Chapter Text
“It didn’t feel like dying.
Not at first.”
Hospitals all smell the same.
Too clean. Too sharp. Something sterile layered over something that never quite goes away.
Jiang Cheng has always hated that.
It clings to the back of his throat, settles into his lungs, like something that refuses to leave once it’s inside.
Machines hum somewhere beyond the walls. A distant monitor beeps in steady, indifferent intervals. Footsteps pass by the door, quick and practiced, like everyone here has somewhere more important to be.
He knows what this place means. He knew it once already.
The last time, everything had been louder.
Voices that tried too hard to sound calm in the face of a scared child. Footsteps that lingered just a second too long. The quiet, careful way people looked at him when they thought he wouldn’t notice.
He had noticed. He always did.
Now, it is quieter.
Or maybe he is now quieter.
Wen Qing’s office is smaller than he remembers when he used to stop by to pick her up for lunch. Or maybe it only feels that way now as a sense of all-knowing gut-wrentching doom settles into his weary bones.
White walls, too bare to be comforting. A narrow window set high, letting in a thin strip of daylight that doesn’t quite reach the floor. The blinds are half-open, angled just enough to let the light in without letting anyone see too clearly inside.
There’s a faint smell of disinfectant layered over something older—paper, maybe. Files stacked neatly on one side of the desk. A computer monitor gone dark, reflecting just enough to distort the room back at him.
Everything is in its place.
Precise. Ordered.
Cold.
The chair beneath him is stiff, unforgiving in the way hospital furniture always is—designed for waiting, not comfort. His hands rest loosely in his lap, fingers still, shoulders squared, posture straight enough to pass for composure.
Across the room, the clock ticks quietly.
Each second deliberate. Unhurried.
He doesn’t look at it.
Beside him, Nie Huaisang shifts.
The movement is small, almost unnoticeable—but Jiang Cheng feels it anyway. The brush of fabric, the slight dip of the chair, the presence of someone who refuses to leave even when it would be easier to.
Huaisang’s fan snaps open.
Then closed.
Then open again.
Soft. Rhythmic.
Out of place.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t turn his head. “Stop that.” The words come out flat, edged just enough to carry.
The fan stills immediately.
“Ah—sorry,” Huaisang says, voice light, almost apologetic. “Didn’t realize I was doing it.” He folds it with a quiet click, but doesn’t put it away. It rests loosely in his hand, fingers still fidgeting against the edge. Then, softer he replies — “You could’ve told me sooner, you know.”
Jiang Cheng’s expression doesn’t change. “It was nothing.”
The answer comes too quickly.
Automatic.
Huaisang lets out a quiet breath, something between a sigh and a bittersweet tired laugh. “Mm,” he hums, like he doesn’t believe him. Like he never did. “Right. Of course.”
Silence settles again.
Thicker this time.
Jiang Cheng’s gaze drifts, not quite focusing on anything. The edge of the desk. The line where the wall meets the floor. The faint reflection in the dark computer screen.
He exhales slowly.
Steady.
Measured.
The headache is still there.
Dull. Constant.
Waiting.
The door stays closed long enough that the silence begins to feel intentional.
Then—a soft click.
It opens slowly, not quite all at once. The hinge catches for half a second before giving, the sound quiet but wrong in the stillness.
Wen Qing steps inside and the room shifts.
It isn’t immediate. Not something that can be named. But the air tightens, almost imperceptibly, like the moment before a storm breaks—pressure building in a way the body understands before the mind does. Jiang Cheng notices. Of course he does.
She pauses just inside the doorway. Just for a second. As if she needs that second. Then she closes the door behind her, careful—too careful. The latch clicks into place with a softness that feels deliberate, controlled.
Practiced.
There’s a folder in her hands.
Thin.
Too thin.
His name is printed across the tab. The edge is bent where her fingers press into it. Jiang Cheng’s gaze lifts. Not quickly. Not slowly.
Just enough.
He takes her in the way he takes in everything—efficient, precise, unforgiving.
The pallor of her skin, faint but unmistakable under the fluorescent lights. The tension in her shoulders, drawn tight as if holding something in place. The way her grip doesn’t relax, even as she steps forward.
And her eyes—
They don’t settle.
Not on him. Not on Huaisang.
They flick once, briefly, to the folder then away.
Something in them shines.
Not quite tears.
Not yet.
Beside him, Huaisang goes very, very still.
The fan doesn’t move.
His fingers tighten around it instead, knuckles paling slightly, the paper crinkling under the pressure. “...Wen Qing?” he says.
Quiet.
Careful.
Like if he speaks too loudly, whatever this is will become real.
She doesn’t answer.
She crosses the room in measured steps, each one even, controlled—until she reaches the desk and sets the folder down.
Gently.
As if it might break.
She doesn’t open it.For a moment, no one speaks. Jiang Cheng can hear it now not just the machines beyond the walls, not just the distant footsteps but Huaisang’s breathing. Just slightly uneven. He doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t need to.
“Just say it,” Jiang Cheng says. The words fall cleanly into the space between them. No hesitation. No softness.
An instruction.
Huaisang’s head turns toward him, sharp—like he wants to interrupt, to stop this, to say something else instead. He doesn’t.
Wen Qing’s hand tightens against the folder. Just for a second. Long enough to leave a faint crease along the edge. Then it loosens. She looks at him properly now. Finally.
And there it is that look.
Jiang Cheng knows it.
He has seen it before, reflected in polished surfaces, in the careful distance people put between themselves and him. The look people wear when they already know how this ends. “It’s glioblastoma, Wanyin.”
The word settles into the room.
Heavy.
Final.
Huaisang inhales—sharp, unsteady.
Like something inside him has just dropped out from under his feet.
“No—” he starts, too quickly, the word slipping out before he can stop it.
His voice catches.
He swallows it down, but it’s already there, hanging between them.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t move.
The headache presses, steady and familiar, behind his eyes.
Dull.
Constant.
Waiting.
Ah.
So that’s what it is.
“I see,” he says calmly much to Huaisang’s horror.
“No—what does that mean?”
Huaisang’s voice breaks through the tense air, the words tumbling over themselves as if he can outrun them if he says them fast enough.
He leans forward without realizing it, the fan still clutched tightly in his hand, forgotten.
“What—what is that supposed to mean?” he presses, louder now, the edge of panic slipping in despite himself. “You’re just—there’s treatment, right? You caught it early, so—so they can—”
His voice falters.
Stumbles.
He looks at Wen Qing like she can fix it.
Like she will.
Wen Qing doesn’t answer immediately.
Her gaze drops—not to him, not to Jiang Cheng but to the folder.
Her fingers rest against it, unmoving now.
Too still.
“It’s…” she begins.
Stops.
The word lingers, unfinished. She inhales quietly, steadying herself. When she speaks again, her voice is even. Clinical. Careful. “It’s a type of brain tumor,” she says. “Aggressive. It develops quickly, and—”
She pauses.
Just for a fraction of a second.
But it’s there.
“And it doesn’t respond well to treatment.”
Huaisang shakes his head immediately.
“No, but—there’s surgery, right? Or chemo, or—something, there has to be something—”
Each word comes faster than the last, crowding together, desperate to fill the space before anything final can settle in it.
Wen Qing’s hand tightens again.
“There are options,” she says. And for a moment it almost sounds like hope. “Surgery, depending on the location. Radiation. Chemotherapy. They can slow progression. Manage symptoms.”
Her voice remains steady.
Measured.
But she doesn’t say cure.
She doesn’t say remission.
She doesn’t say anything that would make this better.
Huaisang hears it anyway.
Or maybe he hears what isn’t there.
His grip tightens around the fan until the paper creases.
“But he’ll be fine,” he says, quieter now. Not asking.
Insisting.
“He’ll—he’ll be fine.”
Silence.
Wen Qing doesn’t answer.
That is answer enough.
Beside him, Jiang Cheng finally moves.
Just slightly.
A shift of his hand in his lap. A slow, measured inhale.
He lifts his gaze again, settling it on Wen Qing.
Steady.
Unwavering.
“How long?” he asks.
Huaisang turns toward him immediately. “Jiang Cheng—”
But Jiang Cheng doesn’t look at him.
Wen Qing does.
For a moment, something in her expression fractures. Small. Almost imperceptible. She knows this question. She has answered it before. For strangers. For patients. For people who were never— Her fingers press into the edge of the folder. “…It varies,” she says at first.
Automatic.
Deflecting.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t react. Doesn’t blink. “How long,” he repeats. Not louder. Not sharper.
Just final.
The room feels smaller. Wen Qing exhales. Slow. Careful. As if the air itself might break if she isn’t gentle with it. “Months,” she says. The word is quiet. Almost lost between them. Huaisang stills completely. Wen Qing’s voice lowers further. Not clinical anymore. Not detached. “Ten,” she adds and this time there is no mistaking it.
The number settles into the room with a weight that cannot be moved.
Huaisang’s breath catches.
Audibly.
Jiang Cheng nods once. Small. Contained.
“Okay,” he says.
As if she’s just simply told him the date of a meeting.