Du Du Mặc had always been different.
From the moment she was a child, she carried a strange gift: whenever she touched someone, she could hear their inner voice—their truest, rawest thoughts, often hidden even from themselves. It wasn't spoken language, but something more intimate. A whisper of the soul.
Because of that, Du Du kept her distance. She feared closeness. Feared what she might hear.
She had tried to love once.
But loving—as someone who could hear another's innermost secrets—was a slow descent into hell.
She knew when her lover kissed her, he was thinking of someone else.
From that moment on, she turned her back on all relationships.
Until she met Trần Mặc.
They first touched in the middle of a minor accident. He had caught her, steadying her before a speeding motorbike could knock her down. Her hand brushed his.
And she waited—for the familiar murmur to bloom in her mind.
But there was nothing.
Silence.
She didn't believe in coincidence. The next day, she "accidentally" brushed his fingers again while returning his dropped phone.
Still nothing. Absolute quiet.
"Don't you think anything?" she blurted out.
He looked at her, calm and unreadable. "I think a lot. But maybe you just can't hear it."
Her breath caught.
No one had ever seen through her before.
Except him.
Trần Mặc wasn't normal.
He carried the blood of an ancient lineage—people born to be hidden from the minds of others.
"You think you're special," he told her once, "but you're only a piece of a world you've never understood."
Du Du didn't know whether to be afraid… or drawn in.
The closer she got to him, the more useless her ability became. Yet her heart—so often overwhelmed by the noise of other minds—felt strangely at peace.
He was silence in her storm.
No whispered confessions.
No secrets spilled uninvited.
Just stillness—when they were together.
"What do you think… when you look at me?" she asked, for the tenth time.
He smiled faintly. "I won't tell you. Because if you can't hear me, it means I get to be myself."
And for the first time, Du Du smiled too.
She didn't need to know what he was thinking—
Because his eyes had already said it all.
Want me to continue with the rest? I can break the story into parts and preserve your rhythm exactly.