Say you'll remember me
Standing in a nice dress,
Staring at the sunset, babe
Red lips and rosy cheeks
Say you'll see me again
Even if it's just in your
Wildest dreams

— Wildest Dream, Taylor Swift


2013

November

The deadlock between them drew on.

She wished they had actually been disagreeing on something. Then at least they could just argue it out.

Instead, Yong Qi apparently thought he could not exert more pressure on her to think about their future, not when the rest of the world was already doing more than their fair share.

She almost wished some of the pressure did come from him. It would be easier, or at least she would have more reason to confront it, than pressures from nameless, faceless people she did not know.

The tension eventually built to a point where even his family noticed.

This, of course, just made it all the more complicated.

It reached a new height of complication when, one day, Xiao Yan was just leaving Xian Fu Gong to head back to her dorm room when she ran into Yong An.

"Xiao Yan," he said, "are you just leaving?"

"Yes," she answered, sighing. "Yong Qi is heading off in a bit, so…"

Yong An seemed to see through the reason for her slightly disgruntled expression and gave her a sympathetic smile.

"If it helps, he hates it too. The fact that he has so little time right now to spend with you."

"I know," Xiao Yan said grudgingly. She didn't add that this didn't mean it was any easier for her to accept it.

Yong An glanced at his watch. "How are you getting home?"

"I'll be fine."

"I know. But it's early yet. I was wondering if maybe we could talk?"

Xiao Yan raised an eyebrow at this not shocking, but certainly unusual request.

"About what?" she asked with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.

Yong An shrugged. "Things." It was obvious he didn't want to get into whatever it was he wanted to talk about here in the middle of the road. He gestured to her in the direction away from the palace gates. "Come on, let's head to Tai Ji Dian, and then we can talk."

Xiao Yan was still slightly thrown off by his request, but couldn't see a reason to back out of this. She simply fell into step beside Yong An.

"I'm not trying to be nosy," Yong An said after a few moments, "but it's hard to not notice that things have reached a certain…crossroad between you and Yong Qi. I know from experience that there comes a certain point where you have to make decisions that will change your life forever. It's even more momentous for us. I just think that perhaps…you might appreciate some…perspective."

"Strangely, I've been getting loads of perspective lately," Xiao Yan said, unable to keep the weariness out of her voice.

Yong An simply smiled sympathetically at her. "I know." He sighed. "I don't intend to be condescending. I just think, I may understand what both of you are going through, and that perhaps you would like to hear some…observations from someone who might get it, but are neither you nor Yong Qi."

Xiao Yan didn't think, having convinced her to walk with him, Yong An would give her much of a choice whether to hear him or not. She could just walk the opposite way, of course, but she knew it would just end up in her wondering what he could possibly have to say.

He sensed her conflicted feelings, and added, "I don't want you to think that I don't think you and Yong Qi can work your relationship out yourself. I just have some…"

"Thoughts?" she prompted dryly when he paused to find the right word.

"Yes. You are free to regard or disregard what I say as you wish."

By now, they were standing at the gate of Tai Ji Dian, and she turned to face him.

"All right," she said. What difference could one more opinion make, really? "I'll listen."

Yong An led her into the living room, where they bustled around to sit with tea on the table. Xiao Yan was on the sofa and Yong An took the armchair to the side of her.

When the first sips of tea were taken, Yong An finally began to speak.

"I won't beat about the bush. I know that there are a lot of speculations right now on when you and Yong Qi might be getting married. Believe me, I know what that feels like. Every time one of my relationship hits the one-year mark, that's when it starts."

"So are you saying I should be grateful they waited this long to start on me and Yong Qi?" Xiao Yan asked a little bitterly.

"No. I want you to realise that regardless of what our wishes truly are, the speculation is unavoidable," Yong An said.

She didn't answer; he must know she knew this. What was the point of repeating it?

"Usually the pressure is placed on me," he continued, "but I guess, lately they might have just gotten bored of waiting for me, and decided to turn to you two instead. The thing is, I think one of the reasons it's been so relentless lately is that everyone has realised he's a lot surer about you than anyone else before."

Xiao Yan scoffed. "I know that. I don't need the press telling me that."

"I know." Yong An sipped his tea and looked deep in thoughts for a long moment. When he finally placed his tea cup down, he turned to look at Xiao Yan seriously. "Something you need to understand is, short of me dying or in the future, it is absolutely impossible for my wife and I to have a child, there will be very, very little chance that Yong Qi would ever have to face the throne. I have always known I have more than myself to consider in the matter of my marriage, but I also have always known I would have to marry. If not at least for the sake of the succession, then for Yong Qi's. The fact that I would become Emperor one day has been decided four hundred years ago. Yong Qi is the one who isn't supposed to be emperor, and he doesn't want to be. He's grown up more or less knowing he won't be. You can count on this, going forward."

"Okaaay."

"But that doesn't mean he can take off and live a normal life with you. He will always be a prince, and I'm sure you understand the kind of responsibility and public duties that come with that. If you marry him, you will be marrying Yong Qi, plus all that. You will be required to become part of that life of events and engagements and schedules and never be able to do anything spontaneous like take off for a year to travel the world just for the heck of it."

"I know all this," Xiao Yan said needlessly. She knew Yong An didn't need her to point this out, but she felt compelled to say something, nonetheless.

"I know you do," he replied with a slight smile. "But you have ever considered that maybe the reason you feel the pressure from everyone about marriage so acute is because you've never known independent life without him?"

Xiao Yan stared at him, seeing the purpose and the point behind his words but at the same not wanting to really accept them. After a moment, when Yong An simply looked back at her with profound understanding in his eyes, she tore her gaze from him. She felt like there was an enormous weight on her chest that prevented her from drawing enough breath.

When she still said nothing, Yong An continued to speak. "You met him when you were twenty and in university. For all this time, school is what's been occupying you, and your relationship with Yong Qi is a nice aside to that. But once you graduate, things will be very different. You'll have to decide what you want to do with your life, and whether any of us should be a part of that. If you graduate now, Xiao Yan, and marry him straight after, this life will only trap you. It will be all that you know. You will always long for the experiences of actual adult life that you never really had."

"What are you saying?" she demanded.

"I'm saying – I'm saying that you need to decide whether this life is what you want. And to do that, you must think about what other things you may want out of life. Things away from Yong Qi, without him."

"Honestly I can tell you right now, this isn't what I want," she said bluntly.

"Of course," he said gently. "I don't think anyone really wants it. Yong Qi and I, we don't have a choice. You do. You have to choose whether you want to walk into this and accept it, for Yong Qi."

"I – " Xiao Yan swallowed the painful lump in her throat. "I love him."

"Oh Xiao Yan, I never doubt that," Yong An said softly. "But…honestly, love is not enough when you are us. This isn't – isn't a TV drama where if you love him enough everything will solve itself out. It won't. The pressure and the expectations will only increase, Xiao Yan, if you marry him. I would rather you are able to live the life that you want, and miss him, ten years from now, rather than marry him and then long for the freedom you should have had, despite how much you love him. You will come to resent him for it, Xiao Yan, and I don't want that for either of you."

Xiao Yan could only draw in a shaky breath at the very honest reality Yong An was laying before her. She grabbed a cushion beside her and clutched it to her chest, burying her face in it, so that he could not see the tears she couldn't hold back.

Yong An continued to speak. "My siblings and I were all too young to really understand this at the time, but the pressures, the emotional, mental and physical tolls this life puts on Masako really acted as a warning bell for us. Mama married Ah Ma at around the same time, but he already had both Yong Qi and me at the time, so the pressure on Mama was never so overwhelming. But still, it was like we were being cautioned to not walk down that same road in the future. Therefore, I would like to think, Xiao Yan, that we would know to respect you if you were to say the burden was too much. Even then, it's never going to be easy, marrying into our family. Our position and our roles will come with expectations that you will not be able to avoid."

"I don't want to hurt him," Xiao Yan said in a small voice, looking up at him with watery eyes.

"I know," he said kindly. "Neither do I. But Xiao Yan, Yong Qi loves you enough that he would let you go, if you ask."

"This is so stupid," she said, her voice cracking. "I don't want – "

Yong An reached over to place a hand on her arm. "I'm not saying, end it forever. Actually, I'm not even saying end it at all. I'm just saying, you're twenty-three years old. You are not in a position to make a decision like this, especially not for the sake of all the pressure around you, and I don't mean it as any kind of slight on your intelligence, maturity or competence. I honestly can't think of any contemporary royals who don't marry significantly after the age of 25. The only one who did was Diana, and that turned out…horribly."

Xiao Yan laughed, yet not really feeling the humour at all.

"But still, you have to understand, to everyone else, they won't see it like that. As long as you are together, the pressure will be there. You will always have to mind it, think about it, and it will affect your entire relationship. It clearly is already doing that. I'm just afraid that one day, not far from now, it will be the only thing that makes up your relationship and then it will hurt all the more."

"You are saying that we should break up," she said, looking at him accusingly.

He gave her a wan smile and said, "I'm saying you should consider taking a step back."

Part of her was angry at him for even suggesting it at all, and yet another part of her was also grateful for his candidness.

"If I do, then what?"

"I don't think you'd disappear from our lives. You still have Zi Wei. But it would give you room and air."

"And because it worked for Will and Kate…" she said, before trailing off meaningfully.

Yong An chuckled and shook his head. "Well, their situation was completely different, with different culture and expectations, so it might not apply to you and Yong Qi. But yes, you should consider that their yuanfen, if you will, didn't end just because they broke up once. Or three times. And honestly, we only know so much about them because British tabloids are ridiculously vicious. I can guarantee you all other royal couples had their problems, too. We're not fairy tales where you dance with us once and then live happily ever after. If anything, the norm now is women who turn down princes multiple times before finally saying yes."

"You'd think you guys would be able to take a hint and drop it after the first refusal," Xiao Yan muttered, though her voice was free of the sourness that statement implied.

Yong An sighed. "To be honest, for us, once we find someone who we love enough and we know loves us enough to push us to propose even once, we tend to be unable to let go, especially when we realise that the reason for refusal wasn't because of lack of love. The chances of finding someone we could envision spending our life with is so slim, you see. To be honest, given a choice, I probably wouldn't get married. Then again I'm not sure whether that mindset was born because there is so much pressure on me to marry. Perhaps, if I were someone else, and no one cared whether I marry or not, I might not think of it as such a duty. But I don't think Yong Qi necessarily thinks like that."

"That's all very well," she said, "but a bit irrelevant right now. Yong Qi hasn't proposed, or do you not realise that?"

"Of course he hasn't, not with the newspapers running headlines practically wagering among themselves the timing," Yong An said. "But that doesn't mean he doesn't want to marry you."

"Are you sure you're supposed to tell me this? Aren't those things generally supposed to be a surprise?"

Yong An laughed. "Xiao Yan, once you get involved with us, if you haven't even talked about whether one – or both – of you want to get married, then you have no business proposing to each other at all. But you and Yong Qi have talked, haven't you? You know he wants to marry you."

"And yet you're still telling me to break up with him!"

"I'm not telling you to do anything! Except, maybe to admit that you're scared."

"I'm not – "

Yong An just raised an eyebrow at her, his eyes practically radiating 'yeah, right'. The automatic protest died in her throat.

"Xiao Yan, if this life doesn't scare you, then you are a fool. But you're not. So you can admit it."

She let out a shaky breath before burying her face into the sofa cushion again.

"For what it's worth, I think…and maybe this is slightly childishly romantic…but I do believe that you and Yong Qi will still find your way back to each other in the end. But for you to be sure of that, I think you might want to put things in context. But, also as I said, you don't have to listen to me."

Xiao Yan laughed. "If you really mean that, you wouldn't have said all this to me."

He smiled gently at her. "Yong Qi is not the only one who's fond of you in this family, Xiao Yan. None of us want you hurt."

"Thank you," she said sincerely. "I know that you want the best for both of us."

"Whatever you do, however permanent it might be, you have to be sure, Xiao Yan," Yong An said. "Because either way, the consequences are going to follow you for the rest of your life."


December

There were bad days.

And then there were days that were just so long and tiring that she felt like she never should have gotten out of bed in the first place.

The phone was ringing. Xiao Yan glanced at the caller ID, not really wanting to answer the call but knowing that he would let it ring until it stop and then call again if she didn't pick up. Sometimes this persistence was the most annoying thing about him.

She reluctantly reached for the phone and answered.

"Hi."

Her voice was completely cold and unenthusiastic, so it was completely natural when there was a brief pause before Yong Qi' s worried voice rang out, "Are you ok?"

"Yeah, fine," she said somewhat sullenly.

"You don't sound fine."

Xiao Yan pressed her lips together and took a deep breath to stop herself from losing her temper, which was hanging on by a thread as it was. She didn't want to talk to him, she didn't want to pretend to listen to him and she certainly didn't want to explain anything at that moment, to anyone.

"I'm fine," she repeated, trying very hard not to grit her teeth. "What is it?"

"Where are you?"

"Home."

"Have you eaten?"

"No."

"Do you want me to bring something over for you?"

How could he bear to be so inhumanly patient?

"I wouldn't think you'd have the time," she said, more sourly than she intended even in her black mood.

There was a long pause, in which she was sure he felt hurt by her tone. Even then, his voice was still calm as he asked, "Are you sure you're ok, Xiao Yan?"

She knew he was rightfully concerned about her listless tone, but her patience for the conversation was wearing out. The more she stayed on the phone with him and listened to his voice, the more she was forced to think of why she was so irritated that day. So finally, to stop herself from saying things she completely would regret, she snapped "Yes!" before hanging up abruptly. If it was ungrateful for the concern he was showing, she would have to deal with it and feel guilty later. Right now, she wished for everything to stop – the thoughts, the feelings, and the world.

She buried herself in her thick blanket, shutting out the cold, but even that couldn't make her feel better. She was half-afraid he would call back, but the phone stayed silent. Still, she could not be relieved. She knew he would come looking for her eventually.

Normally it would be so easy to avoid him – she could just go out by herself or with people he usually didn't hang out with, or hide in Hui Bin Lou with Liu Qing and Liu Hong who would probably let her blend in. However, the very idea of setting one foot out of doors again that day was terrifying and she couldn't stand it, so waiting for him to find her here was probably the lesser of the two evils, even if he would ask her what was wrong and would not stop until it probably exploded in an argument.

Then again, everything seemed likely to end in argument between them these days.

Half an hour later, he knocked on her door. She considered just not answering, but he knew she was in here. He wouldn't leave quickly even if she were to deliberately leave him out in the hall, and the only thing that would accomplish would be to cause gossip about them on the whole floor. That was the last thing she needed.

So she wearily got up to open the door to let him in, before falling faced down on her bed again and not looking at him.

She could feel him sit down beside her and kiss her hair. "Come on, tell me what's wrong."

She flipped onto her back and looked up at him with angry tears. "Why does anything have to be wrong? Maybe I just need some space, maybe I just don't want to see you for one day!"

He stared at her with eyes full of hurt, then said slowly, "I see."

Only he would say, "I see" in such a tone after that outburst and make her feel a thousand times worse. Only he could make her feel like the world's biggest jerk for having these feelings, especially when they didn't see enough of each other lately as it was.

She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. Guilt was creeping into her heart but she beat it back.

The feeling of being drowned in something enormous was taking over her, making her totally incapable of coherent thoughts. She didn't want these rational feelings like guilt to barge in while she was unable to think rationally. She wasn't even sure what she was overwhelmed with but there was something about that day that had triggered all those feelings, like there was an enormous weight on her shoulders and she could not shake them off.

She didn't want to deal with being considerate of Yong Qi right now.

When she said nothing more, he stood up and was half-way to the door before he turned back and said, "When you have enough space and feel like talking to me again, you can call me."

Well, she always knew that he was capable of matching her temper with his own. This time he could match her coldness as well.

So it wasn't an argument. It was worse.

Xiao Yan stared at the ceiling, listening to the sound of his feet on the tile floor and to the sound of the door closing with a final click. She turned over again and buried her face in a pillow, and promptly burst into tears.


Sleep didn't make things better like Xiao Yan half-hoped it would. When she woke the next day, the weariness from the previous day only seemed to have settled in even more comfortably instead of disappearing.

She opened her eyes to see Han Xiang watching her from her side of the room.

She was half afraid her roommate would ask her if she were all right. It was the one question that Xiao Yan could easily live without ever hearing again.

What Han Xiang did say instead, though, was, "Zi Wei came over last night when you were already asleep. She was worried about you. I think she texted you after."

Xiao Yan turned and buried her face in her pillow to fortify her strength. Then, she reached for her phone to find, sure enough, a text from Zi Wei.

Come have breakfast with me at Hui Bin Lou. Text me when you start out.

There was nothing from Yong Qi.

Xiao Yan stared at the message for a long time before she could pull herself out of bed. She might as well go meet Zi Wei. She'd probably have this conversation sooner or later. They might as well have it now.

"I'm fine," she said with a perfunctory smile at Han Xiang in response to her worried look.

Han Xiang nodded but was obviously not convinced.

Xiao Yan ignored it and began getting ready. As requested, she texted Zi Wei before heading out.

By the time she got to Hui Bin Lou, Liu Hong told her Zi Wei was already there.

They sat in a private room – it wasn't like it was being used this early in the day – and ate breakfast. For about the first half hour, Zi Wei kept up the conversation around the most random topics that managed to relax Xiao Yan without her realising until she was laughing her head off about one of the most silly jokes she had ever heard. At this point, Xiao Yan had to wonder if there was no other motive behind Zi Wei's invitation for breakfast after all. Perhaps Zi Wei really did just want to hang out, and there wasn't anything heavy to discuss.

It wasn't until they have finished their breakfast and were cupping their hands around cups of green tea that Zi Wei asked gently, "Feeling better than yesterday?"

Xiao Yan scowled. "I was, until you asked that."

Zi Wei smiled apologetically, but Xiao Yan thought she could see something like understanding in her eyes. Xiao Yan sighed heavily.

"I suppose I have been wondering when you'd start to feel it," Zi Wei said after another long silence.

"Feel what?"

"All the pressures. Of being so…connected to me, to Yong Qi, to our family."

Xiao Yan closed her eyes and tried to calm her breathing. She was sure she had never had a panic attack before, but she wondered whether she was beginning to have one now, since at the word 'pressure' from Zi Wei, her throat started to constrict and she felt like could just burst into tears.

The truth was, she started feeling it all months ago. It just took till now to undo her.

"It's just…" she started, then stopped, wondering if she could even start. If she started speaking now, she was sure she could hold nothing back and somehow the idea of laying all her frustration out in the open terrified her even more than the discomfort of keeping it all back. In the end, however, she couldn't hold it all back, either.

"It's just that there are days like yesterday when I just couldn't stand the very idea of being out of doors or being seen by anyone. I don't want to know that every time I am on the streets, people are going to look twice. Some days I just want to blend in and disappear but no matter how absurdly easy that was before, now it's impossible. And I can't stand it! After pulling an all-nighter for an assignment, I don't want to have to think that, oh, I've better look decent coming into to an eight o'clock lecture because someone might just take a photo of me and sell it some paper and they'd put it on the front page for the world to see with all sorts of invasive questions, and the whole thing will haunt me for the rest of my life. I really want to think I'm not vain, Zi Wei, but somehow they always just manage to make everything worse. Even if no one says anything or look at me, even when for a small moment everything feels like it's normal again, I'd have to catch sight of myself at some news-stand and it's like an illusion just shattered."

She took a deep breath and wondered why the whole rant didn't make her feel any better. It didn't help that Zi Wei didn't say anything, but just continued to look at her as if she expected more.

"I'm just tired of everyone – but Yong Qi especially – making it seem like it's so easy to face it all, because then I feel like an incompetent fool for not being able to take it like he does," she added before finally running out of things to say.

Once again, Zi Wei let their conversation fall into silence, as if she knew Xiao Yan still wasn't finished.

Frustration flared up and Xiao Yan felt like crying.

"See! That's the problem! You look at me like that, expecting me to tell you what's bothering me, like it's natural that I should be feeling this, but how could you not feel it too? How is it that you can go through all this as well and not feel like I do? If this was all the normal things to feel, I wouldn't be the only one feeling like this!"

Zi Wei, infuriatingly, tilted her head and looked at Xiao Yan with a slight smile. "And by 'you', you mean Yong Qi, didn't you?"

Xiao Yan opened her mouth, then faltered. "No…yes…maybe…partly."

"Oh Xiao Yan," Zi Wei said with a comforting smile, reaching over to take Xiao Yan's hands. "The thing about feelings is that there's no such thing as normal. Especially in these circumstances."

"That doesn't – "

" – help, I know. But don't you think that Yong Qi can deal with it because he's had to, all his life? It's a given for him and it's not going to go away and he'd learnt to all these years. You've been thrown into this head-first and you shouldn't expect yourself to be able to take it like he does."

"How about you, then?" Xiao Yan demanded, feeling more envious than ever of Zi Wei's outer calm demeanour. "You haven't had to deal with this all your life like he does, so why doesn't it freak you out?"

"You think it doesn't freak me out?" Zi Wei asked with a wry smile. "But it won't disappear for me now as much as it won't disappear for Yong Qi. If I didn't want to deal with it, I should never have walked into this. But I did, because I needed my family, and I don't regret it. But it also means I can't let myself think too much about it. But you can walk away, you know. You don't have to be here. You have more of a choice than we do."

Xiao Yan squirmed uncomfortably in her seat as she realised that Zi Wei just repeated something Yong An already said to her during their talk. But that was part of the problem. The fact that she had a choice seemed to be the most difficult thing to admit. It meant asking herself whether it really was best for her to stay where she was. It meant wondering, as much as she loved Yong Qi and Zi Wei, whether she ever knew what she was getting into when it all began.

That was to say nothing of the future.

She didn't need Yong An's talk to know that the road in her future was so vast, but Yong Qi's was more or less drawn out for him. So it wasn't drawn in ink, but at the very least, dotted out there and he was expected to join the dots into a certain pattern. He had choices, certainly, but he also had more restrictions that she did. She knew this from the very beginning, but until recently, she never really allowed herself to think how his restrictions would affect her.

It wasn't until now that Xiao Yan realised how everything around her was moving faster than her, into something so much bigger than her. Even a normal life can move so fast that you could miss it if you don't stop and look around. But this life, his life, moved at a pace that could make her lose her footing and she would not notice until she fell and hurt herself.

Even if she didn't fall, she didn't want to be swept along with it against her will either.


It was two days later when she saw Yong Qi again.

When he picked her up for lunch, it was almost as if no tension had arisen between them the last time they met. They ate dumpling soup. He pretended to feed her a dumpling with his chopsticks, causing her to lean towards him, only to fall against his waiting lips and allowed him to land a kiss on her forehead. It made her laugh before stealing a dumpling from his bowl.

The sight of her laughing had made him smile. At the time, she had not realised how coloured by sadness that smile was.

Then they walked back to her dorm room together, hand in hand.

"Are you happy, Xiao Yan?" he asked, after they sat down together on the edge of her bed.

She looked up at him, ready to say yes, because what other answer could she give? Then she saw the earnest look in his eyes, begging for the truth, even if it would break both their hearts. Suddenly, her words suddenly seemed stuck in her throat as she faltered.

She looked down and saw that he had taken her hands in his. It was such a natural feeling that she had stopped taking note of the moment when it happened. She could only stare dumbly at their entwined hands, and didn't know why, after such a happy couple of hours together, she suddenly wanted to cry again.

Beside her, Yong Qi sighed resolutely.

"Maybe we should…take a break," he said gruffly.

His words made Xiao Yan's head jerk up and she stared at him, only able to utter a single 'Oh' before it seemed like a painful lump had settled in her throat.

He searched her face for some hidden reaction in the face of such a shocking suggestion.

And she was shocked. Shocked that he had even considered it. Shocked that he said those words. Shocked when she realised that…she had truly considered saying them herself. Perhaps not that day. Not right then. But…recently.

Yet he didn't let go of her hand.

If he wanted to break up with her, why was he still looking at her with such concern?

Faced with the contradictory nature of his words and his actions, she found herself engulfed in a cloud of confusion. She also didn't want to admit to herself how much the very idea, coming from him, hurt.

If he wasn't letting go, perhaps she should be the one to pull away. Why was it suddenly such a hard thing to do? Was it because for her to pull away now would be accepting his words, and it would then be she who put a full stop on their relationship?

She couldn't bring herself to pull away from him, and he, too, inexplicably, was content to let her hand stay where it was.

He must have understood the mixed nature of the signals he was giving, because when she didn't say anything else, he went on. "I still – " he seemed to pause deliberately to search for an appropriate word – "care about you, Xiao Yan, a lot, but that's the reason why we should probably…give each other some room."

She tried not to think about how close he came to saying the one word that could simultaneously make this scene between them both more bearable and infinitely more painful.

"Xiao Yan? Say something. Please?" Yong Qi said after a long silence, and it was only then that she realised her only verbal response had been "Oh".

"Okay."

"Okay? That's it?"

She wasn't imagining the hurt in his eyes and his voice, was she?

"I'd be lying if I didn't say that the thought had never crossed my mind lately. I guess…you just said it first."

It was his turn for a monosyllabic answer. "Oh."

Why were her hands still in his? Why hadn't he pulled away?

He seemed to be thinking this too, as he looked down at her hands wrapped still between his. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then, finally, when he looked up at her, he asked, "Why?"

She bit the inside of her lower lip, trying to phrase her answer.

Pulling her hands out of his finally, she opened her mouth to answer, but only ended up asking back, "Why did you say we need a break?"

Yong Qi sighed. "You're not happy, Xiao Yan. And I don't mean just the other day. You haven't been happy for a while, and I think…I think I've just been deceiving myself, refusing to see it for what it really was. I know you've been uncomfortable under all the speculations and expectations, but for a long time, I guess I tried to convince myself that if we…cared about each other enough then everything else would work itself out. The truth is, we have always known that it takes more than that for it to work. I guess all this time I've been so afraid of losing you that I've been in denial about that fact. I've been…I've been so selfish, I suppose, not really allowing myself to see that this was never the ideal place for you to be. Perhaps this was never what you wanted for your life, and you are only here now because of me – "

"Not just you, Zi Wei too," she protested, but feebly. The sad smile he gave told her that he saw right through it.

"The point is…we could try to force it to work, but we might just end up torturing ourselves. Or we can take a breath and see where things go. I think we could both do with some air right now."

For a long time, she didn't answer, and he didn't press her. She supposed he understood that this whole relationship only ever consisted of new things for her, mostly things she never thought could ever happen to her. She had no points of reference to guide her on how to act in moments such as this. The truth was, he wasn't the only one in denial. She had been so afraid of hurting him, too, that she hadn't been able to bring herself to truly admit how very overwhelmed she was.

"There are times when I have had to reconsider previously stated opinions, I just never thought this might be one of those times," she murmured, more to herself than to him.

Yong Qi, clearly, was confused. "What do you mean?"

She looked up and smiled thinly. "I was just thinking about how I never liked the type of stories in movies or on the TV where the couple can't decide whether they want to be together and then spend ages dancing around the whole question. But I guess when I decided that, I didn't know what that situation would really feel like."

There was another silence, in which he looked at her thoughtfully.

"Xiao Yan, I don't want to be putting words into your mouth. We don't…I mean, this is just my view of what's going on between us. But you have to tell me what you want, especially if this is not it…" He trailed off, clearly not sure what else to say.

She looked up into his eyes. "Do you want to – " deliberate pause – "break up?" There, she said it. It hurt – she would consider how much it hurt later, but she said it.

"I think – " he started, then stopped. This time, it was he who took the deliberate pause. Then, "I don't want to, but I do believe that it might be necessary. Just because I know what I want, Xiao Yan, doesn't mean I know how to get there in a way that wouldn't hurt either of us. And maybe it takes stepping away for me – for us – to figure that out."

Xiao Yan nodded, for a moment not sure how she should respond. She wondered when in the whole course of their knowing each other had their time been more punctuated by silences that she wanted to break, that she knew she needed to break, but did not know how.

Apparently Yong Qi was thinking about this too, because he said, "Please don't let me do all the talking. You said – or at least, implied – that you were going to suggest we don't see each other anymore as well. But you haven't told me why."

"Would you believe me if I told you this isn't about you, it's about me?" she asked.

Despite the situation, the corner of Yong Qi's lips twitched and he was obviously holding back a laugh. "I would have believed it if you hadn't turned it into a 'it's not you, it's me' line."

She smiled, because she could see the humour in the situation. Then she swiftly turned serious again. "It's true though. I never truly appreciated it until now. The thing is…you come into my life at a time when I was supposed to be working out who I was and what I wanted. The first eighteen years of my life was…dull. Well, it was a lot of things, but it was also dull. The only future I envisioned then was getting out of institutionalised care and being independent and working out for myself how I want to live my life, where I want my life to go. And then I messed that up. I was lucky to be able to start again, but then so soon after that, I met Zi Wei, and you…and everything changed."

She wasn't crying but she wanted to cry, because they were breaking up, for goodness's sake, shouldn't she be crying? Yet all she could do then was flounder around, looking for a way to put everything that she was feeling into words. It didn't help that he was looking at her like that – like he understood, and was only staying silent to give her the chance to articulate it all, because she needed to say it to be able to understand it. Maybe that was the worst part: that he understood, and that was why he was suggesting they break up in the first place. She was sure, as reluctantly as they would both admit it right then, this wasn't happening because they no longer cared. It was because they cared too much.

"You came and it all changed, and you brought me into something that should never be possible in the first place. I allowed myself to get lost in you, and it was wonderful, but somewhere along the way, I got lost. I feel like all this time I've just been following you, or Zi Wei and the path I wanted to take isn't there anymore. I don't even know where I want to go anymore, because I never figured out who I was supposed to be. So I need time, to learn about myself and what I want, what is important to me in the world, to find where I'm meant to be. It might be here with you, it might not, but I need to figure that out, away from you."

She took a deep breath, and hardly dared to look at him. She wasn't sure that her resolve could be as strong as she wanted it to be if she looked at him now. Vaguely, she wondered to herself, why it took until now for them to be able to speak so candidly to each other. Where was this ability when they needed it before it came to this? Or was this the way it was meant to go all along, and all they did before was delaying the inevitable?

"All right," Yong Qi said softly, after another lengthy silence.

He stood up, and for a moment, he stood over her. She wondered if he wanted her to hold him back, to take his hand and pull him down with her again. She wondered if he would stay if she did, and whether having him stay now would hurt less than watching him walk away.

In the end, she didn't do anything but stare blankly at the wall opposite her, beyond him, willing her tears not to fall just yet.

"I'll – " he started, then waved his hands around for a second, searching for the right word…the right goodbye, but apparently not finding any. In the end, there was just another longing look at her, before he turned around and walked out of her room, closing the door behind him with a thud that pounded against her heart.

Xiao Yan closed her eyes, almost in defeat. There was no goodbye, and she couldn't decide whether that was a promise of a return, or truly the cold end to everything that ever made up the two of them.


It was odd, how quickly it all was settled and then was done. She always thought, if things ever ended between her and Yong Qi, it would end in a flurry of tears and hurt rather than this rather smooth passing of one day to another. To say it was all painless was inaccurate, but it wasn't the type of hurt that resulted from throwing things at each other, slamming doors in each other's faces screaming "It's over" and that could only be solved by blaring Taylor Swift on repeat all through the house or marathoning through cheesy Korean dramas. It just…ended, with subtle, understated pangs of pain of what could have been.

Then again, perhaps that was the truer to life. Sometimes things in life came and went with a whisper rather than a bang.

"So that's it?" Zi Wei asked in shock later that night.

Xiao Yan nodded glumly against her ice-cream cone.

It was too cold for ice-cream, of course. But ice-cream numbed. Xiao Yan needed that, even if the whole concept was so damn clichéd.

"I can't believe it."

"Believe it."

"No, I meant, I thought you had lunch together? What happened? Did you fight?"

"No," Xiao Yan said. "Actually, it was really nice. But now…I think…maybe that was his way of saying goodbye."

"What?"

"I don't know how to describe it. Now, looking back, it just feels like he wanted to make sure our last date still had some happiness, so that we at least don't end this in all the depressing notes."

"That makes no sense."

Xiao Yan sighed. "Well, I don't think it has to."

"Are you all right?"

She smiled wanly. It was, after all, half her idea; Yong Qi just beat her to bringing up the subject. She refused to cry.

She only said, "I'm fine."

And she was. Really.

Zi Wei looked on the verge of saying more, but at the last minute, she just squeezed Xiao Yan's ice-cream-free hand. "You know I'm always here, right?"

Xiao Yan leaned in and rested her head on her friend's shoulder. Zi Wei moved to wrap her arm around her.

"I know," she said softly.


A/N: Comedy? Did I say comedy? I lied.

And, oh gosh, if you think Xiao Yan is frustrating and overthinking and doesn't know what she wants now, well…

In Xiao Yan's defense, it's a huge commitment she would be making, so it would actually be better for her to err on the side of overthinking.

I've been sitting on this chapter for literally years. I think a lot of it has to do with age and perspective. Back in The Prince and Me, when I was Xiao Yan's age, I knew the story was heading in this direction, and I stubbornly resisted it. Now that I am closer to Yong An's age here, I obviously see more of the points he's making, even if he does make them in a very officious way. And consider how they are in canon, Xiao Yan Zi and Yong Qi are one of those couples who do have to grow apart before growing back together, I think.