Opening Playlist

The xx — “Infinity”
Leonard Cohen — “Famous Blue Raincoat”
Daughter — “Doing the Right Thing”

The rain began without warning.

It streaked the tall studio windows in uneven lines, distorting the campus lights until everything outside looked blurred and unreal. Inside, the air felt heavier, thick with oil paint and something unspoken.

Haoren closed the door behind the last student and locked it. The sound echoed too loudly.

“You can go,” he said without turning. “It’s late.”

Lihen didn’t move.

“I want to stay,” he replied. His voice was steady, but his hands betrayed him — fingers rubbing charcoal dust into his palm like a nervous habit.

Haoren paused. He faced him slowly, as if speed might undo the careful balance they had built over two years.

“You’re still my student,” Haoren said. Not sharply. Not gently. Simply as truth.

“I know.”

The studio light caught Lihen’s hair, revealing the red threaded through black. His light clothes looked almost fragile against the darkened room. He stood by his easel, canvas unfinished again. The woman he had been painting watched them both with empty eyes.

“Then why are you still here?” Haoren asked.

Lihen exhaled. “Because every time I leave, I feel like I’m running from something I don’t understand.”

Haoren felt the words settle into him, heavy and unwelcome. He moved closer — not to Lihen, but to the canvas. He studied it the way he studied wounds: carefully, professionally, without touching.

“You’re painting distance,” Haoren said. “Not bodies.”

Lihen laughed quietly. “You taught me that.”

“Yes,” Haoren agreed. “So you would survive it.”

Silence stretched. Rain tapped insistently against glass.

Lihen’s scent — coffee and cigarettes — lingered faintly, restrained but present. It curled toward Haoren without intent, without demand. Vanilla answered despite him. The studio seemed to notice before either of them did.

Haoren stepped back.

“This has to stop,” he said — not angry, not cold. Afraid.

Lihen’s eyes darkened. “What is this?”

“The way you look at me,” Haoren said. “The way I let you.”

The admission hung between them, fragile and dangerous.

“I don’t know what I am,” Lihen said softly. “But I know it changes when you’re near.”

Haoren turned away. His hands clenched briefly at his sides, tattoos pressing into skin as if to anchor him.

“You have two more years here,” he said. “Two years to become who you are without borrowing yourself from me.”

Lihen swallowed. “And you?”

Haoren closed his eyes.

“I will do the same.”

The rain slowed. The studio breathed again.

Lihen packed his things quietly this time. At the door, he hesitated — but didn’t look back.

Haoren stayed where he was, staring at the unfinished canvas.

Some boundaries were drawn not to keep people out,
but to keep them safe — from wanting too much, too soon.

And love, unnamed and unclaimed, settled deeper into silence — patient enough to wait two more years.