Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sun had already climbed halfway up the sky when Heart set down the last box on the wooden floorboards. His shirt clung damp to his back, the summer heat in Pattaya was thick and unforgiving, but even through the sweat and the exhaustion, something about the old house made him feel lighter. 

The house had belonged to his aunt, it was inherited to her as Heart’s grandparents passed away, though she never stayed long enough to grow attached to this place.

Knowing Heart needed a getaway place to stay, her aunt offered him to stay. She said, “Help me look after the house in return.” and handed him the keys.

No one had lived there in years. But his aunt would occasionally send someone to sweep the dust, check the plumbing, keep the termites away, and anything else you could think of when talking about older building maintenance, making sure the house didn’t fall to ruin.

Because of that, the house was still standing proudly on its weathered stilts, even with its edges worn soft by sea wind and time.

Heart had always had this feeling all his life, like he was carrying something heavy. Like a promise left behind but not let go, like he had forgotten something.

Something important.

He went to doctors, and they all told him the same thing, it might be the lack of sleep, low nutrition food, or it might just be the depression.

But the moment his foot touched the grass beyond the rusted iron gate, the unknown weight that had been living with him and making him feel anxious all the time, finally lifted. Like a breath of fresh air. As if he was meant to be right there, right then.

Heart watched as sunlight spilled through the sheer curtains, laying gentle gold on the worn furniture and dust-speckled floor. The air smelled faintly of lemongrass and old teak, and despite the long journey, Heart found himself lingering in the middle of the house, just taking it all in.

The silence here wasn’t heavy. It didn’t echo like it did in his apartment back in the city. This quiet was gentler. The kind that wrapped around the walls and settled into corners, like something that always belonged. Like the house had been holding its breath too and now it exhaled together with Heart's arrival.

There was this calmness to the house.

It was empty, but at the same time it felt alive, like it was never abandoned.

He moved slowly from room to room, letting his fingers trail across carved doorframes. The light switches were yellowed with age and the faded paintings still pinned to the wall.

He paused by a window in what Heart assumed used to be the living room and set his laptop down, placing it right where the light spilled in thickest. It felt instinctual. As if the sun itself could reach through the thick metal, melt the weight clogging his mind, and loosen the words that had refused to come for months.

But as the sun gradually set away and the natural light from outside slowly faded too, Heart decided to retrieve to the bedroom. Heart stood at the edge of the living room for a moment, gazing out at the darkening sky, then quietly made the decision to retreat for the night.

There were a total of five bedrooms in the house, the ones upstairs were supposedly bigger master bedrooms, but as soon as he glanced at the staircase, he immediately dismissed the thought. Heart despised the idea of having to come up and down the stairs, especially when fatigue had already sunk into his shoulders.

So he settled for the nearest bedroom near the living room.

He took his personal belongings and his laptop and headed to his chosen room.

The room was simple. It had a queen-sized bed in the middle of it, its linen sheets crisp and carefully folded at the corners. A standing fan in the corner. A desk with a garden view, perfect for Heart to write, maybe. If he could write at all.

And a single armchair with an obviously very vintage pattern, angled slightly away from the wall. Its placement felt too out of place to be unnoticeable, but at the same time it also felt intentional.

The furniture in the whole house was old, judging by the style and the shape. Thailand had long moved on from this kind of interior. Most homes had traded wooden textures for plastic, earth tones for something cleaner, shinier. Yet the quality wasn’t questionable with how it had endured decades. And there was something comforting in the way this room, specifically, resisted all that change. When the world outside was evolving, this room stayed how it had been for years.

He didn’t say it aloud, but it felt as if the room had never been truly empty. As if someone had always lived here.

It was in the way the fan turned so easily. Or in the way the light switch clicked without hesitation. And in the scent of the sheets, faintly clinging to something warm and worn.

Somehow, it made Heart feel, homey.

Heart thought his aunt must have done a very great job at keeping this house up and running.

He placed his overnight bag on the bed and just sat beside it, staring into spaces while letting the aching muscles in his body relax.

As evening settled, the house creaked and sighed around him. Somewhere outside, frogs began to sing, rising between the chirps of insects.

Heart took a quick shower then flopped on the bed. Reached for his phone, wanting to update his aunt for his successful move in but the signal on his phone was nearly nonexistent, flickering between one bar and none at all. 

Still, his inbox managed to refresh. 

Only one notification blinked onto the screen. It came from the old fanpage tied to his website, the one where readers used to leave him messages after every book release. Back then, the page overflowed. Dozens, sometimes even hundreds of notes came pouring in, filled with admiration, questions, and confessions from strangers who wanted to share a piece of their thoughts about the story Heart had written.

But that was over a year ago, Heart could barely remember the euphoria of having that kind excitement seeing new notifications every day. The words had stopped coming the moment his own failed to show up.

Now, the inbox sat mostly untouched. Forgotten, like the multiple unread drafts on his laptop.

Except for one name.

Daybreak: Today’s heat is no joke. But it says tomorrow might rain. Don’t forget your umbrella if you’re heading out.

Daybreak had written to him every single day.

Not just recently. Not just this month.

For nearly two years now, their messages had arrived without fail. They weren’t a long confession of how the books had turned them into a better person. They were more of brief updates, observations about the weather, thoughts about the moon, or the taste of coffee on a bad day. Sometimes they included a quote from one of Heart’s books. And some other times, it was nothing but a simple single line like “Hope you’re resting well.”

Heart had never responded to any reader personally. He intentionally kept boundaries clean.

But despite Heart never replied, despite being ignored for the whole two years. This Daybreak username just kept writing, like their words were meant to fill a space they believed still existed in him. Never demanded attention, never questioned whether the messages were even read.

As if they knew.

As if they sensed how deeply Heart was sinking.

As if they learned how badly he needed these little but meaningful gestures.

He stared at the message for longer than he meant to. Not because of what it said, but because of what it didn’t say. There was no pressure, no expectation. Just a loyal presence that proudly announced it would keep returning. It made something ache in his chest, sharp and slow, like pressing into an old bruise.

If he did manage to write again, this person might be one of the reasons he still didn’t give up, just yet.

He closed the app before that ache could turn into something else and decided it was the time to rest his tired mind and body.

The room was dim now, only a streak of moonlight faintly reflected onto the wooden floor. The fan turned with a low groan in the corner, and the frogs outside hadn’t stopped. He set the phone down beside him and finally let his weight sink into the mattress.

Lying flat on his back, he stared at the ceiling, waiting for the silence to settle. But it didn’t feel as soft as it had earlier. It wrapped around him thicker now, heavier, like it didn’t want to be ignored.

But eventually, he closed his eyes.

Then he felt something.

A shift in the air, very slightly, barely noticeable. It did not have a sound but the air around him seemed to get colder. No breeze, no temperature change, yet all sense in his body stood on guard.

Something was wrong.

The sensation crawled over him slowly, like he was submerged into a bucket full of ice and went down ever so slowly. Heart was sure it was not his imagination, it was not just a passing one second feeling.

Heart could feel it by how the hairs on his body stood up and a chill inch by inch ran down his spine.

He was being watched.

Not casually.

Someone or something was watching him, with intent.

He opened his eyes slowly, one eye at a time, expecting something he wasn’t sure of.

But the room was the same.

The fan was still spinning lazily with the moonlight pressing against the curtains. And the hum of crickets singing outside could still be faintly heard.

Everything was still. Nothing had changed.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

So he closed his eyes again.

But the feeling lingered.

It’s like a gaze, steady and sharp.

And it was focused, right on him.

He lay motionless, tried his best to stay still. He listened. Waited.

Time stretched. Maybe five minutes. Maybe more. It was impossible to tell.

That loud silence went away all at once.

Not slowly, not gradually. It just left. As if it simply stood and walked away.

The room exhaled. So did Heart. Finally felt like he could finally breathe normally. 

He didn’t sleep right away after that, his skin still tingled with alertness.

But when he finally did, the night was quiet again.

But in the morning, the first thing he noticed was the chair.

It wasn’t in the corner anymore.

It had moved.

Stood right beside the bed, facing him.

It wasn’t a small shift.

It had traveled nearly a meter from the corner to the bedside, angled just slightly toward the pillow where Heart’s head had rested. Like someone had sat there, quietly watching him sleep.

A chill slid down his spine again. The feeling he had right before he fell asleep last night came back.

The sight sent shivers upon him and despite being petrified, Heart wasn’t comfortable having the chair there. So he hesitantly moved it back to where it was, in the corner of the room. Thinking to himself “No more surprises, please.”

Well, the house was old. Maybe uneven floors. Maybe the fan had pushed it, somehow. He considered all the usual excuses, whispered them under his breath as he carried his coffee to the front porch and let the sun chase the leftover shivers from his skin.

But that night, when he returned to bed, Heart made sure to stare hard at where the chair was, making sure he wasn’t hallucinating or turning mad.

Sleep found him quickly, until that same silence bloomed around him again.

Too complete, too focused. Like the house had eyes and they all pointing at him.

And the unknown presence returned.

The same invisible weight settled over the room. He could feel it in the back of his neck, in the stillness of the air. 

His eyes snapped open. The chair hadn’t moved, not yet. But the feeling of being seen was there, unmistakable.

He tried not to move. Not out of fear, but because something told him, don’t disturb it.

His body stayed still, yet his eyes wandered around the room. Trying to catch something in the act.

Heart could feel a presence of something.

But eventhough he was freaked out inside, he could tell the sudden shift in the air wasn’t heavy, or mean. It almost felt like the air wanted to greet, wanted to say hi, curious.

This time Heart really counted, hoping the sheep would help him fall asleep as well. It lasted exactly five minutes. No more.

And then it was gone, as if a switch had been flicked off.

It was probably the sheep he counted, but he fell into the dreamland soon after, not even seconds.

When he woke the next morning, the chair was back by his bed.

This time, it didn’t face him directly. It was turned slightly toward the window, as if whoever, or whatever, had moved it a little further away not to impose, suddenly being polite.

As if they knew, Heart was made uncomfortable by it, yet they still wanted to do what they wanted to do.

By the fourth night, he didn’t bother dragging it back. He left it by the bed, half-expecting it to be there the next morning anyway. And when the presence came again, when the room thickened with that quiet gaze, he didn’t panic.

He simply whispered to the ceiling, “Okay. Five minutes, right?”

No answer, of course. Just the stillness.

But he swore something moving in the air. Something soft, something gentle, like a soft release of breath.

And in the morning, the chair had shifted, just slightly, now stood closer toward where Heart’s head had rested through the night.

It didn’t frighten him anymore.

Heart found himself thinking, maybe it wasn’t meant to scare him. Maybe it was just a routine. A habit. Of someone wanting to be close.

Or maybe Heart stole the bed where they usually rest.

He had every reason to feel unsettled. The house was old. Older than whoever Heart personally knew had been alive. And God knows what kind of stories had soaked into the walls over the decades. Places like this carried memories. Sometimes grief. Sometimes worse.

But strangely, Heart didn’t feel the way he felt the first few nights.

In fact, he had been sleeping better than he had in years.

He was the type who couldn’t sleep anywhere but his own bed. During his book tours, he’d lost count of how many sleepless nights he’d spent in hotel rooms, no matter how many stars the establishment carried, no matter how soft the mattress was.

He’d tried everything, from white noise, sleeping mask, aromatherapy, bringing his own blackout curtains, even sleeping pills. None of it ever worked.

But here, in this unfamiliar room with its musk of time and rain, wood that had weathered too many storms, he found calmness.

And the presence at night, whatever it was, didn’t scare him.

It was still there, he could feel it, but it was more gentle. Not looming. Not threatening. Just close. Like someone keeping an eye, watching over him, making sure he wasn’t alone.

It didn’t feel like being haunted.

It felt like being welcomed.

And understood.

Over time it felt less like something strange and more like a lullaby that helped him sleep.

***

By the eighth sunset at the house, Heart still had nothing to show for the day. Just crumpled notes scattered around the desk and a growing headache that pulsed behind his eyes.

The cursor blinked mockingly on a blank screen, surrounded by half-sentences that had led to nowhere, like scattered memories that were never made. His fingers hovered above the keyboard, tense and sore. His shoulders slumped with the weight of failure, again and again.

He let out a low, tired sound and dropped his head forward, one hand gripping the back of his neck, the other pulling at his hair in frustration. He had slept well, eaten enough in the past few days, and the house gave him everything; quiet, space, calm. But none of it seemed to help. The ideas came in pieces, too soft to hold. And even when he managed to start writing, the words fell flat. Nothing felt right. Nothing stuck.

Ten whole hours had passed like that. No food. Just water and the lingering bitter taste of black coffee.

The air was still, sticky with heat, and outside the crickets had already started to turn up for their shift.

At some point, the golden light had faded, replaced by the pale blue wash from his laptop screen that only made the pain in his head worse. He hadn’t even realized the sun had disappeared. 

Just before he slammed his laptop shut, a message blinked onto his inbox. Arrived later than usual today, but it read “Good Night, I hope you get a good rest.”

Simple. Familiar. Daybreak again.

Heart stared at the words for a few seconds, feeling a small part of him loosen, like the message had found a soft spot beneath everything that hurt. But the relief was fleeting. It wasn’t enough to quiet the disappointment still crawling under his skin. Not tonight.

He closed the window without reading it a second time.

Kindness didn’t land the same way when you were angry at yourself. It felt distant. Like it belonged to someone else.

Daybreak would probably be dissapointed that the author they looked up to, could only produce a blank page with kid's scribble on it.

His brain felt wrung out, and his heart kept pulling in all directions, filled with the hollow pressure of needing to create something. Needing to feel like he wasn’t wasting time out here. He was racing against something, but didn’t even know what he was chasing for.

He dragged himself to bed with stiff limbs, too exhausted to care that the chair had once again shifted slightly. At this point, it felt like a joke.

He lay back, pulled the covers up, and closed his eyes.

And as usual, it returned. That feeling.

That unmistakable weight in the room. The quiet gaze. That invisible gaze settling on him, steady and too focused to ignore.

Heart’s jaw tightened.

He stayed still at first, waiting for it to pass, the way it always did. But the tension strained too tightly tonight. He just wanted to rest. To forget about all the stress and the pain behind his eyes.

He just wanted to sleep.

And something in him snapped.

“I’ve had enough.” he hissed angrily, voice rough and louder than he expected in the quiet of the room.

Heart could feel something shifted, the presence or whatever it was, recoiled slightly. As if startled, as if it trembled.

He opened his eyes quickly in a harsh motion and scanned the room. Everything looked the same.

Shadows soft and still in the corners. The standing fan clicking every few seconds.

But the chair, it felt different.

It wasn’t just a piece of furniture anymore. It felt full. Like something was sitting there. Not moving. But watching.

And because he had nowhere else to place the anger eating at him, he let it out in the only direction he could.

“Can you stop bothering me for God's sake?” he yelled into the dark, gaze fixed on the chair. “I’m not your entertainment.”

The room froze in the quiet that followed. Even the air felt like it stopped moving.

Heart sat in that stillness, pulse thudding loud in his ears. Slowly, the weight in the room eased back. Not gone. Just distant again. Like something had stepped away.

And the next thing he realized was how stupid he must have looked.

Now he was even yelling at empty space, like a child throwing tantrum.

Then the light above him suddenly flickered.

Once.

Then again.

And again, faster, more frantic, until it strobed unevenly, casting the room in flashes of light and shadow.

Heart could hear the low, erratic hum of electricity buzzing through the ceiling. Sharp. Too loud.

Then the fan gave a loud click, a jolt like it had been yanked from the inside.

It stopped spinning.

Everything else followed.

The room fell into a silence that wasn’t just quiet.

No whir of the fan. No steady chirping of crickets from outside. Not even the occasional creak of wood. Just a thick, unnatural stillness pressing in from every side.

It screamed wrong.

Panic hit fast.

His lungs locked up. Breath catching at the top of his throat. He sat up sharply, movements jerky, his vision lagging for a second as the blood rushed to his head. His heart slammed against his ribs, fast and uneven.

The air felt too thin and his mouth went dry.

He knew this scene. Everyone did. He’d seen it in a dozen horror films. It started with the flickering light, then silence swallowing the room whole. And the next scene would be where something revealed itself, too close, the jumpscare.

Shit. Shit. Shit! I pissed it off.

He gripped the edge of the bed like it might hold him steady. His eyes darted to the chair, and for the first time, he didn’t want to look. Didn’t want to know.

So Heart made up his mind to run away, although he was also well-aware by how he would get chased all the way. Heart always rolled his eyes at those stupid characters that kept running around eventhough they would meet their end anyway. But here he was, in the same position, and the only thing he could think of was to escape.

But as soon as his feet touched the ground, he saw something shifted in front of the window.

The moonlight bent around a shape that hadn’t been there a second ago.

His heart beating rapidly against his chest and his terror made him tremble, but he blinked and stared. Curiosity got the best of him.

There, half-formed in the dimness, stood someone.

Small, still.

A boy.

He couldn’t have been older than Heart. His clothes were loose, worn-looking but adorned with oriental patterns, nothing Heart recognized from any time he’d lived in, it looked like some costume he would see in the museum. The fabric hung oddly, like it didn’t belong to this world anymore. His skin was pale, too pale, and his features flickering like candlelight behind glass.

Translucent, but not fully gone.

A ghost.

That was for sure.

But the boy wasn’t charging forward. He wasn’t snarling or screaming or trying to tear the room apart.

He just stood there.

And for a moment, it wasn’t Heart who looked afraid.

It was the boy.

His expression flickered between fear and something else. He looked… frightened.

And guilty?

The boy’s eyes were wide, but they didn’t meet Heart’s. Instead, they stayed low, fixed on the floor between them. His shoulders were drawn in tight, almost curled inward, and his fingers fidgeted nervously in front of him, thumb pressing against knuckle back and forth. He looked like a kid who’d been caught doing something wrong.

For a long moment, neither of them moved.

Then the boy lifted his hands slowly, not threatening, but uncertain, as if trying to explain something without words.

Heart, who had been halfway ready to throw a pillow or run out the door, found himself frozen instead by the strange, soft fear in the boy’s face. The ghost, for all his ethereal glow, looked more terrified of him than the other way around.

The boy only stood there, flickering at the edges, gaze locked on Heart like he was the one who had haunted him.

The boy stayed just long enough for Heart to catch the shape of his face.

Soft. Youthful. Maybe eighteen, maybe younger. He looked like someone who smiled a lot. Someone whose eyes used to light up when they laughed. But now his expression was frozen somewhere between fear and awe, like he wasn’t sure if he’d done something wrong or right by showing up.

But before the words could reach his tongue, the light flickered again.

The boy mouthed something, but Heart couldn’t hear a thing rather than a faint whisper of the night.

Heart’s eyebrows were pulled together as the boy kept speaking, more like rambling now. But none of the words Heart could hear.

Words after words but then he boy finally seemed to realize Heart hadn’t heard him.

His shoulders fell, and a quiet sigh escaped him, soundless, like everything else about him. The disappointment in his expression was immediate, and deeply human. The boy looked like he was in deep thought and soon after it looked like a light bulb flickered on top of his head.

He shut his eyes, his brows drawing together in concentration.

The room responded before Heart could.

The ceiling light flickered again, twice, then a third time, sharper now, like the air itself had been disturbed. Heart looked around trying to see what the boy was trying to do, Heart knew it wasn’t harm but he still had to be sure of surprises.

Then the boy heaved a breath, clearly tired, but Heart wasn’t sure what from. The boy looked at Heart again, and smiled apologetically. 

And the boy began to fade.

Not dramatically. Not bursting with a lot of light, no gust of wind this time. Just… a soft fading out.

The outline of him dissolved like breath against glass, until there was nothing left but moonlight pooling on the floor and the chair that was empty again, although turned slightly askew.

Heart sat still for a long time.

He wasn’t sure how long, but the fan had started turning again by the time he lay back down. The room was still, the weight of the gaze gone. But it didn’t feel like relief. It felt like something missing.

He didn’t sleep well that night.

***

The next morning, the blinding sunlight entered the room through the curtains while Heart still and lay there, restless, literally. Everything in the house looked more ordinary than it should have. And the chair that he had left on the bedside looked so vacant, as if it had always been occupied all this time.

For a moment, he wondered if he’d dreamed it all.

Until he walked to reach his laptop on the desk and noticed a piece of paper next to it.

And on top of it, a pen. Not his. It was too old-fashioned, heavier, with a golden clip and a fine nib. A fountain pen.

He took the paper and it had a writing that wasn’t his.

“Sorry.”

Heart stared at it, the cold creeping back into his spine. But it wasn’t fear. Not this time. It was… something else.

Something slower. Sadder.

Whoever the boy was, whatever he was, he truly hadn’t meant harm.

That night, there was no flicker of lights. No cold gust.

But the feeling of being watched returned. Quieter now. Almost hesitant.

Heart didn’t yell this time. But his curiosity grew.

He whispered, not sure if the ghost could even hear him, “Do you need someone to talk to?”

Silence.

Knowing this boy stayed around in this house, for what looked like decades. Heart knew he got stories to tell. 

Heart opened his eyes, looking straight at the chair next to him, then tilted his head. Guess he wasn’t the type to open up easily.

So he asked again, “So… How about we start with names? Who are you?”

And from the silence, he could hear shuffling then rustles of paper, then silence again. Heart turned to look at his desk, where the stacks of his drafts were. He figured the ghost had written to reply so he got up and reached for his desk, turned on the desk lamp just enough to see the same handwriting back.

Liming.

A name that floated into the air like a half-remembered dream. One Heart didn’t recognize, but felt strange warmth sounding the name in a small voice.

So Heart replied, “I’m Heart.”

And he waited for the next writing to show up, but even after minutes it stayed still. Heart felt silly, the ghost might not mean harm but they probably do not have time to bother with human anyway.

He got back to the bed and continued to sleep, and the feeling of being watched returned soon after.

Despite not being answered earlier, Heart felt it was improper not to, knowing the said boy must have been hundreds years older than him.

So he called out softly, “Good night, Liming.”

Heart swore he could feel a gust of wind pass through his ear, thinking the ghost must have replied back. But Heart couldn’t hear him.

He didn’t fall asleep right away, but when he finally did, it was easier than the nights before.

And the next morning, there was another note on the same page where the boy had written the night before.

“Good night, Heart.”

***

After that night, something changed between them.

The feeling of being watched never went away, but it felt different. It no longer pressed on Heart’s chest or crawled under his skin. It simply lingered around, like someone sitting beside him to stay.

And each morning, the chair remained. Heart didn’t even think of moving it anywhere, assuming he was doing Liming a favor so that he didn’t have to keep dragging it next to Heart.

Heart also started to accept the fact that he indeed wasn’t alone in the house. He started to say good morning out loud when he got out of bed, particularly greeting at the direction of the empty chair.

During the day, when writing got too frustrating or his thoughts started to spiral, he would speak into the space like it was listening. Muttering complaints. Rambling about plot holes. Letting out long, dramatic groans when nothing worked. Sometimes he got sulky, sinking into the chair like a child scolded by their own mind.

If anyone had walked in on him mid-rant, alone and talking to nobody, they’d probably think he’d lost it.

But he didn’t care.

Because someone was listening.

Heart could feel it.

Heart knew it.

Sometimes when things got bad and his mood turned for the worst. He would catch a soft gust brushing past him. Sometimes it felt like a faint pat on the shoulder. Other times, like a gentle hand moving through his hair.

The touches were never strong, barely there. But they were real.

Real enough for him.

And at night whenever the five minutes almost up, he wouldn’t miss to bid goodbye.

Just a simple goodnight, nothing else.

***

One day Heart received his usual message from Daybreak, “I tried a new dish at my usual restaurant today. I was nervous at first, what if I didn’t like it? But when it arrived, I actually liked it more than my regular. Funny, isn’t it? That I have a fixed obsession of ordering the same menu all the time. Do you do that too or am I weird?”

Almost, Heart almost replied. But he caught himself before doing so.

He answered to himself instead, “Yeah. Me too. I am too comfortable with what’s regular, too hesitant to challenge myself. I guess… a lot of people are.”

The words hung in the room. Quiet. Honest.

And somehow, saying them made something click.

Like a light switching on inside his chest. A thought crept in, one he hadn’t considered before, or maybe had just been avoiding.

What if what I need isn’t calm, peace, or time by myself? What if I don’t have to build something from scratch?

He blinked, sat back slowly, the idea settling deeper now.

What if the story can come from something that’s already living and breathing, just waiting to be found?

His pulse picked up, not from panic this time, but something close to revelation. A door he hadn’t seen before, suddenly opening.

He stood up without thinking, pacing the room again, the air around him still and listening.

An idea popped up above his head.

He glanced around the room, trying to figure out where Liming was but of course Heart couldn’t see.

So he called out softly, “Liming?”

And soon he felt a brisk of wind passed him by.

“There you are.” Heart thought to himself. “I want to know your story.”

The air felt like it stirred in response then he heard pen scribbling behind him.

There was a question mark on the paper.

Heart laughed, “Yeah, I know it’s sudden. But I need something to start and you know very well how bad I am at the progress.”

He sat down near the desk, rubbing his hands together as if warming himself up. “I mean, only if you’re okay with it. I don’t want to offend. But I figured… maybe you’re still here for a reason. And maybe that reason could bring me some inspiration.”

No reply still.

Heart sat a little straighter, fingers clasped loosely in his lap. He didn’t want this to be one-sided either. He didn’t want to take without giving back.

“I can help you too.” he said gently. “I mean… if that’s something you want.”

He let the words settle. They felt heavy in his mouth, but they were heavier in the room.

“It’s not right, is it? For a soul to stay here. Do you want to… move on?”

The air shifted subtly and thickened. Like Liming was thinking.

Heart stayed quiet, letting the silence stretch. He didn’t rush it.

But then a scribble slowly appeared, “What do you want to know?”

“So… how long have you been here?” Heart asked, his voice cautious. “Why are you staying here?”

A long pause.

But then the room chilled faintly, the light dimmed slightly and the figure began to take form again. Fainter than before, like Liming was hesitant to show himself too clearly. But enough for Heart to see him.

He looked the same, young, slight, his eyes round and quiet.

He didn’t speak, but his mouth moved as if testing the word before it reached Heart’s ears.

“Waiting.”

Maybe it was all the horror movies he’d seen, but Heart had always imagined a ghost’s voice would be rough or cold, maybe even broken. Like a nail scraped against the chalkboard.

But Liming’s voice, when it finally came, wasn’t like that at all.

It was calm. Light. A little distant but not unfriendly. And there was something about the way it carried, something gentle beneath it, that made Heart think that Liming probably had a nice laugh when he was alive. The kind that made other people wanted to smile too.

Heart blinked, wasn’t expecting he could now hear Liming’s voice. “For what?”

Liming’s expression was unreadable. Then slowly, he moved toward the desk. The fountain pen lifted again its own, slow and graceful, before pressing to a clean notebook page.

“I made a promise,” he wrote in slanted strokes. “I promised I’d wait.”

Heart exhaled. “A promise?”

The pen hovered.

“Yes.”

“How long have you been waiting for?” Heart asked gently. “Judging from your clothes and… everything, I’m assuming decades?”

Liming didn’t respond, he just looked sadly at the notebook.

Liming stood still for a while. Then he wrote again. This time in smaller handwriting, a little shakier.

A-Xin.

He wrote the name slowly, like each letter carried a weight he hadn’t touched in a long time. 

Heart tilted his head. “Who’s that?”

The pen paused. Then, with a steadier hand it wrote. “My lover.”

The word lingered on the page like a confession whispered into a cold room.

Heart stared at it.

And Heart felt the air grew heavier, not with fear but with a newfound warmth and ache.

Liming had been waiting, staying for God knew how long, all because of a promise. A promise he must’ve made when he was too young to understand what it truly meant. But he was keeping it anyway. Even now, as a soul.

It was the kind of devotion Heart had written about before. The kind that filled the pages of his books, that gave his characters their grand gestures and aching goodbyes. But those were just words. Beautiful, dramatic sentences he strung together from imagination. Yet he knew so little about it himself.

It was the kind of love he’d rolled his eyes at in countless romance novels. That people called poetic but Heart had always found unrealistic. Who stayed that long? Who waited after life had already left them?

Apparently… Liming did.

He had been carrying the kind of devotion and love, stretched across the years, worn thin by the time, yet he was still holding on.

Now Heart wished he hadn’t asked.

He knew it would have something to do with unresolved feelings and unfinished business. But looking at Liming now, Heart felt his own heart twisted uncomfortably.

Liming looked even more fragile with his flickering frame. His eyes shimmered with a sadness so deep and guilt hit Heart’s chest heavily.

“I’m sorry.” Heart said, whispering. “It must have been so hard on you. You’ve been holding on for so long.”

Maybe it was because no one had ever said that to him before. Maybe because this was the first time someone noticed how much he had endured.

And that acknowledgement, soft as it was, seemed to reach Liming in a way nothing else had.

Liming lifted his gaze slowly, eyes meeting Heart’s with something almost too tender to look at directly.

Liming smiled, lips forming a line across his tiny face. His figure might have been invisible but his smile brought a kind of radiance that glowed.

There was gratitude there. But more than that, what seemed like an adoration.

And in that look, Heart saw it clearly.

Not a ghost.

Not even a threat.

Not something out of place in this world.

Just a boy.

Liming was just a boy.

Still standing beneath the weight of a promise he never stopped keeping.

Still waiting under the moonlight for someone who might never come home.

***

The next morning, Heart couldn’t stop thinking about the name.

A-Xin.

It echoed in his mind through breakfast till his half-hearted attempts at writing. It felt too real to ignore now.

So, Heart called his aunt after slipping quietly out of the room.

By now Heart noticed Liming never followed him out of the room. Heart had a feeling he couldn’t. Like he was stuck inside the house, but in the room particularly.

Since this house was inherited from generation to generation, whoever A-Xin was must have been from this family and had a history in this house.

She answered on the second ring, cheerful and warm as always. “You’re tired of the countryside already?”

Heart chuckled softly. “Actually…no. It’s kind of strange, but I feel like I could stay here forever and ever.”

She laughed softly. “Silly boy.”

Heart hesitated for just a second before getting to the point. “So… I kinda have a question about something. Do you know anyone named A-Xin?”

When he said the name, there was a pause on the other end.

“A-Xin?” she repeated, slower this time. “Goodness, that’s a name I haven’t heard in ages. That was my grandfather.”

Heart’s heart skipped a beat. “Your grandfather?”

“Yes,” she said, voice tinged with nostalgia. “He passed away when I was still young. Why do you ask?”

Heart hesitated, fingers tightening around the phone. “Do you… have anything of his? Like a picture, maybe?”

“What do you need it for?”

Heart paused for a moment, “Do you know… Liming?”

There was a rustling on her end. She didn’t ask more questions, as if she knew. “I’ll check”

An hour later, a photo landed in his inbox. A black-and-white image, worn at the corners, scanned into slightly blurry focus.

Heart clicked it open.

Then his breath caught in his throat.

The man in the picture looked older, yes. Wiser, dressed in traditional slacks and a loose-collared shirt. But his face…

His face was Heart’s.

Not just similar. Identical.

The same tilt of the eyes, the same stubborn mouth, the same faint crease between the brows. It was like looking into a future, or maybe a past, that didn’t belong to him.

Heart sat back slowly, chills creeping over his skin.

It wasn’t that Liming had found A-Xin.

It was that Liming thought he had found A-Xin.

In this same face, yet different time.

Liming had been waiting for the only person who ever promised to come back.

And somehow, impossibly, that person had returned.

Just… not the way it was supposed to be.

***

That night, Heart didn’t turn off the lights when he entered the room.

He didn’t head straight for bed either.

Instead, he stood in front of the chair, the one that had been turning to face him each night, hands at his sides, breath held without meaning to.

He waited.

Waited for the shift in the air, for the silence to settle just a little deeper.

“Liming.” he called out gently.

The ghost appeared slower than usual tonight, hesitant, like he already knew what was coming.

Heart held up his phone, the photo open. “This is him, isn’t it?”

Liming looked.

His eyes landed on the screen. And for a moment, he didn’t move.

Then his form wavered, trembling at the edges, like a gust of wind had passed through something too delicate to hold steady.

It had been too long, since Liming saw A-Xin again. Not in the form of the man that was in front of him. But in the form of all his young age and the smile that he carried, that particular outfit that A-Xin always had, in his time,his A-Xin.

And without a sound, the tears came.

They slipped down his cheeks, slow and steady, even though there was no body to hold them and no skin to catch them. But somehow, they still fell. Every one of them heavy with a grief that had waited far too long to be seen.

He didn’t need to speak.

Heart already knew.

Liming didn’t just recognize the face.

He had loved it. And longed for it for every night he had spent in this room.

Heart stepped forward instinctively, as if he could do something or anything to ease it.

“I’m sorry.” he whispered. “I’m not him. I didn’t know. I really thought I could help.”

Liming shook his head. Not in rejection, just in sorrow.

Then Heart heard the soft rustle of paper from behind him.

He turned, walked over to the desk, and saw the handwriting.

“I know you’re not A-Xin.” Liming finally wrote, the letters shaky. “A-Xin would have remembered me as soon as he saw me. The fact that you don’t. It means you’re not my A-Xin.”

Heart’s throat tightened .

“I’ve waited. For so long.”

“And when I saw you entering the door, I thought, he finally came back. Finally came back to see me.”

“But you’re not him. You just have his face.”

“Maybe you’re right, I know he might have been gone too by now. But I promised I’d wait.”

Heart felt a lump rise in his throat. The words felt too bare, too innocent. Like they’d been stored in Liming’s chest for decades and only now allowed to surface.

Liming didn’t speak the story out loud.

Instead, he let it unfold through writing with small pieces at first. Quiet phrases scrawled across pages in Heart’s notebook, like puzzle fragments drifting up from the past.

And Heart, careful as if handling something fragile, pieced them together.

And began to understand.

It had started decades ago, when the house was still filled with voices. When the air smelled of incense and soup, and the sun poured in through the same windows, catching in the silk robes of a boy named A-Xin. The heir of a Chinese family who came to Thailand for trade and found their roots in Pattaya’s soil.

Liming had come later.

He wasn’t family, he was no blood son, but they treated him as one. A boy from a family that was too poor to feed him.

A-Xin’s parents gave him a bed, food, and education. He wore the same clothes. Ate at the same table. Walked beside A-Xin like two peas in a pod.

They even gave him a name. “Liming.” they would call him. It meant dawn, a beginning.

To the world, they were brothers.

To each other, they slowly became something else.

Liming had written it with adoration, not bitterness. He described the way A-Xin would touch his hand too long while passing tea. How they stole time in the quiet spaces under the trees or in the kitchen after dark. It started with glances. Then laughter. Then one night, a kiss in the hallway that tasted like both fear and sweetness.

They never planned it to happen. But it was as if they were meant to be. And once it began, neither could stop it.

Heart read Liming’s words with a hollow ache in his chest.

He could see it so clearly as if Liming was showing him his memories. The way they must’ve held each other behind closed doors pretending the world wasn’t watching. The way A-Xin probably smiled differently when Liming was near.

But it didn’t last.

A-Xin’s parents had found out about them.

They could not bring themselves to punish Liming when he had called Liming one of their own. But their disappointment rang louder than anger.

They didn’t throw Liming out.

They left.

Took A-Xin away with them. Vanished overnight with bags packed in silence. A door slammed shut one morning, and by the time Liming woke up, they were gone.

Without goodbyes.

Liming had been left behind in the big house with its empty halls and untouched meals.

But Liming had been a boy full of hope. His misfortune to be born into a poor family had brought him to meet A-Xin.

And after that he always believed that every bad thing in life came with a better thing waiting on the other side.

A-Xin had been that better thing all along.

Their love was sacred, hushed like whispers, yet A-Xin promised him, time after time, “One day I'll make a world where we can be together. Can you wait for me just a little longer?”

As silly as it would sound for someone barely seventeen.

But Lining knew every word of it was true and sincere.

“I'll be right here waiting for you. Even if it would take me hundred lifetimes.” Liming had promised back.

But hours turned to days, and days turned to weeks. Liming stopped eating. Stopped leaving the room. The heartbreak turned into numbness. And the numbness turned into silence.

And then one day, it just… ended.

Liming wrote to Heart, “I waited every day. I stayed right in the corner of this room so I wouldn’t miss the sound of the door. I thought I’d hear his voice again.”

But the voice never came.

But Heart knew, about a thing or two.

His aunt had filled in the missing pieces earlier that day. Of what happened after.

So he sat across from Liming, voice soft but steady, and began.

“He came back.” Heart said.

Liming’s eyes lifted, still glassy with tears. His gaze widened, uncertain. But he didn’t speak. He just listened, as it was the only thing he could do.

Heart nodded gently. “A-Xin came back. To the house."

"To you.”

A-Xincouldn’t reach out to Liming after they moved, there weren’t any sort of easy and untraceable way to. He would write letters but they would get confiscated the minute A-Xin tried to send it out.

They had moved country, too far away for A-Xin to trail his way back to Liming.

The only news A-Xin got about Liming came months later.

His parents told him quietly, without looking at him, that Liming had left the world.

They didn’t say how. They didn’t say when. Just that he was gone.

A-Xin's parents had been heartbroken, grieved for a boy they once had cared for.

But A-Xin's was beyond repair.

He had lost the person he was planning his future with. The love of his life.

He didn’t even get to say goodbye.

Didn’t even know Liming had been waiting.

And by the time he came back, it was too late.

He was already old and gray by the time he returned. And the house had long gone hearing a cherry laughters and simple giggles that used to hit every corners of the wall.

A-Xin moved back into the house after his children were all grown up, after a life built out of duty and responsibility, but not a desire.

He walked through the garden. Cooked the same soup. And quietly made peace with the fact that he would never be able to fulfill his promise.

And he never stepped inside Liming’s room.

Not once.

He couldn’t bring himself to. Not because he didn’t remember, but because he did. He remembered everything, all too well. As if they were just yesterday. 

The image of him and Liming laughing and chasing after one another, filled the empty hallway everytime he walked passed by.

The way they would play the piano together and randomly hitting the keys were like a movie being played over and over again whenever he settled and sat before the grand instrument.

And the picture of them holding each other so close just under the sunset, whispering promises and devotions, A-Xin could recalled the words, each of them.

He knew he had failed the one person who was the most important to him. And the guilt was too heavy to face.

“He… was here?” Liming asked, although Heart again couldn’t hear his voice.

Heart nodded slowly. “He was. He came back. He stayed in this house for a few years. Right here… with you.”

He hesitated, then added, “He took his last breath just outside this room.”

Liming stood still, eyes wide and flickering. As if trying to feel the ghost of someone he had never gotten to say goodbye to.

“Did he live a good life?” Liming asked, that was the only thing he had been wondering for so long.

Heart thought back to what his aunt had told him. How her parents had said that when they found A-Xin that day, he looked at peace with the widest smile he had ever worn. Like he was ready to go, to meet someone he had been meaning to return to.

“I don’t know if it was a good life,” Heart admitted, “but he lived a long one. He grew old. He had children. Grandchildren. Great-grandchildren.”

“But what I do know,” Heart continued, voice lower now, “is that he never forgot you. Not even once.”

Once Heart put piece and piece together inside him, he looked around the room. Not with pity, but with the heavy ache of knowing.

This house wasn’t haunted by rage or tragedy.

It was haunted by love.

Love that had waited too long. Love that was left behind.

“I’m sorry.” Heart said. He didn’t know what else could possibly be enough.

Liming didn’t answer right away. But when he looked at Heart, something in his eyes had changed.

Softer now. Less sorrow.

As if, for the first time, he believed that all his waiting hadn’t been in vain.

Not for closure.

But for knowing that his love, their love, had truly existed.

That it wasn’t a dream, or a mistake, or had been forgotten.

Liming hadn’t been the only one weighted by the promise all these years

Even after decades, even in another lifetime, it still lived.

Quietly.

Gently.

Through someone new, yet with an old face, standing in the same room.

The feeling never left. It was here all along.

***

Liming didn’t cry the next time he appeared.

He stood by the window, quiet and composed, the glow of his form thinner than before, like the world was slowly forgetting how to hold him.

Heart watched in silence, his chest tight. “I think…” he began gently, “you don’t have to do this anymore.”

Liming’s gaze flicked toward him, thoughtful. And then he wrote, slowly, like each word carried weight.

“You’re right.” 

Heart didn’t respond right away. There wasn’t anything to say that would match what Liming had waited through. So instead, he just stood next to him, shoulder almost brushing the place where Liming’s should’ve been.

“Thank you for waiting.” Heart finally said. “Not as A-Xin, because I am not him. But as Heart. I feel like I’m meant to be here. I’m so happy I got to have you around.” 

“You must have felt so alone. I hope you meet A-Xin soon up there.”

Liming looked at him then, really looked. And for the slightest moment, his eyes filled again, not with grief, but with a kind of peace Heart hadn’t seen on his face before.

“Thank you.” he wrote.

And then, with no fanfare, no flash of light, Liming faded.

For a brief, impossible second, Liming’s frames were defined and colors came back replacing his pale skin.

Not light. Not shadow. Not the withering outline of a fading soul.

He looked whole.

His smile bloomed wide, stretching across his face until his cheeks round like a boy caught mid-laugh. A boy, with all his youth and sunshine.

It wasn’t longing and hurt anymore.

It was joy. Full of it.

And then, Liming was gone in a blink of an eye.

This time, Heart knew he wouldn’t come back.

***

The next morning, the room felt lighter but the air didn’t hum the same way it used to.

The chair was still, untouched. For the first time in weeks, it stayed exactly where it had been the night before.

The stillness should’ve been comforting.

But it was… quiet. Too quiet.

Lonely, even.

Heart made coffee in silence. Opened his laptop. Sat at the desk where Liming had once scribbled his name.

He didn’t mean to type.

He only opened the document out of habit, expecting nothing, expecting the cursor to blink the same way it had been all month.

But then his fingers moved.

The words came slow at first. Then faster.

A scene. A moment.

Then two people standing in the quiet of a room, neither of them alive in the ways that mattered, but both somehow seen.

And then more words.

A memory that wasn’t his but felt like it lived in his bones.

A boy named Liming. And a promise. In a room full of waiting

Another boy named A-Xin, too selfless to understand the kind of regret that lasted a lifetime.

He wrote until his coffee went cold. And he kept writing.

There was nothing but silence around him. But now, it was full of something.

Purpose.

Liming was gone. But he had left something behind.

And Heart, was ready to tell his story.

***

It was weeks later when Heart finally stepped through the glass doors of the publishing office again, holding a single copy of the book he never thought he’d write.

His editor, Phi May, was already wiping her eyes by the time she reached the final chapter. “You didn’t tell me this would ruin me.” she whispered, clutching the manuscript like it had a heartbeat. “It’s so… tender. Like it was waiting to be written.”

Heart smiled, tired but proud. “It was.”

She nodded slowly, then gave him a long, quiet look because she knew Heart, better than himself. She could feel it in his writing. “Are they real?”

He hesitated but answered nonchalantly. “As real as love can be.”

Before she could press further, the door behind her flew open and a younger voice burst into the room. “Phiiii, stop asking me to run errands for you all the time! I am a busy person, you know, B U S Y.”

A young man, based on how he was dressed, black face mask, a worn hoodie and cuffed sneakers. And as soon as he stepped in, Heart could feel his energy filling the room like sunlight.

“Oh!” Instead of replying her brother nagging, Phi May turned to Heart with a smile, almost teasing. “That’s my brother. I’ve told him all about you. He’s your number one fan. He’d be over the moon knowing you’re finally back with something new.”

The boy didn’t realize there was another person in the room because Heart was hidden behind the tall office chair and facing away from the door. But his eyes sparkled as he looked at Heart who was slowly turning in his chair.

And his voice came out without hesitation, “I knew you would do it!” 

It was a simple sentence. But it landed somewhere he didn’t expect.

Heart blinked, caught off guard by the sincerity in his tone. There was something so familiar about it, the way he stood, the gentleness in his eyes, like someone who had known him all along. But Heart was sure he had never met Phi May’s brother yet.

He looked almost like he was normal, but Heart could tell the boy was nervous by the way his hands trembled as they slowly reached out to take his mask off.

And, Heart had seen that face before.

The shape of his smile. The softness in his expression, they look strikingly similar to a certain someone that was just a thin figure in the corner of his Pattaya’s bedroom. Even the moles were exactly where they had been.

He had watched that face break with sorrow, whispered apologies under the moonlight and held onto a promise for lifetimes.

And now it was standing across from him, wearing a hoodie and shyly smiling, with a warmth that Liming had never gotten the chance to grow into.

Heart’s chest tightened.

“I’m Dawn,” the boy said, offering a small bow and then a smile that looked just a little shy.

Dawn.

The name sparked something in Heart’s chest. It tugged at the edges of memory, of inboxes filled with quiet support, of digital encouragement left every day without fail.

“Wait.” Heart said carefully, narrowing his eyes. “Do you… know someone who went by Daybreak?”

The boy froze, ears coloring pink. Before he could answer, Phi May let out a laugh and smacked him lightly on the shoulder.

“He is Daybreak.” she said while laughing even though she just spilled her brother’s secret. “He made that account to send you messages every single day like some lovesick squirrel.”

Heart turned back to Dawn, stunned.

“You…?”

Dawn looked away, scratching at the back of his neck. “I wasn’t trying to be weird. I just… didn’t want you to feel like you were alone. It felt right to stay. So that you know that someone is waiting for you, somewhere.”

Something warm unfurled in Heart’s chest. Surprising yet so familiar.

Soft.

“…Daybreak.” he whispered. And now that he knew, it was obvious.

Dawn. Daybreak.

Of course.

He smiled, partly amused. Another part, because everything around him started to make sense, one by one. Little by little. He felt like he was where he was meant to be.

“Even in this life, you stayed.” he murmured to himself. “Still just as loyal.”

Dawn blinked. “What?”

Heart shook his head, still smiling. “Nothing. Just… thank you.”

The boy grinned back, all teeth and sunshine. “I’d do it again.”

And Heart knew, he meant it. Because Liming just did it again, as Dawn.

Dawn came back the next day.

And the day after that.

And soon, his visits became routine. Like morning light spilling in through the old windows, Dawn’s presence became natural.

Heart was in the process of final editing and reshaping the story before it was published. Dawn would bring takeout or snacks then sit cross-legged on Heart’s office couch talking about anything and everything. He made sure Heart never skipped a meal and kept Heart company when he was too tired to look at the screen any longer.

All while trying his best from spoiling himself with the unreleased book.

And when the hardcover finally arrived in bookstores with its soft sepia-toned cover, Dawn bought it that same morning.

It wasn’t until nearly midnight when Dawn knocked on the door of Heart’s apartment. When Heart opened the door, Dawn stood there, eyes red, the book clutched to his chest as if it was his mental support.

“You made me cry so bad.” he said, eyes narrowed.

Heart chuckled affectionately and pulled him inside.

They didn’t speak much after that. Dawn folded into Heart’s arms like he was made to fit there, and Heart let him cry.

“The story is beautiful and heartbreaking. And you’ve done such a good job.” Dawn said, between his sobs. “But the afterword…”

Dawn didn’t continue and Heart didn’t answer, at least not with words.

He just held Dawn tighter, like he was afraid that Dawn would become a glint of light if Heart didn’t hold him close enough.

Heart had grown used to Dawn’s warmth. The way he filled a room and the way his laughter made space feel safe again.

Dawn was bright and alive.

But the memory of Liming still etched into the shape of the man in his arms.

It felt like holding something he’d already lost once.

And that was what terrified Heart.

Because now Heart finally had something worth holding onto, and he didn’t ever want to let go.

***

A week later, Heart planned a surprise.

He brought Dawn to Pattaya.

Back to the house.

Where the soft light appeared through the windows and on the vintage floorboards. To the scent of sea breeze tangled in bougainvillea vines. 

“This is where I met him.” Heart said, his voice low. “Where the story came alive.”

Heart never told Dawn how true the story was.

Not the fact that their face once belonged to those whose names was written in Heart’s book.

Dawn didn’t need to know.

Dawn walked through the house slowly, fingers grazing the edges of doorframes like the spines of old books. He kept smiling. “I’ve never really explored this part of Pattaya. It’s quieter than I expected. More… magical.”

Heart smiled, watching the said figures skipping through the space.

Because, if the universe had given Liming a second life in the form of this boy with light in his eyes and softness in his voice.

Then Heart wanted him to live freely.

Untouched by grief. Unburdened by memory.

He deserved this life.

One with laughter, with love, with someone who would never disappear without saying goodbye.

So Heart kept the truth to himself.

Let Dawn cry over the story without knowing it had once been their own.

And this time A-Xin wouldn’t fail. Heart could still love him right.

***

That night, they shared the bed that had once held a long waiting.

They tangled under the covers, sharing hushed conversations while the fan in the corner of the room hummed loudly. Heart fell asleep with Dawn’s breath against his throat, slow and even.

But then Dawn stirred.

Something pulled him from sleep, like a soft nudge. Like a whisper calling without sound. He slipped out of bed slowly and walked down the hallway. He was barefoot against the cool wood.

The chill met him halfway, brushing his skin like mist. But it wasn’t cold, it was just something existing.

Dawn walked further away until he heard Heart calling his name.

He turned around and found Heart at the end of the hallway, waiting.

Dawn blinked, realized he had been in a daze. “Why are you—? What am I doing?” Dawn didn’t even realize he had been out of the bed, he thought he was having a dream.

“You’ve been wandering for a while now.” Heart said with a small chuckle.

Dawn walked back to where Heart was and when the soft glow of moonlight hit Dawn’s face, Heart couldn’t unsee it.

It was this house. This night. That light.

And them.

Everything folded over itself, past and present pressed too close together.

It felt strange. Familiar in a way that made Heart’s chest tighten.

But not painful.

Not anymore.

Because this time, the boy walking up to him wasn’t fading.

Heart smiled gently, reaching for his hand. 

“I don’t know what happened to me. I guess I sleepwalk?” Dawn said as he reached to hug Heart.

“Maybe,” Heart said softly, “He just wants to see you. Seeing Liming like this. Alive in some way. Breathing.”

Dawn looked up to Heart and scrunched his eyebrows, didn’t fully understand. But he assumed it must be the sleep talking and just let himself be held.

Then he glanced toward the hallway behind them, still, quiet, aglow with a faint light from moon above.

And he mouthed silently, “The wait is over. Be happy.”

The hallway lights flickered. Just once. Then steadied.

A warm breeze brushed past them and stayed for a second before it slipped away into the night.

***

On the other side of the world, or perhaps, somewhere far beyond the world entirely.

Liming opened his eyes.

The sky above him was stark white. Endless and soft like mist, yet bright like the first morning light.

There was no sun, no shadow, no horizon. Just light.

And around him was a field of dandelions. Golden and tall, swaying gently in a breeze he could not see.

He lay at their center, the warmth of the air against his skin, his chest rising and falling with the first steady breath he had taken in a long time.

Slowly, Liming sat up.

His hand pressed to his chest, there was no ache. No weight. No heaviness.

He had crossed over.

A quiet disbelief flickered in his eyes, but then he exhaled deeply, the kind of breath released after carrying a burden for years.

And soon after he heard a voice behind him.

The one that he had been waiting for forever.

“Liming.”

It was soft and familiar.

Liming spun around so fast he nearly stumbled, heart stuttering in his chest.

And there he was, standing before him.

A-Xin.

Older. His hair was gray and face lined with years that had carved themselves gently into him.

But it was still him.

Still his A-Xin.

“A-Xin.” Liming breathed.

They moved toward one another slowly, step by step.

And with every step A-Xin took, the years began to fade.

His posture straightened. The silver in his hair darkened. His eyes brightened.

By the time they stood just an arm’s reach apart, A-Xin looked exactly the way he had the day they first kissed.

They stood quietly, not touching at first. Eyes locked.

Just breathing and sharing the same sacred, silent air.

Of how they had missed each other for a lifetime that had been longer than it was supposed to be.

Then, at last, they intertwined their hands together and pressed their foreheads against each other.

“I’m sorry.” A-Xin whispered, voice cracking like a prayer. “Sorry it took me this long to see you.”

Liming shook his head. His hands trembled as he reached up to touch A-Xin’s face. “No, you’re here now.” he said. “That’s all that matters.”

A-Xin leaned into his touch, eyes closing. “Thank you.” he whispered. “Thank you for waiting. For not giving up on me.”

And they held on, never wanting to let go again.

Together, they turned toward the light in the distance.

It didn’t pull them. It welcomed.

They walked forward side by side, not knowing where they were going.

But it no longer mattered.

Because finally, they had each other.

And somewhere within countless universe, their physical bodies were still tangled in the rhythm of rebirth, some might still searching, the others might still circling. Some maybe would find each other again.

Or maybe they already had.

But here, their souls would stay. Their story would remain.

In a garden of dandelions.

Where the light lingers.

***

The house in Pattaya grew louder over the years, but not in a bad way.

Heart stayed.

Dawn moved in not long after the book tour ended, bringing more sunlight and chaos than the old walls were used to. He filled the kitchen with noise, hung postcards in the hallway, rearranged the furniture until it felt like them. 

Yet somehow, Liming and A-Xin’s presence still lingered like memories settled into the wood.

The chair in the bedroom never moved again.

But none of them ever moved it back to the corner.

Heart had left it there, beside the bed. A quiet witness. A reminder.

Sometimes, when the breeze rolled in just right, the air in the hallway would still feel a little different. Not haunted. Just watched over. And every time that happened, Dawn would smile and say, “It’s the house spirit again.”

And Heart would nod and reply, “Just checking up on us once in a while.”

Years passed like chapters.

They lived a happy life filled with their quiet, everyday love. In the meals they shared, in the silences they held, or in the nights they clung to each other with laughter and open palms.

Heart and Dawn were fulfilling the promise Liming and A-Xin never got to keep.

Not just waiting, but also living.

Heart kept writing and had released more books after.

But nothing beat his fifth novel 'Where Light Lingers' became a bestseller the moment it hit the shelves.

It carried something precious.

People didn’t just read about Liming and A-Xin. They saw pieces of themselves in them.

Not everyone has waited decades for a lover to return, but everyone knows what it feels like to hold onto hope longer than they should.

To love in silence.

To wonder if they’ve been forgotten.

And Heart wrote on the last page of his most adored book, something simple and nothing extravagant.

Some love stories are never told in time.

Some promises are kept long after anyone remembers they were made.

This story is for anyone who has ever waited in silence.

For anyone who kept loving even when no one was watching.

Like Liming waited for A-Xin.

To my Dawn, thank you for staying.

-H.J.