As Lou Yan stepped into the warm cottage, the scent of cardamom and sunlit wood enveloped him like a memory. He closed the door quietly behind him—and then froze.
There she was.
Syra.
Standing barefoot in the hallway, blinking sleep from her lashes, a carton of milk balanced precariously in her arms. Her hair—dark and unruly—was parted into two thick ponytails, tied with mismatched satin ribbons that shimmered slightly under the morning light. The wildness of it framed her face like an accidental masterpiece. Her skin looked impossibly soft, luminous with sleep, so pale it glowed against the pink cotton of her shorts and the slightly oversized white tee that hung lopsidedly off one shoulder.
She looked like a dream.
No, more than that.
She looked like every forgotten fragment of innocence he'd buried over the years, wrapped in pink hemmed sleepwear and early morning sunshine.
Lou's breath caught.
Her lips—plump, flushed from sleep—were parted in a curious little pout, and her eyes, still heavy with drowsiness, found his across the room. She blinked once. Then again, slower. Confused at first, then slowly, her lips curved into a lazy smile.
And Lou Yan forgot how to move.
He stood there, rooted, utterly still, his heart hammering so hard he thought it might bruise his ribs.
The sunlight kissed the curve of her cheekbone, the bridge of her nose, the column of her neck—and for a fleeting, devastating second, he wondered if it was possible to be undone by beauty that wasn't meant to seduce, only to exist.
She was tall in the delicate, coltish way of a dancer, her limbs long and graceful even in stillness. Yet everything about her—her oversized socks scrunched at her ankles, the crease of sleep still on her cheek, the faint scent of shampoo and honey in the air—screamed girl, woman, everything, all at once.
Innocence. Fire. Fragility. Wonder.
Was she always this beautiful? He thought to himself.
She tilted her head at him, bemused by his silence. "Lou?" she said, her voice still husky with sleep.
It shattered him.
The butterflies in his chest scattered in wild disarray. He felt it everywhere, his hands tightened around the bag, in the sudden dryness of his throat, in the soft ache behind his eyes.
He wanted to go to her. To scoop her up and kiss her senseless. To drop to his knees and just look.
Instead, he said nothing.
Because how could he explain to her that after everything he'd seen—temples, cities, power, loss—it was her in pink pajamas and messy hair that finally brought him to his knees?
She shifted the milk to one hip and blinked again. "Why are you staring at me like that?"
Lou swallowed. His voice was barely more than a whisper. "I don't know."
And truly, he didn't. All he knew was that he'd never seen anything so heartbreakingly lovely, so real, and that if he could hold onto this moment He would never need anything else.
Li Wei was mid-step toward the kitchen, holding two steaming mugs of green tea, when he caught sight of Lou Yan—frozen in the entryway like he'd just stumbled into a holy vision.
And then he saw what Lou was staring at.
His daughter.
In her ridiculous pink shorts. Her old "Hello Kitty" sleep shirt that had faded into soft anonymity from years of wear. Her ponytails sticking out in different directions like sleepy antennae. And her face—flushed, blinking, lips parted in that dreamy just-woke-up haze.
Lou Yan looked like a man witnessing the Big Bang in real time.
Li Wei stopped short.
His jaw worked uselessly for a second, as if trying to summon something—anything—appropriate to say. A joke? A warning? A fatherly grunt of disapproval?
Nothing came.
He just stared at the man who was staring at his daughter, and for the first time in Li Wei's pragmatic, orthopedic-shoe-wearing life, he was completely, utterly out of his depth.
Beside him, Nasreen saw everything.
She sipped her tea slowly, as if watching a live soap opera unfold in her hallway. Her eyes twinkled, her lips twitching around the rim of the cup. And then, with the elegance only a Persian mother with matchmaking tendencies could muster, she casually looped her arm through her husband's and said, "Li Wei, azizam, come help me with the herbs in the garden."
Li Wei blinked. "The what?"
"The mint. The rosemary. The… thyme. All of them." She was already turning him around, expertly steering him away.
"But it's snowing—"
"You're wearing a jacket."
"I don't need me for that—"
"Exactly. Let's go."
Li Wei glanced back over his shoulder just in time to see Lou Yan still staring at Syra like a monk who had just renounced his vows for love. Syra blinked up at Lou, completely unaware of the havoc her sleepy existence was wreaking.
Li Wei swallowed hard. "I need a stronger tea," he muttered as Nasreen tugged him out the back door, lips curved in quiet victory.
"Don't worry," she said sweetly. "They'll figure it out."
"Figure what out?"
"Oh, just… that he's already halfway married to her in his heart."
Li Wei groaned into his scarf. "God help us."
And inside, in the quiet that followed, Lou Yan finally remembered how to breathe.
Syra padded toward him barefoot, eyes round with happy surprise. "Lou!" she gasped, arms flinging around his waist like a puppy that had finally found its lost human.
It wasn't graceful. It wasn't posed. It was pure.
She pressed herself into him with a soft, eager noise—half laughter, half relief—burying her face against his chest like she wanted to disappear inside his warmth.
Lou's breath caught.
His arms wrapped around her instinctively, locking her in. Not possessively. Not with restraint. But fully. Like the ground beneath his feet only made sense when she was in his arms.
She was soft and warm and impossibly light, and the second her cheek brushed against his heart, something inside him gave out. A long, quiet sigh escaped his chest before he could stop it—half surrender, half prayer. Her scent—faint shampoo, mint toothpaste, and her skin's unique sweetness—wrapped around him like balm.
He rested his chin on her head, fingers splaying across her back as if to memorize every delicate curve beneath the cotton. The room faded. Time slowed.
When she tried to pull away, he held her tighter.
"Lou?" she giggled, looking up, her voice playful. "You're crushing me. Is this how I die? Death by handsome giant?"
His eyes stayed closed, lips brushing the crown of her head. "Please," he murmured so low it was almost a breath, "just a little bit more."
Syra blinked up at him, surprise flickering across her face. The way his voice sounded—it wasn't teasing, wasn't calculated. It was raw. Honest. Like he'd crossed deserts just to be here in her arms again.
So she relaxed against him, her arms looping tighter around his middle, cheek pressed to his chest. "Okay," she whispered, the smallest smile on her lips. "Just a little more."
Lou Yan held her like a man who'd finally come home. The realization slapping him brutally across his cheek, he can't live without her.