Chapter Text
The hospital room was filled only with the steady hum of machines. On the bed, HuaYong lay weak, his pale face deepening the sorrow that weighed down the air.
"Mr. Sheng..." he whispered faintly.
The man sitting beside him lifted his head.
"Hm?"
HuaYong slowly pulled down his oxygen mask and reached out. ShaoYou immediately took his hand and pressed a kiss to the cold skin.
"Does Mr. Sheng have anything to say to me?" he asked gently.
"What does my orchid want to hear? I'll say everything for him."
HuaYong smiled, but it wasn't his usual warm smile. His eyes were hollow, heavy with sadness, as if he himself didn't believe the words being spoken.
"Mr. Sheng... I love you so much. Thank you for being the light in my life. Thirty years of marriage only made me fall deeper in love with you. So thank you so—"
Before he could finish, his chest convulsed violently. He began coughing, blood spilling from his lips.
"A-YONG!! DOCTOR?!"
ShaoYou slammed the emergency button and stood up, panic overtaking him as he tried to calm HuaYong.
"A-yong, that's enough! Don't talk anymore! You'll choke!"
He quickly replaced the oxygen mask and wiped the blood that wouldn't stop staining his orchid's lips. Doctors rushed in and forced him out of the room but not before HuaYong whispered something so soft that only an S-Class Alpha like ShaoYou could hear.
"I'm sorry, ShaoYou..."
Two days later.
The cemetery was flooded by heavy rain. A group of mourners dressed in black stood beneath umbrellas in front of a grave still fresh with soil.
Sheng HuaYong
19XX–XX56
The name carved into the tombstone remained painfully clear despite the rain washing over it.
HuaYong passed away the day after their last conversation. The cause of death was organ failure, the result of thirty years of prolonged pheromone modification drugs.
ShaoYou stood motionless, rain soaking through his clothes. The umbrella in his hand remained unused.
He felt empty.
Perhaps because the bond between him and his enigma had finally shattered forever.
But wasn't this what he wanted?
For thirty years of marriage, ShaoYou admitted that acceptance had not come easily. Pregnancy, childbirth, marriage, none of it was something he had ever wanted. As an S-Class Alpha, being tied down by such things felt unnatural.
Still, he was not like his father, who openly kept other women and fathered illegitimate children.
After marrying HuaYong, ShaoYou remained loyal.
But once again, because of his Alpha pride HuaYong continuously used pheromone modification drugs just to appear omega in the eyes of the world.
ShaoYou's ego killed his husband.
A hand on his shoulder pulled him out of his thoughts. Shen Wenlang and Gao Tu stood beside him, holding an umbrella out to him.
"President Sheng... are you okay?" Gao Tu asked worriedly.
"Sheng ShaoYou, I know you're an S-Class Alpha, but don't you think standing in the rain like this is ridiculous? What would HuaYong say if he saw you?" Shen Wenlang snapped as usual, though ShaoYou knew the words were hollow.
He accepted the umbrella, and together they walked away from the grave.
"I'm fine. Thank you for asking, Gao Tu. Where's HuaSheng?"
"He's asleep at home with Lele. All that crying really wore him out," Shen Wenlang replied, wrapping a towel around himself.
ShaoYou can only nod. He didn't trust himself to speak or even say anything.
The house was dark when ShaoYou returned. Not empty, that word felt too light but quiet in the wrong way. the kind of silence that pressed against the eras until it rang.
As he stepped inside, the motion sensor lights in the hallway turned on automatically, bathing the space in warm ember. HuaYong had insisted on that feature years ago.
"it is so that when you come home late, the house won't look like it's waiting to shallow you" is what his A-Yong had once said.
Now the lights turned on for no one. And the only light that ShaoYou hoped to see is nowhere here..
ShaoYou stood in the doorway for a long moment, his shoes still on, his hand still gripping the handle. The air inside smelled faintly of citrus and orchid.
His chest tightened.
"...A-Yong,"
No one answered.
The house remained perfectly, mercilessly still. He stepped inside and shut the door, the sound enchoed louder than it should have.
The living room looked exactly the same as it had three days ago.
A blanket lay draped over the sofa arm, half-folded, just the way HuaYong always left it when he got up to fetch tea. A mug still sat on the coffee table clean, unused one of the matching pairs they'd bought on their tenth anniversary trip.
HuaYong had liked things in pairs.
"It feels lonely when cups don't have companions," he'd said lightly.
ShaoYou walked over and picked up the mug. It was warm from the sunlight streaming through the window.
He froze.
Then his fingers tightened around it, knuckles whitening, as something sharp and unfamiliar clawed its way up his throat.
He set it down too quickly.
The sound it made against the table was louder than expected.
"Sorry," he murmured instinctively.
To a mug.
To empty air.
To someone who wasn't there to hear him.
His breathing grew uneven.
This was ridiculous. He was Sheng ShaoYou, S-Class Alpha, company president, someone who had negotiated billion-dollar contracts without breaking eye contact. He had stood through wars of business and blood and never once felt this powerless.
And yet now, he couldn't even walk through his own living room.
Because every step echoed with someone who should have been there.
Their bedroom door was half open. He stood outside it for a full minute before pushing it wider. The room smelled the strongest of HuaYong.
Citrus and orchid. Warm skin and something faintly sweet, the scent that had always lingered on his pillow long after HuaYong fell asleep. The bed was neatly made.
Too neatly.
HuaYong had hated hospital beds. Too stiff, too white, too lonely.
"Home beds are better," he'd always said, curling into ShaoYou's side. "They smell like people you love."
ShaoYou's hands clenched at his sides. He walked to the bed and sat on the edge. The mattress dipped under his weight. For a brief, cruel moment, his mind insisted there should be another dip beside him.
There wasn't.
ShaoYou stared at the empty space.
"...Move over," he muttered unconsciously.
Nothing happened.
The silence that followed felt heavier than any response.
He lay down instead, turning toward HuaYong's side of the bed, face pressing into the pillow. The scent hit him all at once shattering the very last wall that he built. ShaoYou gripped the pillow hard, breathing in until his chest ached, as though oxygen itself might bring HuaYong back if he inhaled deeply enough.
"You smell like soap," HuaYong had once complained, wrinkling his nose playfully. "How am I supposed to sleep when you smell so boring?"
"Then what do you want me to smell like?..." whispered ShaoYou to the empty space.
"You," HuaYong said immediately. "Just... you."
Now, all that remained was scent.
Not warmth. Not breath. Not the weight of a body curled against his.
Just proof that someone had existed. His shoulders began to shake. Soundless at first then sharp, uneven tremors that he tried to suppress out of instinct until his grip on the pillow tightened and a broken breath finally tore out of him.
"...Ayong..."
His voice cracked.
The name fell into the bedding and vanished.