Ugly. Jealousy had never tasted so bitter on my tongue, and guilt—guilt for even feeling it—had made it burn worse.
She wasn't even looking at me. Her eyes were locked on the window again, but I saw it… the way her fingers curled, just a little, like she was holding something invisible and very precious. I recognized it. A memory. A moment. Sylus.
I didn't interrupt. How could I? The way her voice was filled with the weight of a story that it was clear she hadn't told aloud for years. Maybe ever. I caught it all—the tenderness, the love, the longings.
And I hated it.
Not the story, but the Sylus's name. I hated how he made her feel that way once. I hated that he was her first everything - first autumn wish, first soft promise, first forever of any kind.
And I hated myself for more for the storm brewing in my chest as I sat and watched her talk about a moment that had nothing to do with me.
She was so gentle, so dreamy, talking about him pulling her through the crowd, buying her chestnuts, wrapping her scarf, promising her a proposal beneath the lanterns.
I looked down at my hands. They were clenched. I didn't realize that until my fingers started to throb.
"I'll propose to you here one day," she said he told her.
I swallowed.
My throat was dry. Not because I doubted she ever once meant the world to him. I was sure she had. You don't tell someone you will marry them in the middle of a festival if you don't mean it - and Sylus, who definitely didn't say things he wasn't about to prove.
But where the hell was he now?
Where was he when she was in need of someone to hold her hand in a hospital hallway not a busy riverbank? Where was he when her lips were cracked from oxygen tubes, or when she was silently crying from her diagnosis? Where was he when she broke, not from heartbreak but when her body broke off with her?
I was not the one who promised her lanterns and winter weddings, and still I was the one sitting next to her now, praying just a cup of tea may help her sleep.
And hearing her talk about Sylus like that, softly, without blame in her tone, made it worse. Because even after everything, she still remembered him like he hung the stars that night. She held on to that moment like it still kept her cold fingers warm.
He said he wanted to see her makeup ruined from sweat.
Her appearance wouldn't be spoiled by perspiration.
It would be spoiled by tears. By IVs and sleepless nights and a future she might never get to obtain. And Sylus had the audacity to leave her with those images and nothing else? To shout at her in the parking lot, to leave when she fell apart?
I was wishing that I could punch a wall. I was wishing I could rip that memory from her mind just so she could stop hurting from it.
But instead, I was just sitting there. Quiet. Listening. Because I didn't get to be mad. Not out loud. Not in front of her.
I was the guy who was there too late.
And I didn't have the right to hate Sylus for being the one she loved first, just because I was the one that loved her still.
Now I just wanted to be y/n's autumn so she can lived. For once atleast.
To be. Continued....