Out of Reach
[📘 Content Warning:
This story contains Boys’ Love (BL) themes. Reader discretion is advised. Please read the disclaimers mentioned in the Instagram post.]
The days after the party melted into a blur.
Something in Zhan had cracked—quietly, invisibly, but deeply.
And like a wound left untreated, it festered.
He stopped taking the 7:45 metro.
It used to be their time.
Mornings and evenings spent side by side.
A quiet ritual that became his favorite part of the day.
But now… he couldn’t.
Not after what happened.
Not when every breath felt like betrayal.
Not when his heart screamed that he’d wronged Yibo in a way he could never take back.
He couldn’t face him.
He didn’t deserve to.
Even his own reflection felt like punishment now.
A man stained with shame and guilt.
He took the bus instead, a longer and bumpier ride that allowed him more time to keep his head down and avoid the world.
At the bookstore, Su Mian still came.
Her face wore a layer of sadness.
She barely spoke, barely worked.
Just lingered.
Zhan couldn’t stand it.
He couldn’t breathe around her.
He couldn’t breathe at all.
He stopped talking to her altogether.
Even when she asked something about the store, his replies were short, distant.
A nod. A gesture.
His eyes never lifted to meet hers.
He moved like a ghost at the bookstore.
He unlocked the doors every morning, stacked new deliveries with trembling hands, avoided everyone’s gaze.
Zhan stayed mostly inside the back room—door shut, curtains drawn, eyes fixed on the blank pages of a notebook he couldn’t bring himself to write in.
Sometimes, he just sat and stared.
Other times, he pressed the heel of his palm against his chest, as if he could quiet whatever was churning there.
But the one who truly felt the weight of Zhan’s silence—wasn’t Su Mian.
It was Yibo.
He hadn’t seen Zhan once since that night.
Not because he didn’t want to, but because he genuinely couldn’t.
Exams, practicals, assignments—they came one after another, leaving him no time to even breathe.
And unlike before, the days passed without those small, familiar meetings they used to share.
But still he started noticing.
Zhan stopped taking the morning metro—every single day.
The messages started slowing down.
Then the replies became short, one-worded, dry.
Hey ge, are you okay?
I’m Busy Yibo.
Can I come by?
No need.
Yibo tried calling once.
Zhan didn’t pick up.
The second time, Zhan answered and only said.
“Don’t call me right now.”
He hung up—just like that, before Yibo could even say a word.
Yibo kept telling himself it was nothing.
Maybe Zhan was just busy with work.
Maybe the bookstore was taking up too much of his time.
Maybe he didn’t want to add to Yibo’s stress during exams.
Maybe it was just temporary.
Just a rough patch.
Nothing serious.
Nothing personal.
But this sudden distance… it ached in ways words couldn’t explain.
Yet—a small, unwelcome thought crept in his mind.
“Was it because of Su Mian?”
“No. If that were the case, Zhan-ge would’ve told me. He wouldn’t shut me out like this.”
“Did I do something wrong?…did he…”
“No!”
He shook the thought away before it could finish forming.
And for the first time, Yibo felt something sharp.
Something close to fear.
————————————————–
At home, Zhan was no better.
Yue stopped joking with him because he snapped at her once.
His mother asked, again and again, what was wrong.
“It’s just work Ma.”
He muttered when she tried again.
“Too much going on with the new project.”
Most of the time, he locked himself in his room.
Barely speaking, barely seen.
But Liu Fang wasn’t convinced.
A mother knows when something is deeply wrong and she needed to understand what had happened to her son.
One evening, worried and desperate, she called the only other person who might know.
“Auntie.”
Yibo said, concern lining every word.
“I’ve been trying to talk to him too. But he’s pushing me away. I don’t know what’s going on.”
That call only confirmed her fears.
Zhan wasn’t just shutting her out.
He was shutting everyone out.
And for Yibo, Zhan’s silence had become unbearable.
Zhan’s replies were curt, cold.
He ignored most messages.
Calls went unanswered.
Confused, hurt, but determined, Yibo decided to show up anyway.
—————————————–
It was a Tuesday.
Warm and clear.
The scent of blooming osmanthus trees followed him down the street to the bookstore.
But inside, it felt cold.
Hollow.
No customers.
Zhan was at the counter, stacking bookmarks without looking up.
His face was pale.
His shoulders stiff.
Yibo walked in, hands in pockets.
“Zhan-ge.”
Zhan kept his head down, but his hands paused mid-stack.
His fingers trembled—just barely.
He didn’t look up.
A tight breath left his chest.
“Why are you here, Yibo?”
His voice was low.
Strained.
He picked up another bookmark, trying to appear busy, but he was stacking the same pile he’d already done twice.
“I’ve been calling you.”
Yibo said.
Zhan finally glanced up—just for a second.
The moment their eyes met, he looked away again.
“Did I do something, ge?”
Yibo asked, quieter now.
“If I did, tell me. Don’t shut me out.”
Zhan let out a slow breath through his nose.
“Yibo, I’m busy.”
“That’s not true.”
Yibo stepped closer.
“You’ve been avoiding me for days. What’s going on?”
Zhan’s jaw tightened.
“Don’t make this harder.”
Yibo blinked.
“Harder? On who?”
Zhan looked up, eyes rimmed red.
“On me.”
A beat of silence fell between them.
“Ge, I’m just trying to understand—”
“Don’t!”
Zhan snapped, voice rising.
“Stop trying. Why can’t you get it? I don’t want you here, I…”
A breath caught in his throat.
“I don’t want you around me.”
Yibo took a step back, stunned.
“What? Why are you saying that?”
“Because I just want to be left alone, damn it!”
Zhan’s voice cracked mid-shout, his chest heaving with something that felt like guilt and grief rolled into one.
“I don’t have the space for you right now Yibo!”
Yibo’s brow furrowed.
“Ge, since when did I become someone you need to push away?”
Zhan’s breath hitched.
His voice dropped.
“Please… just go, Yibo.”
“Zhan-ge… talk to me, we can fix—”
But before Yibo could finish, something shattered inside Zhan.
A wave of panic, guilt, and unbearable shame crashing down all at once.
Too loud. Too much.
Without thinking, he shoved Yibo toward the door.
“GET OUT!”
Zhan shouted, voice shaking.
Yibo stumbled back, stunned.
He stared at Zhan, expression morphing from confusion to hurt.
“You’re just angry… you don’t mean it, right?”
Zhan couldn’t meet his eyes.
Yibo’s voice dropped, just a whisper—soft, stunned, like something in him was quietly breaking.
“This isn’t you, ge.”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, blinking rapidly.
Then, after a beat—his voice low, flat, and hollow.
“Fine. If that’s what you want…”
A bitter smile tugged at his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“I guess I was wrong to think I mattered to you.”
His vision blurred as tears welled up.
But before they could fall, he turned and walked out.
The bell above the door jingled softly as it closed behind him.
And Zhan stood there, rooted to the spot, chest heaving.
He didn’t move.
Not until he heard the scooter rev and fade into the distance.
Only then did he sink to the floor.
He pressed his back against the wall, buried his face in his hands, and let the grief tear out of him in silent sobs.
He couldn’t stop the tears.
He couldn’t stop the ache.
He couldn’t stop the feeling that he had just destroyed the only thing that ever felt like peace.
Across the store, Su Mian stood half-hidden between the shelves, quietly watching.
Her fingers curled tightly around the books in her hands, but the faintest smile of satisfaction ghosted across her lips.
Finally, Yibo was out of her way.
Out of Zhan’s life.
Just like she needed him to be!
————————————————
Weeks passed.
The silence between them stretched wider than any argument ever could.
No calls.
No messages.
No 7:45 metro.
Each morning, Zhan stared blankly out the window from the bus, the city passing in a blur—just like everything else in his life lately.
At the bookstore, customers came and went, but Zhan was a ghost…
Present in body, missing in soul.
The second phase of the children’s book project was a mess.
The publishing house called twice last week, irritated about the sloppy illustrations and inconsistencies in layout.
“What’s happening, Mr. Zhan? These aren’t up to your usual standard.”
He didn’t even have the strength to apologize properly.
He muttered something about being tired and hung up.
His eyes were sunken, his desk piled with undone work.
But nothing—not even deadlines—felt urgent anymore.
He wasn’t drowning in deadlines.
He was drowning…
In what he’d done.
In memory.
In shame.
In the image of Yibo’s face when he’d pushed him away and said the words he could never take back.
—————————————
Meanwhile, in Linping…
Yibo’s final exam ended, but there was no relief, no freedom.
College was over for now, but Deqing—the place that used to mean something—had become just a pin on a map.
He hadn’t stepped foot near the bookstore since that day.
He tried keeping his head down, working longer shifts at the garage, doing delivery runs until midnight.
Oil-stained hands, sore muscles, buzzing engines—that was the only way he could drown the silence echoing in his mind.
But it didn’t help.
Not really.
Because no matter what he did,
Zhan’s voice, angry and broken, still echoed in his ears: “Get Out!”
His mom, Zhang Meilan noticed first.
“You haven’t smiled in days.”
She said, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Even when you were sulking as a teenager, it wasn’t like this.”
His grandmother brought him his favorite fried buns, but he barely touched them.
“It’s just stress, Ma.”
He muttered.
“Nothing to worry about.”
But it was everything.
He hadn’t just lost contact.
He’d lost Zhan.
And he didn’t know why.
————————————————–
The clock ticked, but time felt stuck.
It had been more than a month since that night… maybe almost two.
One late evening.
It was almost closing time.
The store was quiet, except for the soft clinking of Zhan’s pen hitting the desk every few seconds.
He sat in the cramped little back room, head down, eyes bloodshot, trying to finish yet another page of the project that refused to make sense anymore.
His chest ached constantly now—an invisible wound that throbbed day and night.
Then came the knock.
His body tensed but he didn’t move.
Because he knew that knock.
“Zhan…”
Su Mian’s voice was soft, trembling.
“Please open the door, I need to talk to you.”
Zhan stared at the closed door like it might dissolve if he willed it hard enough.
But after a moment, with a sigh that sounded like it came from the very bottom of his lungs, he rose.
He unlocked it and stepped out slowly.
Su Mian was standing at the counter in her usual clothes, clutching something in her hand—an envelope.
Her eyes looked puffy, like she hadn’t slept in days.
“What is it?”
Zhan asked, his voice low and flat.
There was no warmth—just exhaustion.
She held out the envelope.
“Just… read it when you have a moment. We can talk tomorrow.”
Zhan didn’t take it.
He just looked at her, expressionless.
So she placed it gently on the counter.
“Good night, Zhan.”
She whispered, then turned and left, her footsteps swallowed by the creak of the wooden floor.
Zhan stared at the envelope as if it is ticking.
He picked it up and returned to the back room, closing the door behind him.
He sat on the floor this time, too tired to even make it to the desk.
His fingers shook as he tore open the envelope.
The crinkle of paper too loud in the silence around him.
Inside: a single folded sheet.
His fingers were careful—light, hesitant as he unfolded it.
His eyes moved over the lines—slow, unsure.
He blinked.
Once. Twice.
Then read it again.
Just to be sure.
And that’s when his breath caught.
The paper trembled between his fingers.
The room seemed to shift around him—quiet, suffocating.
His vision swam.
But the words stayed exactly the same.
Patient Name: Ms. Su Mian
Test Conducted: Urine hCG (Pregnancy Test)
Result: POSITIVE
Remarks: Suggestive of early pregnancy. Clinical correlation advised.
There was a small handwritten note at the bottom.
Zhan. The baby, it’s yours.
He read that again… then again, slower this time, as if the words might change.
But they didn’t.
The words hit him like a hammer to the chest.
“No…”
The word barely left his lips—cracked, breathless.
His hands trembled violently, the paper slipping from his grip as if it had turned to fire.
“No. No, no, no… this can’t be happening…”
He clawed at his shirt, as if he could rip the panic out from underneath.
Every breath felt like a battle, sharp and thin.
The corners of his vision blurred.
“I didn’t… I… I wouldn’t…”
He folded in on himself, arms wrapping tightly around his torso.
His forehead pressed to the floor, but the cold didn’t ground him—it only made everything feel more real.
“This can’t be real… I don’t even remember…”
The report lay beside his knee, face-up.
That one line still stared up at him…
It’s yours.
Zhan shut his eyes tight—but he could still see it.
Still feel everything he was trying so hard to forget.
Guilt, shame, and fear tangled inside him like a nest of thorns.
He wanted to scream.
He wanted to run.
He wanted to disappear.
But most of all—he wanted to go back in time and undo it all.
Tears streamed down silently, his whole body shivering as if he were standing naked in a storm.
And through the blinding confusion, one name still echoed somewhere deep in his soul—soft and aching:
Yibo…
But that name only made the guilt grow heavier.
He didn’t know how to face what is coming.
He didn’t know how to face himself anymore.
And he especially didn’t know…
How he’d ever—ever—face Yibo again.
[To be continued…]
The Red Ribbon 