Chapter Text
Chi Cheng had thought he already understood pain.
The first morning without Wu Suo Wei was a kind of cold he didn’t know existed, like someone had carved out the center of his chest and replaced it with hollow air that screamed when he tried to breathe.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Suo Wei’s face as he said it "Why should I be with you forever"
He replayed it again and again. He told himself he should hate Suo Wei for saying it, should despise him for tearing their life apart in a single breath.
But the truth was simpler.
Chi Cheng loved him so much it felt like dying.
And now, every second without him was its own tiny death. A thousand little funerals for every ordinary moment he’d taken for granted, coffee in the morning, the way Suo Wei always tucked his feet under Chi Cheng’s thigh when they watched movies, the soft exhale he made when he fell asleep on Chi Cheng’s shoulder.
All of it gone.
So when he learned Suo Wei’s mother had collapsed, there was no question that he would come because even through that wreckage, he hadn’t stopped caring for her. The woman who had smiled at him like he was already family.
Wu Suo Wei looked at his watch, waiting for it to tick forward so he could go start his daily visit with his mom. He has only left the hospital briefly the last few days since getting the call she had fainted. He wouldn't leave the hospital at all if it wasn't for the rules about visiting hours.
“Mr. Wu, your mother is resting but you can see her now. There isn't any change in her vitals.” The doctor overseeing his mom's care tells him.
“Thanks.” Wu Suo Wei says to the doctor before entering his mom's hospital room. He walks quietly towards her, and carefully takes her hand in his so he won't wake her when he sits down.
Chi Cheng braced for it when he arrived. He’d thought he was ready to see him after their breakup.
He was wrong.
The first glimpse of him hit like a blunt-force trauma.
Wu Suo Wei was sitting by the bed, his shoulders rounded, his head bent, the lines of exhaustion etched so deep into his face it looked like he’d aged years in a handful of days. His hand lay over his mother’s so tenderly Chi Cheng felt something crack in his chest.
That was the hand that used to cup Chi Cheng’s cheek in the dark. That was the hand that used to grip his when he was afraid.
Chi Cheng’s stomach lurched. His body moved before his mind could catch up, he stepped back out of the doorway, back flat against the cold corridor wall, hiding and listening.
“The doctor said you are doing the same today.” Suowei whispers while looking around the private room Chi Cheng set up for his mom without telling him.
Chi Cheng clenched his jaw when he heard Suowei speak. God, he hadn’t heard that voice in days. He’d told himself he could live without it, that he had no choice.
But hearing it now felt like reopening a wound that had never even scabbed over.
Then Suo Wei spoke again, and each word landed like a hammer-blow.
“I'm sure your Xiao Chi will visit you today.” He continues even though she's asleep.
“I've been talking to you about all kinds of things these last few days, but I think I have the courage to tell you something important now, something I haven't told anyone besides myself.”
He takes a deep breath.
“I'm in love mom. I found someone that is everything you wanted me to have in a life partner. They are kind, considerate, selfless to the point they let me misjudge them, and so good, mom. They...he is so perfect , and so good to me and to you.”
The world tilted sideways. A ringing filled Chi Cheng’s ears. He felt the corridor spin around him.
“I'm in love with Chi Cheng mom to the point I feel like I'm dying without him around.”
And he isn't around because I broke his heart. He adds only in his head as tears of his own heartbreak fall down his face.
Wu Suo Wei's mom, awake since she felt her precious son hold her hand, keeps her eyes shut, pretending to be unconscious.
Chi Cheng pressed a fist to his sternum like he could hold himself together by force as he listened from the shadows.
Then why? Why did you say you never loved me? Why did you leave me in this hell alone?
“I’m sorry to use our time together to talk about myself, to tell you I can't give you a grandkid because of who I want as my life partner, but I need to tell you this mom. I need you to hear. I am in love with Chi Cheng.”
Though I can't get back together with him. He will always be in my heart. he said in his head.
Chi cheng was being gutted. Like someone had driven a blade between his ribs and twisted.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to storm in there, grab Suo Wei by the shoulders and shake him until all the truth came spilling out.
Instead, he stood there outside the room and listened.
He imagined what Suo Wei must have looked like while he said those words, eyes down, mouth trembling, fighting the tears.
He loved me. He still does.
And that made it so much worse.
Because if they both loved each other this much, what the hell were they doing apart?
“Thank you for listening.” Wu Suo Wei whispers as he places his cheek against his mom's hand. His mom keeps her hand still as she feels tears go between her fingers.
“I’m going to go refill your water dispenser.” Wu Suo Wei says as he lets his mom's hand go and flees the room so she doesn't see him crying just in case she wakes up.
Chi Cheng felt the ache in his throat swell to something unbearable. He didn’t want Suo Wei to see him like this, half-ruined, spine pressed to a wall because he couldn’t stand up straight.
He watched him leave. Saw the way he kept his gaze fixed on the floor, the way his hand scrubbed at the tears on his face.
It was the most beautiful, most excruciating thing he’d ever seen.
And when Suo Wei was gone, Chi Cheng dragged himself out of the shadows and into the doorway.
Wu Suo Wei’s mother was awake, her tired eyes shining with tears.
For one moment, she looked at Chi Cheng like she knew exactly what was breaking him.
"Ayi…"
Chi Cheng’s voice was low as he stepped carefully into the hospital room. His fingers twitched at his sides as though unsure whether they were allowed to touch anything anymore.
He forced his lips into a polite curve, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes.
The tears had already clawed their way up his throat and settled into a tight, burning knot.
He lowered himself gently into the chair Wu Suo Wei had just vacated. The warmth was still there. He felt it against his thighs.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, voice still hushed.
She smiled, her cheeks were wet. The skin around her eyes blotched from the effort of staying still, pretending to be asleep while listening to her only son unravel in front of her.
Chi Cheng’s chest ached. He reached out halfway, hesitated, then let his hand rest on the edge of the blanket.
Then, slowly, she lifted her hand and placed it gently over his.
Chi Cheng froze.
Her touch was light.
And then she said it.
“…So it’s been you.”
The words landed soft, but their meaning slammed into him like a wave. His brows pulled together. “What…?” he whispered.
She gave a wet chuckle and shook her head, then clarified “I always wondered what made him so happy lately. I thought maybe it was a new girlfriend, someone he didn’t want me to know yet. He kept sneaking smiles when he looked at his phone, humming around the house…” She exhaled, almost like a sigh of defeat. “But it was you, wasn’t it?”
Chi Cheng couldn’t answer.
He couldn’t even nod because the truth was, he didn’t know.
Was it me? Was I the reason for that smile? Was it real?
She smiled again, but weaker now.
“This path…” she murmured, her gaze drifting toward the IV stand, “it’s not easy.”
Her hand gave a faint tremble atop his. “I’m old. My mind… it isn’t as forward as it should be, maybe. But two men…” she trailed off, wincing like even saying it felt foreign in her mouth. “It’s hard.”
Chi Cheng nodded softly, but only in his head. On the outside, he kept still. He didn’t dare speak.
You don’t have to worry, he thought bitterly. We already broke. It’s over. You don’t need to accept me, there’s nothing left to accept.
But he didn’t say it.
He didn’t want to make it real.
Then she looked at him again, a new kind of softness entering her eyes.
“He never told me he loved someone before,” she said, blinking slow. “Not even that girl he dated for years. Not once.”
Chi Cheng’s breath caught.
“You must be a big deal” she said with the kind of fondness that felt like a goodbye.
He looked down at their hands, hers still on top of his. He didn’t feel like a big deal.
“I don’t know,” he whispered under his breath.
Because what kind of “big deal” breaks the heart of the person they love?
What kind of “big deal” ends up watching the man he loves confess to his unconscious mother instead of him?
And still... there he was. Sitting in the only place that felt even remotely close to home anymore, next to the woman who gave birth to the man who ruined and saved him in the same breath.
Her fingers twitched slightly in Chi Cheng’s hold. Then, slowly, new tears began to gather in the corners of her eyes.
Unaware his mom and Chi Cheng are talking. Wu Suo Wei carries the water dispenser with him as he goes into one of the hospital floor bathrooms. He splashes his face until some of the redness and swelling around his eyes goes down. He doesn't linger on his face because he knows he looks tired, worn down, and heartbroken under the strength he has been trying to convey since breaking up with Chi Cheng.
Smile. I have to be strong. Mom was always strong for me. Wu Suo Wei tells himself as he grabs the water dispenser, leaves the bathroom, and walks slowly back.
“Xiao Chi…” Her voice cracked “I’m worried.”
Wu Suo Wei freezes halfway through the doorway to his mom's hospital room. When he hears her talking and then he lifts his head to see his ex sitting where he had been sitting minutes ago, his hands tremble.
Chi Cheng straightened, unaware of Suowei's presence behind him. He reached up without thinking and gently wiped the tears that began to slip down her worn cheeks.
“Why?” he asked, voice tight.
Her smile faltered completely now, lips quivering as emotion carved deep lines into her face. “I don’t have much time left,” she whispered.
Wu Suo Wei takes a half step back at the tightness in Chi Cheng's voice, but he can't bring himself to flee or to move forward as he hears his mom's words of finality about her remaining time on this planet.
“I feel it,” she continued, “the doctors talk like I’m still fighting. But I can feel my body slowing down. I sleep more than I wake. Everything is… fading.”
Mom. Wu Suo Wei calls in his head, not wanting to interrupt, but needing to express his denial about his mom's condition even though he knows she is telling Chi Cheng the truth.
Chi Cheng pressed her hand tighter, trying not to let his own despair seep through.
“My little boy…” she said, her breath hitching. “He’s always only had me. Just me.”
Chi Cheng's throat burned.
"He was so small when his father died,” she said. “Did you know that? Barely old enough to speak. He clung to me for everything. Every night he would check if I was breathing in my sleep, just in case. He used to crawl into my bed and say, ‘Don’t leave, mama. I’ll be good, I’ll be quiet, just don’t leave.’” Her voice broke.
Hearing his mom talk about his dad, and how he behaved as a child brings Wu Suo to tears and they fall into his shirt sleeves as he hugs the water dispenser to his chest.
“I promised him I’d stay as long as I could. I promised he’d never be alone. And now…” she closed her eyes. “Now I’m breaking that promise. And he doesn’t have anyone.”
“That's not true,” Chi Cheng said, his voice fierce in a way that shocked even himself.
Wu Suo Wei's tear filled eyes lock onto the profile of Chi Cheng's face. Am I really not alone He asks silently as he stands still and listens with a shred of hope that he doesn't want to crush out until he has to.
She opened her eyes again, startled.
Chi Cheng leaned forward, and this time he took both of her hands in his. He folded them into his own like he was making an oath at an altar.
“Ayi…” he said, voice trembling, “You don’t need to worry. I swear to you, I will never let him be alone.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed.
Chi Cheng leaned closer, eyes glistening “Even if it’s not as his lover. Even if he never lets me touch him again. I will still be there.” His words began to unravel, “I’ll be the shadow behind him. I’ll be the one who checks if he ate, if he slept, if he’s still breathing when no one else does. I’ll protect him from the corners of every room he walks into. I’ll make sure no one hurts him, not even himself.”
Chi Cheng… Wu Suo Wei cries out silently from his shattered, hopeful heart, as he digs his fingers over his aching chest. I want you to be my lover, I want you to touch me again. I want you to do everything you said you would do for me, but after everything we said to each other, do you even want me anymore? Or are these words to give my mom peace? He questions in his mind as he continues to listen.
Chi Cheng's hands shook now, “I will love him in silence if I have to. From across the street, across the world, I don’t care. He will never be alone.”
Her chin quivered. Her fingers squeezed his.
“I don’t care if he never says my name again,” Chi Cheng said, “I just want him to live. To smile.”
“Chi Cheng.” Wu Suo Wei whispers like a ghost, so quiet he can barely hear his own voice. His lips quiver up into a shaky smile at his ex wanting something so simple for him as to live and smile in the future.
A sob slipped out of her, and her grip grew tighter. “Xiao Chi…”
“I love him,” Chi Cheng whispered, eyes closing “I love him more than my own skin. I love him to the point that I’d let him forget me if that’s what makes him okay.”
I love you too… The voice inside Suowei's head was as small as a mouse's, he squats down, his heart hurting too much to keep standing. He puts the water dispenser on the ground as he wipes his tears away.
Chi Cheng opened his eyes again, and this time the pain and love inside them were unbearable in their beauty.
"I swear on everything I have, Ayi. As long as I’m alive, your son will never, ever be alone. Not for one second.”
And in that moment, she saw the truth that hadn’t even needed to be spoken. That her son had been loved so completely, so relentlessly that maybe… just maybe, she could go in peace.
She lifted one shaking hand to Chi Cheng’s cheek, gently brushing it.
“Then, Xiao Chi…” she whispered, her voice breaking apart in soft sobs, “please… protect him. Love him, even when he doesn’t let you. Even when he’s angry. Love him for me. Love him enough for the both of us.”
And Chi Cheng, pressed his forehead to the back of her hand and swore, again.
“I already do.”
Suowei collected himself enough to stand up again.
His mom smiled, then, her gaze shifted. Past Chi Cheng. Over his shoulder.
Her eyes widened just a little.
Chi Cheng blinked, confused. He turned, following her gaze.
And there he was.
Wu Suo Wei stood in the doorway.
Chi Cheng’s heart stopped. Just… stopped.
Wu Suo Wei stopped breathing at the exact same moment.