Rhea tried to push herself up from the bed.
The moment her weight shifted, pain ripped through her and she gasped sharply, fingers clutching the sheets. Her legs shook, refusing to obey.
Ling turned instantly.
"What are you doing?" Ling snapped, anger sharp but frantic. She crossed the room in two strides before stopping herself short. "Are you insane? Can't you see you're hurting?"
Rhea looked up at her.
Her eyes weren't angry.
They were empty.
"Why does it matter?" Rhea asked quietly. "You don't care anyway. Right?"
Ling's mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
She forced her face into something hard, something controlled.
"I care," Ling said, too fast. Too rehearsed.
Rhea gave a small, broken smile.
"No," she whispered. "You're just being responsible. There's a difference."
Ling clenched her fists. "Don't twist this."
Rhea's voice trembled. "Then look at me and say it. Say you care."
Ling didn't answer.
Her silence was louder than a scream.
Rhea nodded slowly, like something finally settled inside her.
"Okay," she said. "Then leave."
Ling stiffened. "What?"
"If you don't care," Rhea continued, tears sliding silently now, "then leave me like this. Bleeding. Weak. Since that's all I am to you now."
Ling's chest tightened painfully.
"I didn't say that," Ling said harshly.
"But you didn't say anything else either," Rhea replied.
She tried again to stand, failed, and sank back with a sharp inhale. Still, she lifted her chin stubbornly.
"Go," Rhea said. "That's what you're good at now."
Ling stared at her.
For a long moment, it looked like she might break right there — her jaw trembling, eyes glassy, breath uneven.
Then she did the one thing Rhea didn't expect.
She turned.
She walked to the door.
Her steps were steady. Controlled. Cruel.
The door opened.
Rhea's voice cracked behind her. "You won't even look back?"
Ling stopped.
Her hand stayed on the doorframe.
"If I look back," Ling said quietly, without turning, "I won't leave."
"And that won't save either of us."
Then she walked out.
The door closed softly behind her.
Rhea lay there, staring at the ceiling, tears streaming silently, chest aching with a pain deeper than any wound.
Outside, the hallway swallowed Ling whole.
She made it three steps.
Then her legs gave out.
Ling collapsed against the wall, sliding down until she hit the floor hard, breath tearing out of her in a broken sound she couldn't control anymore.
Her hands came up to her face.
She didn't sob.
She broke.
Her shoulders shook violently as tears poured through her fingers, chest heaving like she was drowning. The piercing ring was still clenched in her fist, cutting into her palm until it hurt — like punishment she deserved.
"I didn't mean to," she whispered hoarsely to the empty corridor.
"I didn't mean to become this."
She pressed her forehead to her knees, body folding in on itself, control finally gone now that no one was watching.
Inside the room, Rhea cried alone.
Outside the door, Ling cried alone.
Separated by pride.
By damage.
By love that had already done too much harm.
And for the first time since she had ever known herself, Ling Kwong had no power left to hold onto —
only the weight of what she'd done,
and the person she couldn't stop hurting no matter which way she turned.
Kwong Mansion
Ling locked the glass doors of her private gym herself.
No staff.
No family.
No witnesses.
The lights were already on — harsh white, unforgiving — reflecting off steel, mirrors, and the body that had always obeyed her without question.
Tonight, it didn't.
The smell of blood still clung faintly to the fabric of her shirt, and that alone made her chest tighten viciously.
Ling stepped onto the treadmill and cranked the speed past reason.
Her legs moved instantly — muscle memory, discipline, control — but her mind betrayed her.
The flash came without permission.
Rhea's back against the car.
Her hand tightening.
The piercing ring cold against her fingers.
Blood.
Ling slammed her palm against the emergency stop.
The machine screamed.
She didn't.
She turned, grabbed the nearest barbell, and lifted far beyond her usual count. Once. Twice. Ten times. Her arms shook violently by fifteen.
"Again," she muttered to herself.
Her jaw clenched. Veins stood out. Sweat poured down her spine.
By twenty, her vision blurred.
She dropped the weight.
It hit the floor with a deafening crash.
Ling leaned forward, hands braced on her knees, breath tearing in and out of her chest. Sweat dripped onto the floor — mixing, in her mind, with blood that wasn't there anymore but wouldn't leave her head.
"Pathetic," she whispered.
She moved to the punching bag next.
The first hit landed hard.
The second harder.
By the fifth, her knuckles burned. By the tenth, her skin split. She didn't stop.
Every punch carried a thought she refused to say aloud.
You hurt her.
You pulled.
She didn't even scream.
Ling hit again.
The bag swung violently.
"She didn't scream," Ling said aloud now, her voice hoarse. "And you still—"
Her fist slammed again, harder than before.
"You still did it."
Her breath stuttered.
She imagined Rhea in that bathroom — shaking, blood soaking through fabric, whispering please don't — and something inside Ling cracked so sharply she had to brace herself against the wall.
Her reflection stared back at her.
Wild eyes.
Split knuckles.
A mouth that had kissed her forehead hours ago like a goodbye.
Ling slid down the mirror slowly until she sat on the cold floor, back pressed to glass.
Her hands trembled.
"I didn't mean to," she whispered again, the same words she'd said in the corridor earlier. "I didn't mean to touch you like that. I didn't mean to forget how much it hurt."
Her throat closed.
"I was angry," she said quietly. "And I never get angry like that."
She laughed once — broken, sharp.
"That's what scares me."
Ling pressed her bleeding knuckles against her forehead, not caring about the sting.
"You trusted me with your body," she said, voice shaking now. "Even when you thought I hated you."
Her breath hitched.
"And I proved you wrong."
She stayed there for a long time.
No music.
No time.
Just the echo of her own breathing and the weight of knowing that no amount of strength, money, or control could undo one violent second of loss.
When she finally stood again, she wrapped her hands roughly, ignoring the pain, and went back to the machines.
Harder.
Faster.
Longer.
Not to forget.
To punish herself for remembering every single detail —
the warmth,
the weakness,
the blood —
and the fact that for the first time in her life,
Ling Kwong had become the thing she despised most:
someone who hurt the person she couldn't live without.