The next morning, school felt... wrong.
The sky was too clear. The laughter too loud. Everything too bright for someone carrying ghosts in their lungs.
Yan Xiyan adjusted her uniform, eyes scanning every face in the hallway. Paranoia was a heavy coat, one she had grown used to wearing. But today, it weighed more.
Someone had slipped into her world again. Someone who knew what she had done. And worse… someone who was watching her.
"You look like you haven't slept," Qiao Zeyan said, appearing beside her with that same unshakable ease.
She didn't respond.
"Nightmares?" he prodded, almost teasing. "Or is it just the weight of your many secrets?"
She shot him a side-eye glare. "Don't you have friends to annoy?"
"I do. But none of them are as... entertaining as you."
He winked. And for a split second, she smiled before she caught herself. She couldn't afford to slip. Not now.
In chemistry class, Mr. Han rambled on about molecular bonding, but all Xiyan heard were echoes. Of gunshots. Of the whispered word "Tonight."
Then
CRACK!
A beaker shattered behind her. Everyone flinched. Except her. Her hand had instinctively moved to her thigh, where she usually strapped a blade.
Too fast. Too trained.
Qiao Zeyan's gaze pierced her again. He saw that. He always saw.
Later, after class, he cornered her near the vending machine, tossing a drink toward her. "You're slipping."
"Excuse me?"
"You don't even pretend to be normal anymore."
Xiyan caught the can with ease but didn't open it. "What do you want from me, Qiao Zeyan?"
He leaned in, close enough that his voice was a breath against her ear. "The truth. Or maybe just a piece of it."
She tilted her head. Smiled too sweetly. "That's dangerous."
"So am I."
For a moment, neither of them moved. The tension hung like a wire pulled too tight. Then...
The vending machine whirred loudly and spit out four cans at once, startling them both. They stared at the machine.
"…Is it broken?" he asked.
She shrugged. "Maybe it's just scared of you."
He actually laughed, a soft, surprised sound.
And for a moment, something... human slipped between them.
But it was gone as quickly as it came.
That Night
Back at the Yan residence, beneath layers of hidden trapdoors and false walls, Yan Xiyan sat cross-legged in the bunker. The note from the Shadow lay beside her, unfolded once again.
"Face your past."
She reached into the drawer. Pulled out a sealed envelope she hadn't touched in months. Inside, photos from that first mission. Blood-stained. Cracked faces. And at the center…
The man she shot.
But in the photo he was smiling. Arm slung around a boy who looked familiar. Eerily familiar.
Her hands trembled.
She flipped the photo.
In sloppy handwriting:"Me and Zeyan – summer before the war."
No.
Her heart stopped.
She stared at the name again.
Zeyan.
The man she shot wasn't just a stranger.
He was someone Qiao Zeyan had once called brother.