How much time had passed since she last felt his arms around her, the warmth of his breath against her neck, the way he used to press soft kisses to her skin like a silent promise?

The loneliness was no longer a sharp pain, it had settled into something dull and constant, a quiet ache that stretched through her mornings and weighed down her nights. There were no more goodnight messages, no missed calls blinking on her screen. The silence had become her new normal, yet she never stopped craving the sound of his voice.

People said it would get easier with time, but they were wrong. For her, every passing day only pulled the wound wider. The longer she went without him, the more undone she became.

She told herself it was just coincidence when her steps took her near Akso Hospital again, that it was just another stroll to clear her head but she knew better. Deep down, she hoped she'd see him. Hoped fate would give her even just a glimpse.

And when she did, it stole the breath from her chest.

She didn't think. Just walked up, gathering the last of her nerve to ask if they could talk. And when he said yes, her heart nearly broke all over again.

Now they sat on a bench, side by side, but it felt like miles stretched between them. Neither dared look the other in the eye. The silence pressed in heavy and thick until one glance from him cracked her open completely.

Everything she had held in spilled out. Her thoughts, her pain, her longing, her quiet prayers, the unbearable weight of missing him. She told him what she couldn't tell anyone else. That not a day passed without her aching for him. That his absence had become the loudest thing in her life.

And when her voice finally faltered, there was only silence again.

He didn't speak right away. Just stared at her, his gaze unreadable, as if he was trying to memorize her all over again. Yet somewhere in those tired, green-brown eyes, hidden behind the exhaustion of too many sleepless nights and too many operations, there it was, a flicker of something she hadn't dared to hope for.

"That's not how it works," he said quietly, and the sound of his voice, rough and wrecked, hurt more than anything else she'd heard that night.

He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands cradling his face for a moment before dragging them down in frustration.

"I wanted you before I even knew why. Before you even realized it yourself." he murmured. "It took everything I had just to open up to you. Every ounce of courage, every shred of strength because I was terrified. One wrong word, and you'd vanish. I knew it." He shook his head slightly. "And when it happened... I wasn't even surprised. I knew I'd lose you. And no matter what you said that day... I still blamed myself."

He finally turned to her, fully this time, like the weight of it all forced him to meet her eyes.

"I gave you everything I had. Everything I could. And it still wasn't enough, was it?"

The ache in his voice made her breath catch.

And for a moment, she didn't know what hurt more. That he saw himself as so unworthy, or how deeply he had given himself just to make her happy.

"If we try again... if we somehow find our way back..." he paused, voice catching as he let out a breath that sounded like it came from somewhere far deeper than his lungs. "And if it falls apart again I don't think I'll survive it. Not this time."