Work Text:
Cheng Xiaoshi never spoke much.
A boy who lost his parents at such a young age was not expected to grow into someone overflowing with laughter or noise. Silence clung to him like a second skin: soft, habitual, and rarely questioned.
Still, his uncle noticed the change.
It began on an ordinary day, the kind that passed without memory. Cheng Xiaoshi started asking every evening, at the same hour to be left alone in his room. He was polite about it too careful with his tone.
His uncle didn’t question it.
As long as the child was happy, what harm could there be?
No one knew
that every evening,
he lit a candle.
“And I honestly don’t know why he took my pencil! Hmph.”
Cheng Xiaoshi sat cross-legged on the floor, his back resting against the bed. The candle flickered beside him, its flame warm and steady. Next to it - next to him, sat a smaller boy.
Fair skin. Hair white as fresh snow. His presence was quiet, almost fragile, as though he were made of breath and light rather than flesh.
The white-haired boy never spoke.
Yet Cheng Xiaoshi felt it, the comfort, the understanding carried in that soft, patient gaze. No judgment, no impatience.. Just listening.
In a world that had grown unbearably lonely, he had found a friend.
A friend born from a candle. something so ordinary, so easily overlooked yet within it lingered the ghost of a gentle angel.
Every night, Cheng Xiaoshi talked until his voice grew slow and heavy, until sleep pulled him under. And the candle burned faithfully beside him.
— But one evening, something changed.
When he reached for the match, his hand froze.
The candle was smaller.
Much smaller than he remembered.
The wax had melted down unevenly, its body thinned closer to its end than its beginning.
Fear crept into the boy’s chest, cold with familiarity.
He had lost too much already.
That night, Cheng Xiaoshi didn’t light the candle. Sleep crept in quietly, and with his last thread of consciousness, he whispered to the candle, “Not yet,” as if afraid it might leave.
• • •
Days turned into months. Months into years. The candle remained where it was, untouched, cherished like a relic. Dust gathered. Childhood passed. The room changed, but the candle stayed the same, waiting.
Until one evening, years later, Cheng Xiaoshi sat alone in his room once more.
He was older now. Taller. Sharper around the edges. The weight in his heart had settled into something quieter, something he had learned to live with.
His gaze fell on the candle as he searched for his math notebook.
After all this time… he wondered…
With a slow breath, he struck the match.
The flame caught.
Light bloomed… but nothing else did.
No boy. No comforting presence. Just the steady flicker of fire and the soft shadows it cast against the walls.
Cheng Xiaoshi stared, chest tight, lips pressed together.
“So that’s how it ends” he thought.
A knock sounded at the door making him flinch out of his thoughts.
“Cheng Xiaoshi,” a familiar voice called, calm as ever. “You’re not trying to run away from the study session, right?”
Lu Guang stood by the doorframe, arms loosely crossed, his eyes narrowing as they landed on the scene before him: the candle and Cheng Xiaoshi sitting far too still from his usual self.
Cheng Xiaoshi blinked.
Then, slowly, the tightness in his chest loosened.
A laugh slipped out, small at first, then brighter, almost surprised. He leaned forward, close to the flame, and with a gentle breath, blew it out. The light vanished, leaving behind a thin curl of smoke that twisted briefly before disappearing.
“Thank you,” he murmured, voice warm. “For staying with me.”
He stood, stretching, and turned toward Lu Guang with a familiar grin.
“You know,” he said lightly, walking past him with the notebook, “you’re kinda similar to a candle.”
Lu Guang frowned. “What?”
The white haired stared at him expecting more explanation but didn’t get anything else, clearly processing and clearly not understanding. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Cheng Xiaoshi only smiled wider, stepping into the hallway’s light.
Some things never change, they just upgrade.
He followed his friend down the hall, leaving the candle behind,
its job finally done, or perhaps given to another.