Prague swallowed her whole.
The city's beauty was haunting—its narrow alleys whispered secrets in foreign tongues, and the wind carried stories of heartbreak in every gust. Lin Yuyan had come to escape, to disappear into a role so consuming she wouldn't feel anything else.
But the ache never left.
Each scene peeled her open. The film followed a woman haunted by love, drowning in echoes of a man who had let her go. Yuyan didn't need to act. Her pain was already scripted into her soul.
She would stare into the camera, trembling, whispering lines that bled with truth.
> "If you loved me… why did you let me walk away?"
No one knew those weren't just lines.
Behind the director's praise and the crew's admiration, Lin Yuyan was unraveling.
At night, her hotel room grew cold no matter how high she turned the heat. She curled under the blankets, scrolling through her call history like a coward, hoping to see his name.
Nothing.
Not a single call.
But sometimes, at 3 a.m., she'd replay his voice message—the only one he ever sent.
> "I hope you're warm. That's all."
She played it over and over until her tears soaked the pillow.
She never replied. Because if she did, she wouldn't stop.
And she was terrified of what she'd say.
**
Back in S City, Zhao Luchen burned.
Work became a cage he built himself. The boardroom, his prison. The penthouse, a mausoleum of her presence.
Her favorite mug on the counter.
Her scent still on the pillow.
Her laughter—absent, but echoing.
He tried to forget. God, he tried.
But every time he looked at the door, he saw her silhouette walking away again.
Every time he closed his eyes, he heard her voice—
> "Don't disappear from me."
And he had.
He'd let her go, quietly, stupidly. Because he thought he was protecting her. Because he thought he wasn't allowed to need her.
But now, all he could do was ache.
**
Yuyan broke during a rooftop shoot.
The rain machine thundered above her, soaking her skin, plastering her hair to her face. The script demanded desperation. She was supposed to scream his name into the storm.
But her voice cracked—because she wasn't acting.
> "Come back," she choked out, her knees hitting concrete. "Please…"
The director called cut. The crew fell silent.
She didn't get up. She didn't stop crying.
They wrapped for the day.
Her assistant wrapped her in blankets, whispering, "It's just a role."
But Yuyan knew better.
It was a confession.
**
Three days later, he was there.
She didn't see him at first—not really. Just a figure at the edge of the closed set, behind the iron fence.
Dark coat. Stiff shoulders.
Still. Watching.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Her heart… leapt.
But she turned away. She couldn't afford to hope.
Her assistant followed her gaze. "That's him, isn't it?"
Yuyan said nothing. Just pressed her lips together until they hurt.
**
That night, the hotel staff delivered a package.
A coat—deep wine red, thick and warm, her favorite cut and fabric. She sank into it like it was a hug.
And in the pocket, a note in his handwriting:
> "I told you I wouldn't survive watching you leave.
But I never promised I wouldn't come find you."
Her knees gave out.
She sank to the bed, clutched the coat to her chest, and let out a broken sound she hadn't made in weeks.
She didn't message him. Didn't call.
But the next morning, she wore that coat to set.
And for the first time since Prague, when she smiled for the cameras—
It was real.
**
That night, she stood on her hotel balcony, city lights shimmering below her, and typed a message:
> Still burning.
Wish you'd brought water.
–Y
She stared at it for a long time.
Her thumb hovered over send.
Then she closed the app and pressed the phone to her heart instead.
**
Thousands of miles away, in a quiet Prague apartment he'd rented under an alias, Zhao Luchen lay awake.
Her voice played through his headphones.
Her last voicemail.
> "I'm going now. Don't… don't forget about me."
He never would.
Not even if she deleted every message, burned every letter, and erased him from her memories.
Because he was already hers.
He had been since the day she said, "I do," to the wrong man… and stayed anyway.
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