Thirty minutes later, Yu Xi entered his cabin. As the door slid shut behind him, he sighed. He pulled his hair back, fingers brushing his wrist where the yellow scrunchie should've been. But he had thrown it away in annoyance when Jian Ci left with Leila.
He let his hand fall and walked into the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face, trying to quiet the ache that had crept into his chest.
He soon realised that when he was alone, the silence became a mirror, one that reflected every scream, every scar, every unpleasant memory. The quiet was never empty. It was filled with echoes of his brother's cries, the cold glint of surgical steel, the sterile scent of antiseptic that never quite left his skin. His demons waited in the stillness, patient and cruel.
